Posted on 12/06/2012 5:26:53 AM PST by Kaslin
Somewhere, there’s a whiplash lawyer who runs his law office out of a van down by the river who watches the congressional Republicans attempt to negotiate the fiscal cliff crisis and has to turn his head away. John Boehner and his inept coterie of GOP establishment cronies have made every mistake in the book. It’s professionally embarrassing.
Frankly, if these hacks were my associates, they’d be on a street corner with signs reading “Will litigate for food.”
Congress is famously full of lawyers, but what people don’t understand is that it is really full of bad lawyers. Good lawyers tend not to want to take the pay cut. And the current crop of Republican leaders negotiate like bad lawyers do, which is great for President Obama. He’s giddy, and I know the feeling. When I face opponents like Boehner’s bunch at a mediation, I start checking out new 6-series convertibles on my iPhone.
A good negotiator, first and foremost, understands his client’s goals. This seems pretty basic – you want to know what the people you represent want to achieve by negotiating. However, this concept seems lost on the GOP.
Their clients – the voters who elected them – were pretty clear. No tax increases. Period. After all, not one Republican congressman was elected on a platform promising “I will raise taxes in order to help Obama morph America into Greece.” Well, maybe some of the ones from New England did, but that’s beside the point.
The client doesn’t want tax increases. This implies that the GOP should – wait for it – not support tax increases.
Naturally, the first thing the GOP does is roll over. Then to compound it, Lindsay and Saxby smarm up the Sunday morning talk shows with sanctimonious talk about how they are so patriotic that they are compelled to break their solemn pledge to their constituents never to raise taxes.
So, having not just discarded the client’s intent, the congressional GOP then rubbed its clients’ collective nose in it. There’s nothing that sets you up for failure like setting your sights on a goal that, to your client, constitutes failure.
Besides knowing what the client wants – and not utterly ignoring it – the skilled negotiator next figures out what the other side wants. Negotiations are rarely just about the putative subject. In a lawsuit, sure there’s money, but there is also often emotions – anger, pride, and so forth. All of these play a role. And sometimes, there is another objective entirely.
Here, it’s pretty clear that Barack Obama is not merely trying to get the Republicans to raise taxes. Additional fuel for the bonfire consuming America’s culture of self-sufficiency is a sweet bonus, but he has his sights on something more.
Obama is trying to get the GOP to commit suicide so that it will be unable to oppose him. And the GOP is responding to this attempt to disembowel it by handing its enemy the figurative samurai sword.
Obama sees that the kind of betrayal the GOP Establishment is dying to pull off will split the party and ignite an internal struggle that would make the post-1968 Democratic convention convulsions seem like a group hug. He’s not negotiating to get something. He’s negotiating to do something, and we conservatives are the ones Obama wants it done to. Moreover, he wants the GOP Establishment to do it for him.
Now, when you understand what your client wants and what your opponent wants, you are ready to form your negotiating strategy. What the GOP Establishment fails to understand is that reacting is not a strategy. Whining that the liberal media is going to be mean to you if you stay true to your principles and to your word is not a strategy. Cursing Grover Norquist for allowing you to make a promise to your constituents about never raising taxes, which helped you get elected, is not a strategy either.
A strategy focuses you on your goal, which means the congressional Republicans have no strategy because they have no goal other than to make the hurting stop.
Yet the GOP actually has several aces in the hole – the only reason they are taking the submissive role in the Fifty Shades of the Fiscal Cliff playing out before us is that they chose to assume it. Maybe Obama has a mandate, but so do they. They should be exercising it.
Their first step is to stop showing fear and to start counter-attacking. So America falls off the fiscal cliff? Who cares? Hell, a substantial number of the rich and sorta-rich are Democratic voters in blue states anyway. Let them put their money where their progressivism is. And if there’s another recession, awesome. We call that a teachable moment for America about what happens when its president is a spendaholic who would rather campaign than lead.
What about those cuts to defense? Okay. We’ll live having only exponentially more military power than our nearest competitors. And if all else fails and the bad guys invade, as Red Dawn teaches, we’ll just open up our gun safes and go all Wolverines on them.
