Divided We Fail, US midterm elections, 10 worst political ads

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 Divided We Fail

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Barring a huge upset, Republicans will take control of at least one house of Congress next week. How worried should we be by that prospect?

Not very, say some pundits. After all, the last time Republicans controlled Congress while a Democrat lived in the White House was the period from the beginning of 1995 to the end of 2000. And people remember that era as a good time, a time of rapid job creation and responsible budgets. Can we hope for a similar experience now?

No, we can’t. This is going to be terrible. In fact, future historians will probably look back at the 2010 election as a catastrophe for America, one that condemned the nation to years of political chaos and economic weakness.

Start with the politics.

In the late-1990s, Republicans and Democrats were able to work together on some issues. President Obama seems to believe that the same thing can happen again today. In a recent interview with National Journal, he sounded a conciliatory note, saying that Democrats need to have an “appropriate sense of humility,” and that he would “spend more time building consensus.” Good luck with that.

After all, that era of partial cooperation in the 1990s came only after Republicans had tried all-out confrontation, actually shutting down the federal government in an effort to force President Bill Clinton to give in to their demands for big cuts in Medicare.

Now, the government shutdown ended up hurting Republicans politically, and some observers seem to assume that memories of that experience will deter the G.O.P. from being too confrontational this time around. But the lesson current Republicans seem to have drawn from 1995 isn’t that they were too confrontational, it’s that they weren’t confrontational enough.

Another recent interview by National Journal, this one with Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, has received a lot of attention thanks to a headline-grabbing quote: “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”

If you read the full interview, what Mr. McConnell was saying was that, in 1995, Republicans erred by focusing too much on their policy agenda and not enough on destroying the president: “We suffered from some degree of hubris and acted as if the president was irrelevant and we would roll over him. By the summer of 1995, he was already on the way to being re-elected, and we were hanging on for our lives.” So this time around, he implied, they’ll stay focused on bringing down Mr. Obama.

True, Mr. McConnell did say that he might be willing to work with Mr. Obama in certain circumstances — namely, if he’s willing to do a “Clintonian back flip,” taking positions that would find more support among Republicans than in his own party. Of course, this would actually hurt Mr. Obama’s chances of re-election — but that’s the point.

We might add that should any Republicans in Congress find themselves considering the possibility of acting in a statesmanlike, bipartisan manner, they’ll surely reconsider after looking over their shoulder at the Tea Party-types, who will jump on them if they show any signs of being reasonable. The role of the Tea Party is one reason smart observers expect another government shutdown, probably as early as next spring.

Beyond the politics, the crucial difference between the 1990s and now is the state of the economy.

When Republicans took control of Congress in 1994, the U.S. economy had strong fundamentals. Household debt was much lower than it is today. Business investment was surging, in large part thanks to the new opportunities created by information technology — opportunities that were much broader than the follies of the dot-com bubble.

In this favorable environment, economic management was mainly a matter of putting the brakes on the boom, so as to keep the economy from overheating and head off potential inflation. And this was a job the Federal Reserve could do on its own by raising interest rates, without any help from Congress.

Today’s situation is completely different. The economy, weighed down by the debt that households ran up during the Bush-era bubble, is in dire straits; deflation, not inflation, is the clear and present danger. And it’s not at all clear that the Fed has the tools to head off this danger. Right now we very much need active policies on the part of the federal government to get us out of our economic trap.

But we won’t get those policies if Republicans control the House. In fact, if they get their way, we’ll get the worst of both worlds: They’ll refuse to do anything to boost the economy now, claiming to be worried about the deficit, while simultaneously increasing long-run deficits with irresponsible tax cuts — cuts they have already announced won’t have to be offset with spending cuts.

So if the elections go as expected next week, here’s my advice: Be afraid. Be very afraid.

US midterm elections 2010: the 10 worst political ads

The US midterm elections of 2010 will be remembered for a flood of toxic advertising. Here's 10 of the worst seen on TV

It used to be that TV attack advertising was the province of the most well resourced US election campaigns. But that changed in the midterm elections of 2010 as a torrent of donations, proliferating cable channels, the internet and falling production costs put the price tag within reach of even the most modest campaign.

