The Republican playbook
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Democrats won in 2006 and 2008 because Bush messed up and the economy was a mess. Also Katrina and Iraq.
So what did the Republicans learn? When the economy is a mess the incumbent party loses power. So clearly to the Republicans, they needed to do whatever necessary to mess up the economy even more.
It seemed to me that initially the Republicans were worried that Obama would try to be FDR 2.0 and were determined to block his actions. Clearly they need not have worried. Obama does not seem to think that unemployment is a serious political problem for him and he might even be correct.
Anyway now the Republicans are in full Lex Luthor mode, that is why Republican governors are turning down money for public works jobs. It isn't just to irritate hippies, it is because they don't want jobs. They want the economy to tank, or more accurately their billionaire owners want the economy to tank as a way of bringing down Obama as well as creating additional union busting and other disaster capitalism opportunities.
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Just one question ...
why would the Rs want to win in 2012? Winning would mean being associated with -- and maybe even expected to do something about -- a non-recovering economy, the big scary "deficit problem," serial wars, etc., etc.
If they lose, they've still got Obama and the Ds doing everything they want, plus they can blame the economy, wars, etc. on them, too. Yay, best of both worlds!!
Winning means power
the Republicans are like Communists, they have a reptillian concentration on getting, keeping and extending power. They really don't have any other agenda.
Yup, they're full on Keynesian in office
They'll get into office and the first thing they'll do is turn the lights back on. They'll get rid of the stupid paygo rules and start filling the huge aggregate demand output gap by cutting taxes and spending more on defense contracts and road projects.
They might even throw progressives a bone (like W. did with Medicare drug benefits) and create a new social program, say, "universal preschool", that they won't spend 10 seconds worrying how to pay for.