Sound a bit, well, crazy? Unreasonable? Even scary? Good, because a skilled lawyer understands the awesome power of being the craziest, most unreasonable and scariest guy at the table. Obama is hanging tough only because he thinks – he knows – the congressional Republicans are dying to fold well before he pays any kind of price.
But what if the GOP’s offer was a two-word response beginning with the letter “F” – and what if they meant it? After all, the secret of being the unreasonable negotiator is that you can’t be bluffing, that you have to be ready to pull the pin and take the whole table out with you. In other words, the Republicans ought to be telling the President “Hey, I’ll be Thelma and you can be Louise, and we’re pedal to the metal.”
The GOP knows the worst case scenario – rates on everyone go up and sequestration. All they have to do is be willing to take the hit for longer than Obama. The GOP has an advantage – the liberal media will screw them no matter what they do. This gives them incredible freedom.
Go off the edge and then, after the mainstream media panics and David Brooks wets himself, pass a bill dropping all the rates back and send it over to Harry Reid. Now it’s the Democrat’s problem. Thirty-three senators have to run in 2014, around 20 of them Democrats. How many are going to want to vote “No” on dropping the rates back? As the election cycle begins, I estimate the number will shrink to roughly zero.
In other words, turn the tables on the Democrats. Split them. They have the most to lose, not the GOP. If the congressional GOP loses this fight, that’s just a dog biting a man. But if Obama loses it, that’s a man biting a dog.
This is the final lesson. A sharp lawyer takes a tough situation and turns it to his advantage, while a hack takes an advantage and turns it into a tough situation. With a little skill, the GOP could not only get what it wants tax-wise but also turn the tables, setting the Democrats at each others’ wattled throats and neutering Obama.
After all, isn’t crushing progressive dreams really what the GOP should be all about?
All it takes is a little guts and some wiles. Come on congressional GOP – make that whiplash lawyer proud.
The tax cuts didnt expire until exactly 2 years ago not 4 years ago and then Speaker Pelosi and Obama gave in to the 2010 lame duck Senate filibuster partly because they couldnt round up enough Senate votes (they needed 50 with budget reconciliation and they couldnt even pull that out of their 59) at the time to pass the partial extension. So they extended them all two years, and they got FICA tax cuts in return. That was a congress fully controlled by Dems.
But if those Dems were bolder and were able to round up enough Dem votes in the Senate (Pelosi still had the house then ) to pass only the middle class <$250K ones they would of.
I have posted many times that this would have given Republicans an issue for the following 4 years, and Romney too.
“You Dems raised taxes on job creators and it isnt working”
Instead O made raising those taxes a major campaign promise and he won and won house and Senate seats. So he has no reason to give in, unlike 2 years ago when he had a re-election coming and the House and Senate.
You guys are keeping me on my toes :)
Correction “...for the following 2 years” till 2012 not 4.
Makes total sense. Which is why Boehner won’t do it. Instead, he’s purging the conservatives from important committees.
“congressional Republicans have no strategy because they have no goal other than to make the hurting stop”
“Any Commander who has failed to take their objective and is neither dead or severely wounded has failed to do their duty.”
Gen. George S. Patton
Great article. I’m not an ambulance chaser, but I do negotiate fees, leases, purchases, etc. Rule No. 1 is to get the person with decision authority at the table. If no authority, then no negotiation. When Tax-cheat Geithner shows up, the first question is “do you have authority to commit to a final agreement?” If not, then get someone there who does. Years ago I was in mediation with the IRS, and asked that question to the DOJ lawyer. He hemmed, and hawed and said no. The mediator (a federal magistrate) asked him if his superior had authority. He said no. Then the question was who had authority. He replied, “the President Ronald Reagan.” The magistrate told him to get RR on the phone or concede. They conceded.
Moral: Negotiating with fools is fruitless!
Gwjack
Obama has been one step ahead of them on every fight the past two years.
Forget the MSM, Obama poll tests and focus groups every stated position on TV to turn key voters against Rs.
But on the other side Republicans go into every fight seeming assuming voters will line up on their side automatically, Romney sure acted like that.
The result was predictable.
Most satisfying piece I’ve read here in 11 years.
In a Con Game, Shills are The Grifter’s assistants and are used to distract the victim or to encourage the victim to participate in The Con.
