{"id":18394,"date":"2011-02-28T12:00:39","date_gmt":"2011-02-28T18:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=18394"},"modified":"2014-10-05T14:38:38","modified_gmt":"2014-10-05T19:38:38","slug":"more-cowbell-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=18394","title":{"rendered":"More Cowbell"},"content":{"rendered":"

Byron York tells the (national) GOP “Dont’ Fear The Shutdown<\/a>“.<\/p>\n

For starters, it wasn’t the “catastrophe” for the media that the GOP paint it as today:<\/p>\n

One, if shutting down the government in 1995 was such a catastrophe, how come the GOP not only kept control of the House in the 1996 elections but remained the majority party in the House for a decade to come? The voter revenge predicted at the time did not happen.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That’s something wonks have a hard time with; probably 90% of voters don’t care about politics until mid-October before elections.<\/p>\n

Two, even if the ’95 shutdown hurt the GOP — and there’s no doubt the party suffered wounds inflicted not only by Clinton but also by themselves — today’s voters are in a different mood. “We have fiscal crises at the federal, state, and local level, and voters understand that,” says Bill Paxon, a former Republican lawmaker and veteran of the shutdown. “Back in ’95, we were whistling into the wind — we were trying to preach fiscal discipline when voters were saying, ‘Hey, there’s not a problem.’ “<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The 1990s were a cha-cha time when people could afford <\/em>to be trivial bobbleheads; a time when Arne Carlson could seem like a serious leader, when Minnesotans could elect someone like a Jesse Ventura with a straight face.<\/p>\n

Three, Republicans like House Speaker John Boehner have learned from their mistakes. “Our goal is to cut spending and reduce the size of government, not to shut it down,” Boehner said recently — a statement he has repeated many times. Contrast that to ’95, when, Paxon recalls, “We said we wanted to shut down the government, that it was a good thing, that it would get people’s attention, that it would advance our cause.” Now, it’s Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and other Democrats who seem itching for a shutdown.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As far as York’s premise goes, that’s the dangerous one. \u00a0This point is all about image – and the media creates – to a great extent – the images.<\/p>\n

I said “great” extent:<\/p>\n

Fourth, today’s media environment is substantially different. “In ’95 there was no Internet, no bloggers, no Facebook, no Fox News,” says Dick Armey, who was House majority leader during the shutdown. “The discourse of politics today is carried out in a media world that didn’t exist in 1995.” That doesn’t mean there wouldn’t be negative coverage of Republicans if a shutdown occurs, just that the overall media picture would be more balanced.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Are blogs and social media enough to affect the perceptions of that 90% that doesn’t pay attention until October of election year? \u00a0This past Minnesota gubernatorial race was not encouraging. \u00a0The Twin Cities media followed the usual pattern; ignore the skeletons in Mark Dayton’s closet, give breathless coverage to Tom Emmer’s – and enough of it stuck (along with the Dayton-funded “Alliance For A Better Minnesota’s” toxic, sleazy campaign) to buy Dayton 9,000 votes.<\/p>\n

Still, York’s point isn’t that things have changed 180 degrees; it is <\/em>different.<\/p>\n

The fifth reason: Barack Obama is no Bill Clinton. “In ’95, Clinton was at the table working hard, sleeves rolled up, everybody knew we were having meetings at the White House and the president was engaged,” says Armey. “This president is seen as disengaged and aloof from the process. Barack Obama is a rank amateur compared to Bill Clinton.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We’ll see.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Byron York tells the (national) GOP “Dont’ Fear The Shutdown“. For starters, it wasn’t the “catastrophe” for the media that the GOP paint it as today: One, if shutting down the government in 1995 was such a catastrophe, how come the GOP not only kept control of the House in the 1996 elections but remained […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[115],"class_list":["post-18394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-president-obama","tag-abm"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18394"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47804,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18394\/revisions\/47804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}