ZOMBIE CONTENTIONS

There was a “Scene We’d Like to See” tucked into Mark Ambinder’s report on the Jobs Summit yesterday.  After describing in some detail the political dead ends faced by those pushing leftist and centrist economic proposals under current circumstances, Ambinder briefly touches on what those not invited to the summit would have suggested (emphasis added):

Then comes along the economic conservative, who will propose some variant of tax cuts, less regulation, limited government. Here, corporate confidence is shattered because the president and his congressional allies are crowding out private enterprise. As the Club for Growth’s Chris Chocola put it today, “We already had a large and successful jobs summit in this country: it was called the 1980s.” The White House is liable to ignore this point of view.

Well, there you have it. What makes this observation more poignant is Ambinder’s overall theme:  That the attendees at the Summit and “people in the party” would leave “empty-handed” and “frustrat[ed]… to no end” due to the political and economic impracticality of all those been-there/done-that/no-point proposals that this White House can be expected not to ignore, yet not to get anything out of either.

The implied SWLTS would be similar to Howard’s #3 – the President keeps a campaign promise, listens to everyone, and comes up with an answer that leaves ideology behind and puts the good of the nation, and the nation’s unemployed, front and center.  In this instance it would be on the issue supposedly at the top of everyone’s agenda, even, at least for a day, at the top of our Truly Great Leader’s agenda.

While TGL was at it, he might show that he really meant what he repeatedly said about being in favor of expanded US energy exploration and development, including oil drilling and nuclear power – an issue that seems again to be figuring more prominently in the GOP economic as well as energy program.  It could be in the same scene or in a separate scene – we’d take it either way.