So far the past two years O has scored 3-0,(4 if you include Romney) and some of those R losses have been humiliation.
I am suggesting beating him instead of getting crushed again.
All this losing gets is more whining about the MSM, voter fraud, and talk about how hopeless the fight is,.
Shills??? Here’s one that makes me suspicious :
“The MSM will blame Rs anyway and then so will the voters so screw the voters and lets just go all out and p... off every last swing voter and ignore their angry phone calls and emails from our home states so we can never win an election again”
I occasionally get a ping that sounds like that, not its not the regular.
If I was a Dem that’s what I would be posting here.
Do you think Boehner will read this, and would he understand it if he did?
This hardball strategy is one I have used often in my personal life and business - I’ve used it often because it often works.
1. Class-Warfare is immoral & unamerican.
2. A tax system that punishes success to reward failure is economically insane.
3. The Founding Fathers considered the use of taxation to redistribute wealth to be totally unacceptable (Art. I, Sec. 9). Having sworn to uphold the Constitution, one cannot vote for redistribution of wealth.
4. During the 124 years, from 1789 til 1913, when we followed the Founder's Taxing policy, we had the greatest material growth rate of any people on earth--and we retained our spiritual values in the process. Nothing, proportionately, or adjusted for inflation, has since compared! (And just look at what the class-warfare mentality has done to our spiritual values!)
Do not let anyone put Obama's definitions into anyone on our side's mouth. Obama has never been about "fairness," anymore than Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Hitler or Castro were ever about "fairness."
William Flax
That's just it, the Repubs have no interest in crushing the Dems. They just want the dance to go on and on.
A little deal here a little deal there, what fun. It makes them feel powerful.
Defeat the Dems, why would they want to do that?
I agree %100. Either call their bluff and/or Pass them! Let them fall on their own sword.
They seem to keep trying to alter those facts, but it will not change.
The best course is to ignore the media and just do what's best for the country and let it go at that. Reasonable and fair-minded people will understand.
They also need to understand, that in a fight for survival when things fall apart, the liberals are going to be the first to fall apart. They are the weakest, and least suited for survival. Everything the Obama administration is doing is meant to weaken the right down to their level in order to give them a chance.
I don’t think he cares. There is one salient difference between the attorney/client and representative/constituent relationship which was not discussed in the article. As a criminal defense attorney, I can best summarize it as “The Bratwurst Speech” that I often give my clients who are reluctant to take a really good plea deal. The speech is basically:
“I’ll try your case if you want me to. I’ve done over a hundred jury trials and I like trying cases. But keep in mind that there is only one result I can guarantee to happen when the trial is done, and that is that I’m going to go home and cook a bratwurst on my grill. You probably won’t be going home. I don’t have to live with the consequences of your decision. You do.”
See, I’m a mercenary. I have no personal stake in the outcome of the case. That keeps me objective. Congressmen don’t have that objectivity, they have a personal stake in everything that happens as they fear loss of power more than loss of life itself. The loss of objectivity and fear drives them to do some really stupid things.
Just not sure I understand which media will carry the story without the spin. 4 years ago was a presidential election. Didn’t get much coverage about anything excpept what an evil person Sarah Palin was. Is that the media we should depend on now.
To depend on the message to be delivered by the MSM is not a tactic that has worked. The message I am getting is that Boehner is not on our side. He has given away every advantage he had.
“We will negotiate for the American People, but we will not allow the government to be shut down” gave the dems all they needed. Just wait and when the only option is what they want or shut down, he will give in. Happened just like that.
Gee - he gives the enemy the bullets to shoot him with.
Bohner is the cowardly Lion. No, the MSM will not be much help.
My thing is I don't want a deal, I definitely don't want a Bohner Obama deal because that will lead to another Debt limit ‘Budget Control Act” obscenity.
I just assume they pass the tax cuts, declare victory on that and the middle class, then declare crisis over on all the shows and tell O to pound sand on a deal.
If Rs take on a fight they cant win or explain they will lose and God knows what will be in the resulting deal.
I will give another realistic prediction: No one will challenge Bohner to be Speaker because no-one wants to be O's bitch.
Allen west -Sarah plain
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