{"id":3355,"date":"2005-01-12T11:57:54","date_gmt":"2005-01-12T16:57:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/3355.html"},"modified":"2005-01-12T11:57:54","modified_gmt":"2005-01-12T16:57:54","slug":"crowd-control-social-security-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/crowd-control-social-security-edition\/","title":{"rendered":"Crowd Control — Social Security Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"

Remember the divide-and-conquer approach Bush used in the campaign? He’s using the same strategy in the drive to privatize Social Security. At yesterday’s “town-hall” style meeting<\/a> on the issue:<\/p>\n

Tuesday’s event, at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium here, was reminiscent of an event in Mr. Bush’s re-election campaign, when participants selected by the administration sat on stools near the president and made points that underscored White House policy.<\/p>\n

At the event, Sonya Stone, a chief financial officer at a financial consulting firm in Virginia and the former controller of the conservative Heritage Foundation, enthusiastically endorsed the president’s position on Social Security.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What a relief, Bush has won over the staff of the most conservative think tank in America. The next thing we’ll learn is that Dick Cheney is on board with Bush’s idea.<\/p>\n

The fact that Bush turned this discussion about Social Security into the latest in a series of exclusive, invitation-only events says something important. In the campaign, Bush decided early on that he wasn’t going to reach out to everyone for support — he believed he could win by rallying his base. The entire approach was predicated on the notion that he’d excel, not by pulling the country together, but by splitting it apart. Break the country in half and make sure your chunk is bigger.<\/p>\n

In typical poli-sci lessons, however, we learn that campaigning and governing are often mirror opposites. A campaign divides, but governing unites. To get votes, a candidate pits us against them; to get policy accomplishments, a president seeks consensus and a sense of shared purpose.<\/p>\n

Not with Bush.
\n
\nBy limiting his audience yesterday to those who already agree with him, Bush was making it abundantly clear — again — that he doesn’t care about convincing the country that he’s right. He doesn’t think he needs the electorate to gut Social Security, just the part big enough to give him what he wants.<\/p>\n

Dems have to keep this in mind in the coming months. Bush isn’t looking<\/a> to begin sincere negotiations.<\/p>\n

“The president’s idea of bipartisanship is, ‘Here’s what I want to do, join me,’ ” said Rep. Robert Menendez (N.J.), chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. “It isn’t about negotiating. It isn’t about compromise. It’s almost this belief that they have the monopoly on what’s best for the country.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Dems who approach the coming Social Security debate as an opportunity to negotiate in good faith with the White House are embracing the role of a fool. The president doesn’t want to convince, persuade, or even talk to anyone who disagrees with him; he simply intends to roll over anyone who gets in his way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Remember the divide-and-conquer approach Bush used in the campaign? He’s using the same strategy in the drive to privatize Social Security. At yesterday’s “town-hall” style meeting on the issue: Tuesday’s event, at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium here, was reminiscent of an event in Mr. Bush’s re-election campaign, when participants selected by the administration sat […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3355\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}