Schadenfreudelicious Post of the Day

22Apr/110

Schadenfreudelicious Post of the Day

Regarding the lack of grass-roots blowback against Paul Ryan's budget and its supporters:

Where are the liberal protesters? Is there a brilliant rope-a-dope strategy in place, some plan to get Republicans even further out on a limb before hammering them in the August recess? Possibly. Labor strategists say that there'll be a much bigger focus on generating turnout at town halls come August; Ben Smith has been reporting on their plans to nationalize the actions they pulled off in Wisconsin. There really is no larger plan in effect for now. "We're focused on educating our members [on] the budget," a spokesman for the AFL-CIO told me, "and not showing up at Republican town halls." Democratic strategists say there is no larger strategy at work right now. Linda Christman, a Pennsylvania activist who started one of the only videotaped arguments with a member of Congress, was basically an independent operator. Meanwhile, the American Action Network, the think tank and campaign shop run by former Republican Sen. Norm Coleman, is making Ryan budget talking points and questions available for conservatives who want to buck up their members.

How did Republicans get so much better at this stuff? In 2009, after all, they were basically copying the Democrats—or what they thought were Democratic tactics. That was the year when sales of Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals surged. FreedomWorks, Dick Armey's Tea Party group, handed out the book to new employees, who went on to train activists. Bob MacGuffie, a Rhode Island Tea Partier, wrote a two-sided tip sheet for his peers that called for them to "use the Alinsky playbook of which the left is so fond: Freeze it, attack it, personalize it, and polarize it."

Obviously, not everyone who made life painful for a soon-to-be-defeated Democrat was trained in Dick Armey's living room. The town halls were overflowing; Republicans returned to Washington after recesses claiming to have survived the biggest crowds they'd ever seen. And that was because all of this was going viral. Talk radio told people where to show up. The town-hall partisans used smartphone cameras and inexpensive video setups to record the damage.

If Democrats actually did invent that strategy, they've since managed to forget it.

Well, a couple of things. First of all, it's easy to promote a policy that many people understand will help to avert financial catastrophe. We're over two years into Obama's tenure, and there's little sign of economic improvement, much less any materialization of hope and change. Second, it helps to have convictions and a message.

So, enjoy the schadenfreude while it's there for the taking, but do remember: its taste is bitter when the cup is filled with your own unhappiness. Do what you can to make sure that doesn't happen anytime soon.