Happy Blogiversary to me! Two years ago I posted for the first time at Norunnyeggs. Thanks to you for reading, encouraging and correcting me. Thanks to Steve for his long suffering of allowing me to squat on his site!
Hopefully, the following is worthy of a 2 year blogiversary posting!
Quick, what do the following actors have in common?
Alan Alda, Carroll O’Connor, Ted Danson, James Garner and Kelsey Grammer.
Each of these actors, while having a varied and successful career having played numerous other characters, are immediately recognized for a single role that they played. Alan Alda is forever Hawkeye from MASH. Carroll O’Connor is immortalized as Archie Bunker. Ted Danson is Sam Malone, James Garner is Jim Rockford (or Bret Maverick if you’re of a certain age) and Kelsey Grammer was Frasier Crane across two long running sitcoms. These actors are victims of typecasting.
Typecasting occurs when an actor or actress becomes so associated with a type of role, or specific role that no matter how hard they try, they are never able to fully keep people from thinking of a new role as an extension of the role they were type-casted as. Typecasting varies in severity. Some people, like James Garner, while fondly remembered for a role, go on to have very successful careers with other roles and genres. In the most severe cases, typecasting can be so severe that actors or actresses are unable to get another role beyond the one that they were typecast in. The most notorious of this level of typecasting was George Reeves who once he became Superman, was Superman even on TV shows that had no connection to the character.
President Obama has released his budget proposal for the next year. His budget encompasess total spending of $3.8 trillion and a deficit of $1.56 trillion.
While President Obama has taken nothing from the Scott Brown victory, numerous Democrats in both the House and the Senate seem to be attempting to position themselves as aligned with the fiscal sensitivities of the populous. From the WSJ:
“I guess I don’t understand…the vision of the administration when it comes to putting in place economic policy that works for our nation in today’s economy and the economic climate today,” Sen. Lincoln said during the same hearing with Mr. Geithner.
and:
“I don’t know anybody in business who hires an employee because they’re going to get a tax credit,” said Rep. Thompson during the hearing of the House Ways and Means Committee.
There are scores of additional examples of Democrats now trying to convince their constituents that they aren’t aligned with those tax and spend liberals in Congress.
The problem for those Democrats now attempting to become the next Ron Paul is that nearly every one of them seem to have limits to their new found fiscal conservatism. From the Baltimore Sun:
A headline on the 2010 campaign website of Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), blares her opposition to Obama’s farm budget: “Blanche stands up for Arkansas farm families,”
And
Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.), a recent party-switcher, questioned trade policies battering the steel industry. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) asked about health care for first responders involved in the Sept. 11attack. The message from Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Ca.): “California is hurting.”
And
Elsewhere around the country, Rep. Suzanne Kosmas — a freshman Democrat from a Republican leaning part of Florida — minced no words in complaining about Obama’s proposed cuts to the NASA budget. The space industry is one of the largest employers in her district.
“The president’s proposal lacks a bold vision for space exploration and begs for the type of leadership that he has described as critical for inspiring innovation for the 21st century,” said Kosmas.
And
In the swing state of Missouri, Democratic Senate candidate Robin Carnahan wasted no time this week denouncing Obama’s budget as profligate.
“I’m disappointed in the president’s budget recommendation,” she said. “Missouri families have to balance their checkbooks and our government is no different.”
Clearly, Democrats are trying to show their fiercer, budget hawk side. After all, it wasn’t just the threat of health care that got Scott Brown elected and has put a number of the Dem’s jobs in jeopardy. Equally, the ever ballooning spending and deficit has also gotten people’s attention. Also clearly, while they talk budget hawk out of one side of their mouth, the Dem’s hawkishness ends right at the end of the particular program or jurisdiction that they have their nose stuck into!
As hard as Democrats may try from now until November, to paint themselves as characters other than the fiscally irresponsible characters they are, it won’t work. The Dems have become victims of their own “success”. They were swept into office promising not one, but a whole flock of chickens in every pot, never considering how they were going to pay for those chickens. Now that they find that those chickens actually cost money, and they don’t have any, they are left with the choice of not providing the chickens or attempting to con the public into believing that continuing investment we get from China each month is not really anything to worry about.
The public is not buying a word of the Dems attempt to claim fiscal responsibility. Like George Reeves the Dems are irreversibly typecast. Try as they may, no one, at least not for this election cycle, will believe their claims that they can actually play a different role.
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