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Greg wrote, "To be sure, but the events in Tucson certainly have been used to isolate the Tea Party faction and to reach some level of accommodation between the two mainstream parties." I may well be missing something, but I really just don't quite see.... 1) the importance attached to Tucson or to the response of people to Tucson as causative factors in shaping the next two years. The most logical outcome of this would be some gun control legislation that the liberals have periodically raised for years, but that's not really going to happen. 2) any particularly new level of accommodation between "the mainstream parties" or any new process for establishing such an accommodation...other than essentially what we've seen over he last two years. Spokespeople for the major parties regularly go through this hands-across-the-aisle litany and the current round of it is almost entirely done because of how the 2010 elections turned out. Of course, the dynamic when different parties control different branches of government is to joint management, but the Democrats have essentially been according the Republicans such a role for two years. 3) any new isolation imposed by "the two mainstream parties" on the Tea Party faction... In fact, the teabaggers are less isolated after 2010 and are generally seen as less isolated because they've both won nominations within the Republican party and elected a few people with really bizarre politics. Of course, the formulation of policies over the next two years are going to be in response to new developments...new realizations of the economic crises, for example. But this last half of the Obama presidency looks to me like it's shaping up to be a continuation and deepening of the first half. ML ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
