Keystone: Loyal Democrats Protect Obama and Vulnerable Senators

Democracy and Power 107:  Counting votes

Successful … politicians are insecure and intimidated men. They advance politically only as they placate, appease, bribe, seduce, bamboozle or otherwise manage to manipulate the demanding and threatening elements in their constituencies. – Walter Lippmann (1889-1974), American Journalist and Author

In a democracy, the politician must favorably influence the majority of their voting constituents.  With all political decisions, the politician calculates how many votes are gained by voting money spent on an interest group versus how many votes are lost.

Keystone:  Loyal Democrats Protect Obama and Vulnerable Senators

President Obama has stopped the Keystone pipeline, a ‘shovel ready” construction project to import oil from Canada.  Construction workers are furious.  Gas prices are rising.  And the American public is feeling the economic squeeze. However, green activists – ground troops for the President – are delighted.

Republicans – sensing a winning issue – proposed legislation to overrule the President’s refusal to authorize the project.  In order to avoid vetoing the legislation, Mr. Obama asked Democratic Majority leader Reid to block the bill.  In other words, Reid was tasked to get the votes necessary to stop the Republicans’ attack. 

But this is an election year and there are Democrats that cannot vote against oil and ‘shovel ready’ jobs.  Hence, Harry Reid had work hard to make sure he had enough votes to stop this legislation.  Strategically, Reid allowed the most vulnerable Democrat senators to vote for the Republicans authorization bill, e.g., McCaskill of Missouri, Tester of Montana, and Manchin of West Virginia.

This is an excellent example of the immoral deceptions elective politicians use in America.  American politicians are not having a serious debate on energy needs and the benefits of importing energy from Canada.  No, this fraud is all about winning the presidency and controlling the Senate. The Wall Street Journal reports on the politics of majority control majority control of the Senate:

Hence the White House phone calls to the Senate this week to on the one hand urge Harry Reid to block the bill, while on the other hand releasing politically vulnerable Democrats to cast a useless vote for the bill.

And so the result was that the Keystone pipeline died yet again, even as Missouri’s Claire McCaskill with her vote is able to claim she’s one Democrat who is for the pipeline.

Yes, politicians seek to deceive their constituents.  Of course deception is only a means to power.  Power is the ultimate prize.  Thus, this political charade is about Obama’s re-election and the Democrats controlling the Senate.  Of course, the Republicans legislation is about tarnishing the President’s image and winning the presidency and the Senate.

As H.L. Mencken said,long before these politicians were elected: 

A professional politician is a professionally dishonorable man.  In order to get any where near high office has to make so many compromises and submit to so many humiliations that he becomes indistinguishable from a streetwalker.