The result was airwaves filled with outlandish claims and barely credible accusations from both parties – with corporate political spending unstopped by a recent court decision – obscure interest groups that sprung up almost over night.

Of the hundreds of ads aired on television during the 2010 election season, this can't claim to be a comprehensive list. But here's the 10 worst that we saw.

10. Ben Quayle, Arizona Republican primary

10. Ben Quayle trapped in a dark place Ben Quayle, the son of former Republican VP Dan Quayle, was in a contested primary for an Arizona House seat. His solution? An ad that begins with a ludicrous claim and ends with him wandering off into what could be a gloomy opium den. Just weird.

9. Jim Marshall, Georgia congressional election
9. Those damn San Francisco hippies A lot of ads attacked Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives from San Francisco. This one does more than most and even uses cliched images of California hippies. But what's most bizarre is that Marshall is a House Democrat, just like Pelosi. Not that you'd know it from watching this mendacious ad.

8. Carly Fiorina, California Republican primary
8. Carly Fiorina's silly Demon Sheep ad The silliest ad of the season, it became widely mocked as "Demon sheep". It looks as if it was conceived and executed by someone using heavy medication. Fiorina won the primary for California's Senate contest but this ad only harmed her image with mainstream voters.

7. Dale Peterson, Alabama Republican primary
7. Great ad but the wrong race This was a brilliant ad and only makes this list because it was so utterly inappropriate that it was almost a parody. Peterson was running in a primary for Alabama state agricultural commissioner, making this ad way over the top. Otherwise it's a masterpiece – unless you don't give a rrrrip about Alabama. (The voters didn't: Peterson lost.)

6. David Vitter, Louisiana Senate election
6. Why people distrust politicians such as David Vitter Louisiana doesn't share a border with Mexico but that doesn't stop Vitter from stooping as low as possible with these images and distortions aimed at his Democratic opponent Charlie Melancon. Just nasty.

5. Sharron Angle, Nevada Senate election
5. Viagra for sex offenders? Tax breaks for illegal aliens? The Nevada Senate contest between Angle and Harry Reid was toxic and several ads from either side could have appeared on this list. But this is the worst, with the outlandish claim that Reid voted to give Viagra to sex offenders. Other claims in the ad, such as Reid voting to give "illegal aliens special tax breaks" were also false.

4. Pat Quinn, Illinois governor's election
4. This man wants to kill your dog! An entirely vicious ad, claiming Republican Bill Brady wants to gas dogs. With the most glancing relationship to the truth, this is one of the nastiest attack ads of the cycle. And yet Quinn's staff also proved they could do far better and produced one of the best ads of 2010.

3. Christine O'Donnell, Delaware Senate election
3. I'm not a witch. Or a serious candidate Dogged by unwise public statements, including that she had "dabbled in witchcraft," O'Donnell's first ad was a chance for a fresh start. Instead the ad's opening line "I'm not a witch" confirmed in the minds of viewers that she was a flake. And the creepy "I'm you" catchphrase has become a punchline for a disastrous campaign.

2. Jack Conway, Kentucky Senate election
2. Aqua Buddha and Rand Paul Perhaps the dumbest ad of the season, "Aqua Buddha" may even have cost Conway a chance of defeating Republican Rand Paul. Dredging up an obscure event from Paul's student years, this ad lacks any subtleness while making hysterical smears that it couldn't possibly support. Idiotic.

1. Citizen's Against Government Waste, "Chinese Professor"
1. The worst of the worst A nakedly political ad aimed at the Democrats by a supposedly non-partisan organisation, this ad ladles out xenophobia and untruths in equal measures in conjuring up a new Red Menace. The cost of production must have been vast. As an example of the increasing spending power of outside groups distorting US politics, this is a prime exhibit. And a clever parody wasn't far behind.

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