Chris Cillizza asks if Rush Limbaugh is the new face of the GOP. It's not a crazy question. When the leader of the free world singles someone out as the leader of the opposition, he goes a long way toward making it so. In the last few days, Obama and his advisers have done just that, holding Limbaugh out as a symbol of partisanship and an impediment to the change that some 63 percent of the country now expects from our new president. Why the President of the United States would want to pick a fight with a talk show host is not entirely clear, but it surely has something to do with the fact that the Republican party is now so disorganized that it no longer possesses a figurehead who can credibly be blamed for obstructing "change."
If one assumes that Obama isn't going to deliver on a lot of his promises (and he isn't), then one should expect him to start searching around for scapegoats. In this case Obama needs a scapegoat for his failure to convince Republicans to rally around a thoroughly Democratic stimulus proposal. Obama could have done more to bring Republicans on board, but he doesn't need Republicans to get the measure passed. What he does need to do is explain why Washington hasn't been miraculously transformed into a bipartisan utopia. He could blame Boehner or McConnell or Cantor, but with all due respect to the Republican leadership, the American public probably doesn't have any idea who they are. The American people do know who Limbaugh is. It makes Obama seem small to pick a fight with Limbaugh (and it makes Limbaugh seem awfully big), but the president needs a foil.
Cillizza quotes a couple of Republicans (and John Weaver) expressing varying levels of concern at the prospect of Limbaugh emerging as a figurehead for the right -- "filling a vacuum" as Haley Barbour says. Republicans shouldn't worry too much. The next election is two years away, and any perception voters have now about Republican obstruction or cooperation will be long forgotten by November 2010. What voters will be looking at is the state of the economy and progress in the war on terror. If the economy is revived, Obama will get the credit. Likewise if the country is kept safe while progress continues in Iraq and gets underway in Afghanistan. If America sees setbacks on any of these fronts, Obama will take the blame, or at least some portion of it, and Republican fortunes may be somewhat revived.
Either way, Republicans are off the hook and free to vote as they please. Some will support the stimulus and some will oppose it, but they will neither be held responsible for its failures nor reap the rewards if it succeeds. The left is still trying to figure out how to operate in a world without George W. Bush, without a right-wing bogeyman who can be blamed for all the country's problems. Today there's a target on Rush Limbaugh, but if the economy doesn't recover in the next 18 months, nobody's going to blame Rush. At that point Obama will have to try and pin it all on Bush, again. If Republicans feel compelled to worry, they should worry about George W. Bush still being the face of the GOP two, four, or even six years from now. From that perspective, el Rushbo starts looking pretty damn good.
