Pollboys Dougie 'n' Pat explain why no pollster will ever be elected to . . . well, much of anything

"Democrats can avoid the electoral bloodbath we predicted before passage of the health-care bill, but in one way: through a bold commitment to fiscal discipline and targeted fiscal stimulus of the private sector and entrepreneurship."

-- the Puling Pollboys, Dougie 'n' Pat, in a WaPo op-ed piece,

"How the Democrats can avoid a November bloodbath"

by Ken

In their Washington Post op-ed piece today, the dynamic polling duo propose a midterm congressional election strategy to President Obama and the Democrats which is, well, exactly what you'd expect from a pair of Village idiots. First, Dougie 'n' Pat are at pains to remind us:

We are Democratic pollsters who argued against the health-care legislation ["Democrats' blind ambition," Washington Forum, March 12] that the Obama administration chose to pursue. Instead, we advocated incremental health-care reform. With the passage of health reform, some harsh political realities have emerged.

Recent polling shows that despite lofty predictions that a broad-based Democratic constituency would be activated by the bill's passage, the bill has been an incontrovertible disaster. The most recent Rasmussen Reports poll, released on April 12, shows that 58 percent of the electorate supports a repeal of the health-care reform bill -- up from 54 percent two weeks earlier. Fueling this backlash is concern that health-care reform will drive up health costs and expand the role of government, and the belief that passage was achieved by fundamentally anti-democratic means.

Mulling over the poll numbers they piece together, from polls taken by morons designed to prove that the American people are morons too, they conclude, "What all this means is that Republicans are ripe to pick up major gains in both chambers this November."

Unless --

Unless, of course, Democrats "start embracing an agenda that speaks to the broad concerns of the American electorate. It should be somewhat familiar: It is the agenda that is driving the Tea Party movement and one that has the capacity to motivate a broadly based segment of the electorate."

And the Puling Pollboys proceed to announce an agenda that would gladden the hearts of Sen. Miss Mitch O'Connell and Rep. "Sunny John" Boehner: pretend to be Republicans.

The Pollboys never stop to question the imbecility of the positions of the Teabaggers. If that's what the polls -- which of course were designed to ratify the Teabagging lies and imbecilities, clothed in platitudes that carefully seal off both questioners and respondents from any glimmer from the daylight of reality -- show, then that's pollworld reality.

The swing voters, who are key to the fate of the Democratic Party, care most about three things: reigniting the economy, reducing the deficit and creating jobs.

But do either the morons asking the questions or the morons answering them have any idea -- and I mean any idea -- how to reignite the economy or to create jobs? Oh, they think they do. Because they, like the poling morons, have been listening to even bigger imbeciles and more dishonest demagogues. As for the deficit, we know from the history of the Depression that the recovery was stalled by pulling back out of concern for deficits, and that the recovery went no further until the giant stimulus of World War II. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke knows this too, but now that he's slithered through his renomination and confirmation, he's free to reward the megacorporate wheels who made possible his continuing employement. (Who would know better than Chairman Ben how rough the job market is?)

According to our Puling Pollboys, "Voters are outraged by the seeming indifference of the Obama administration and congressional Democrats, who they believe wasted a year on health-care reform. These voters will not tolerate more diversion from their pressing economic concerns." I'm sure the poll questions carefully examined respondents' knowledge of how you pick an economy up out of the toilet of a depression.

And of course it's not the pollboys' job to try to educate voters that the future of the American economy depends on getting control of health care costs, and that demands meaningful health care reform. (Actually, it doesn't appear to be anybody's job!) Whether the package that was actually passed will do it remains to be seen, but this casual acceptance that dealing with the subject is a waste of time -- really now, isn't there a level of shame below which even Pollboys should be reluctant to sink?

As if you couldn't write it yourself, their ringing conclusion is:

Winning over swing voters will require a bold, new focus from the president and his party. They must adopt an agenda aimed at reducing the debt, with an emphasis on tax cuts, while implementing carefully crafted initiatives to stimulate and encourage job creation. This is the agenda that largely motivated the Clinton administration from 1995 through 2000 and that led to a balanced budget and welfare reform. It promoted a modest degree of social welfare spending. This agenda is enormously popular with the electorate and could eventually turn around Democratic fortunes.

Democrats can avoid the electoral bloodbath we predicted before passage of the health-care bill, but in one way: through a bold commitment to fiscal discipline and targeted fiscal stimulus of the private sector and entrepreneurship.

I'm not saying there isn't going to be electoral mayhem, but the notion that the solution, or even a partial solution, is to embrace lies and dishonesty in the interest of political expediency not only isn't "bold," it's cretinous. There are already scads of gutless right-wing Dems running for their lives, trying to sound like Republicans. Do they really not understand that this only guarantees them defeat?

"Bold"??? Only in that quiet Village on the Potomac -- the District that brains forgot -- could this exhausted old regurgitation be passed off as "a bold, new focus." In part, of course, the president is in this fix because, inexplicably, he stopped his campaigns of public education on the issues of recovery and health care about a second after he began them, I'm theorizing because he didn't want to have to field questions about the gaps between his rhetoric and the crappy watered-down versions of solution his administration was actually pursuing. Now we all pay the price.

I believe the people who voted for Barack Obama thought they were voting for a leader, someone who was going to crusade tirelessly for the hope and change he talked to them about. It's still hard to figure out what kind of change he thought he was actually going to be able to accomplish by listening only to the people who opposed the change. When it comes to the idea of "leading" by following, following deep into the swamps of triangulation, well, you know he'll have his faithful companion Master Rahm cheerleading him on.

And of course the Puling Pollboys, who somehow remain in business. What would they ever do without the Village Tattler -- I mean the Washington Post?

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