If there are actually any Republicans out there looking to "learn lessons," here's one: "Be afraid. Be very afraid"

If I were to tell you that "the answer is Jeb Bush," could you guess what the question might be?

by Ken

As regular readers know, here at DWT we're not big fans of washingtonpost.com's "Fix"-master, Chris Cillizza, that fearless champion of Village-sanctified reality, and in a moment I'm going to offer an example of why.

For now, while I'm not going to make a big point of urging you to read his post "Republican Party could learn a lot from the Democrats of 1989," I'll say I think it's worth a look. He's taking off from a piece in the fall issue of Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, "The New Politics of Evasion," by longtime Democratic "strategists" William A. Galston and Elaine C. Kamarck, who have more or less updated a piece they wrote in 1989 warning that Dems who thought happy times were about to be here again, with the departure of Ronald Reagan from the White House, were kidding themselves.

What Galston and Kamarck are arguing is that today's Republicans are kidding themselves in much the same way, and apparently the idea is taking hold in certain Republican circles. Today's GOP stands accused of succumbing to the same three myths as the 1989-vintage Dems, who they argued at the time were wrong in thinking that (a) what had shut them out of the presidence for three consecutive elections was insufficiently liberal candidates; (b) they just weren't turning out enough of "their" voters on Election Day; and the party, despite its presidential drought, showed enough political presence in Congress and in state governments to suggest a base to build on.

Wrong, wrong, and wrong, said G&K -- and say they again of today's R's. Alas for us, the authors' diagnosis apparently was and is salvation in the form of a "leader," by which the seem to mean a charismatic exponent of mealy-mouthed centrism -- like the Dems' savior in 1992, Bill Clinton. In case you're wondering where this logic leads today, it's in the direction of -- are you ready to be thrilled and chilled? -- Jeb Bush!!! (I know I've got goose bumps.)

Here's Chris:

Bush, like Clinton, spent much of his formative life as a governor and, on issues ranging from education to immigration, has shown a willingness to break from Republican orthodoxy and the party’s base.

Unlike Clinton, who long signaled his plan to run for president in advance of the 1992 race, Bush remains an elusive figure when it comes to his future plans. If Bush decides against a bid, there is no other obvious figure who fits the Clinton-circa-1992 mold, although Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) probably has the most chance to remake the Republican coalition among those candidates expected to run.

Have you calmed down yet? Or is your blood still racing with Jeb Fever? Do you think you can stand just a wee bit more? Actually, at this point we're only one short graf from the end.

History has a way of repeating itself. Republicans would do well to realize that the Democratic Party of 1989 has many lessons to teach the GOP of today. And they would do well to realize it sooner rather than later.

One thing that's not quite clear to me is who exactly these Republicans are who "would do well to realize blah-blah-blah." He certainly can't have in mind grass-roots GOP-ers who thrill to the demagoguery of the House Teabaggers and Sen. Ted "Brain of Stone" Cruz. And the rest of the party is busy shivering in its boots, hoping their currently energized base won't turn its guns against them. (And I wish I meant this figuratively. Probably they do too.)

The other point I would make now is Chris might do well to rememeber, or if necessary reread, some of his better clips. As I recalled in a March post, "The administration is wrong again in thinking it has the upper hand in the politics of the sequester,"

every now and then Chris's dogged Village tea-leaf readings actually get it right. And as we look at the prospects for the sequester, I think back to a December 30 post I wrote ("Why congressional Republicans don't have to pay even lip service to reality") about a post Chris wrote ("As 'fiscal cliff' looms, Republicans have no political incentive to make deal with Obama"), which began:

Amid the last-minute wrangling over a "fiscal cliff" deal, it's important to remember one overlooked fact of the 2012 election: Republicans in the House and Senate have absolutely no political incentive to compromise with President Obama.

The numbers are stark.

Of the 234 Republicans elected to the House on Nov. 6, just 15 (!) sit in congressional districts that Obama also won that day, according to calculations made by the Cook Political Report's ace analyst David Wasserman. That's an infinitesimally small number, particularly when compared with the 63 House Republicans who held seats where Obama had won following the 2010 midterm elections.

The Senate landscape paints the same picture -- this time looking forward. Of the 13 states where the 14 Republican Senators will stand for reelection in 2014 (South Carolina has two, with Lindsey O. Graham and Tim Scott up in two years time), Obama won just one in 2012 -- Maine. In the remaining dozen states, GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney won only one, Georgia, by less than double digits. The average margin of victory for Romney across the 13 states was 19.5 percentage points; take out Maine, and Romney's average margin was 22 points in the remaining 12 states.

"All of which," I wrote in March, "is a prelude to explaining why I'm pretty doomy and gloomy about the outcome of the sequester." The Teabaggers, as I pointed out, wanted the sequester. And as many economists were pointing out, contrary to alarmist rhetoric, it wasn't likely to have immediately visible disastrous effects. "After all," I wrote --

contrary to the original theory of the sequester, that it would be so painful that both sides would move heaven and earth to prevent it, the Teabaggers -- far from finding it painful -- can smile smugly at having gotten just what they wanted: budget slashing. Never mind the consequences of mindless budget slashing, especially since the actual consequences won't be evident to the country. There are, however, a lot of Americans who don't grasp the difference between a family budget, where high levels of debt can be a crippling problem, and a national budget, which sets the economic pace of the country.

I also quoted from a NYRB blogpost by Jeff Madrick, "The Sequester's Hidden Danger," which argued that "the sequester is dangerous, but not for the reasons we think.

Contrary to what some alarmists predicted, there is little evidence that the automatic, across-the-board cuts to the US budget that went into effect on Friday are causing cataclysmic harm. . . .

[W]hat makes the sequester threatening is not that it will plunder the economy in 2013. Rather, it is that these arbitrary cuts are exactly the opposite of what the economy needs both in the short run, and—if the promised $1 trillion in further cuts over ten years is made—in the long term. In the coming months, it will make it difficult for the president to cut the unemployment rate from current levels around 8 percent, a fact that Republicans must enjoy since it reduces their chances of losing the House in 2014, and raises their chances of winning the presidency in 2016 if they can continue to cut spending.

And the sequester will be painful. Educational and housing subsidies will be cut, as will unemployment insurance and research spending. More than $40 billion will be cut from the defense budget, music to my ears, but not to those who will lose jobs at defense contractors. Above all, claims that economic growth down the road will be spurred by reducing the federal deficit through spending cuts are not credible.

Indeed, the real danger of the sequester lies in the misguided deficit-cutting mania that created it in the first place. . . .

I don't see that much has changed from December to now -- as we prepare to face the Scylla and Charybdis of the budget continuing resolution and the next round of debt-ceiling brinksmanship -- except that the GOP crazies have become even crazier and more inflexible, while the rest of the party has become even more cowardly.

Whoever these hypothetical lesson-learning Republicans may be who are supposed to profit from the example of the c1989 Democrats, I think there are some lessons here they might want to take a gander at. I mean, while they're waiting for Jeb Bush to lead them out of the wilderness. (Or is it Rand Paul?)

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