Support Just Because

I previously wrote about situations where the opposition party opposes a policy just because theya re in the opposition but don't have any alternatives. There are also situations where the president's party will support something that is against their ideology but want to give the president a victory. I will point to two examples:

-Medicare Part D: Republicans voted for this under President Bush. This is good policy, but goes against the limited government ideology of Republicans. If Obama had proposed this, it would have been called socialism and received not one Republican vote.

-Drone Strikes (especially against Americans): Democrats are staying mostly quite while Obama does something that clearly violates civil liberties. These are bomb strikes away from the field of battle (unless increasing the field of battle to the point of meaninglessness). If this is okay, how is Guantanamo Bay illegal? If a Republican were doing this, there is no way Democrats would be silent.

In both cases, victories for the President (and therefore the party) are more important than sticking to ideology. Medicare Part D was popular, even though it wasn’t paid for. And drone strikes make Obama and Democrats look tough on foreign policy.

The same is true in reverse. What is important is not whether Healthcare reform was good policy (which Cato, Romney, and Gingrich all thought it was), but whether Healthcare will give Obama a victory.

I should give Republicans some credit though. While their opposition on things like Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan have been stupid and just done to oppose Obama for the sake of it, they haven’t opposed the drone strikes. They are happy to let Obama take some credit here, maybe only because they can say they were right all along.