What If Obama Loses? Imagining the consequences of a GOP victory.

[babylonsister]

January/ February 2012
What If Obama Loses?

Imagining the consequences of a GOP victory.

By the Editors


It’s a common complaint—we’ve certainly made it over the years—that too much political campaign coverage focuses on the horse race. The packed debate schedule in the current GOP nomination battle has put a bit more focus than usual on the substance of what the candidates are saying, which is good. But even so, most of this coverage has wound up being about whether a given policy position might help or hurt a candidate’s chances of winning. What’s most important has been left largely unexamined: if one of these candidates actually becomes president and advances his or her policies, what would be the consequences for the nation?

Part of the reason this question is seldom addressed is that it’s genuinely hard to do; it requires thinking three steps ahead and accounting for numerous variables. But there’s also a widespread assumption that extreme positions taken in the primaries will fade in the general election as candidates “move to the center,” and will disappear entirely once the serious business of governing begins. Surely President Newt Gingrich would not get rid of child labor laws. Surely President Perry would not seek to eliminate three cabinet departments.

We don’t think that this year, with this GOP, those assumptions are warranted. And so we asked a distinguished group of reporters and scholars to think through the hitherto unthinkable: What if one of these people actually wins?

lots more...

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/january_february_2012/features/what_if_he_loses034501.php

[izquierdista]

1. There will be more pushback from the left

Instead of quietly sitting back and eating peas.

[greenman3610]

4. Because there's not a dime's worth of difference between George Bush and Al Gore...

right?

[spartan61]

2. I don't even want to go there.

It's just too horrific to think that another repuke would be the President again. We're still trying to dig out from the last GOP administration.

[tilsammans]

3. My fear is that they'll steal another one.

They want it back so bad, they'll stop at nothing to get it.

[flpoljunkie]

5. Some horrifying examples of what Republicans would do if Obama loses

To fill this gap, the Washington Monthly asked a group of distinguished journalists and scholars to think through the likely ramifications of a GOP victory in November. Here’s what they conclude:

* David Weigel reports that the Tea Party will control the agenda regardless of which Republican wins the nomination.

* Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann predict that there’s a “better-than-even chance” that the Senate filibuster will be destroyed.

* David Roberts shows that the GOP won’t eliminate the EPA, but will permanently cripple it.

* Harold Pollack disabuses liberals of the hope that health care reform can survive a Republican presidency.

* Dahlia Lithwick writes that one more round of judicial appointments by a Republican president will lead to a generation of anti-government rulings no future Democrat can undo.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/index.php

[Doctor_J]

6. True, but a lousy campaign strategy

hopefully the president will not use this as his main talking point