QGA Senior Director Jim Manley: As we start another week of nauseating stock market ups and downs, there are two things I find encouraging about the state of the Democratic party.
The first came to me courtesy of my friends at Roll Call, where its was reported last week that “the GOP control of the House has shown that governing is more difficult than writing a book.” As someone who spent 6 years working for the Senate Democratic leadership, both in the minority and majority, I saw firsthand how difficult is to lead in this age of hyper-partisan politics. The ‘my way or the highway’ mentality of the House Republican leadership may play well with their right wing base, but it sure won’t do anything to help jumpstart our faltering economy.
Speaking of the far right, the second silver lining arrived in the form of a CNN poll showing the Tea Party’s inexorable slide into irrelevance. Far be it from me to give advice to the Republican leadership, but the sooner they distance themselves from these extremists who deny global warming, support creationsim, rewrite history, heckle gay military serving in Iraq, and want tax cuts for oil companies, the better off they will be – at least politically.