Thoughts From Afar

By Matthew Yglesias

I’ve been following the news a bit while traveling, but not offering compulsive blow-by-blow commentary on it. As a result, I think some elements of the big picture come into better focus. For example, one of the key institutional factors playing out during the legislative fight over the stimulus, it seems to me, is simply that there’s a much wider divergence of opinions about what the country’s economic policy ought to look like among people who are “Democrats in good standing” than is the case on the GOP side. Unity of purpose is an incredibly valuable tactical asset in a legislative scrum.