Can the Party of ‘No’ Keep It Up?

Yesterday, I wrote about the Republican strategy of stonewalling the President and the Democrats on every major policy issue. It has been fairly successful for them! But short-term political wins do not necessarily yield long-term political gain. Jonathan Bernstein explains why rejectionism is a dangerous game:

What’s the cost to Republicans?  First, on policy, they lose the ability to negotiate on behalf of their important constituency groups; as we’ve seen, this can have the effect of actually driving some of these groups (the doctors, for example) right out of the party.  Second, embracing the crazy yields, well, the crazy in charge of your party.  Republicans stand to gain in the 2010 cycle because the economy is lousy, because Democrats have a lot of exposure after two terrific cycles, and because the party of the president almost always does badly in midterms.  If, however, Republicans nominate candidates who have embraced the crazy, they will be far more vulnerable to counterattacks than if they nominate good, solid candidates (and not every Democratic candidate will emulate Martha Coakley and not get around to attacking crazy things that their opponents say until the last 48 hours).

However, no one is going to listen to advice like that.  Republicans are invested in a particular interpretation of 1994, and yesterday’s election is only going to reinforce that interpretation, whether it’s correct or not.