Live from the Kansas City Library Cafe: A smart piece from McMegan. I do, however wish that she would follow the chain back closer to the egg: striking an appealing fundamental rhetorical pose at the price of substantive policy losses has always been attractive to a certain kind of political actor--think Ralph Nader 2000. But it was the too-successful Republican redistricting effort of 2010 that transferred effective control of much of the Republican Party to such people. For the Huelskamps of the world, a government shutdown that winds up sacrificing some Republican budgetary priorities enhances his career, after all. And the difference is that, after the 2010 redistricting, there are many Huelskamps...
: Let's See What Republicans Learn From Losing Boehner: "Boehner has announced that he’ll be stepping down... come October...
...Boehner has spent years and years trying to corral Republican hardliners into politically feasible deals on things like the budget and taxes. I gather he’s tired of it. And I don’t blame him.... But... what comes next. Does the caucus nominate a leader who will be itching for more such fights? This would be bad for America’s already dilapidated political institutions and civil society. It would also, I must point out, be bad for the Republican Party, which still shows lingering signs of infection by the dreaded ‘Ask for the Stars, You’ll Get the Moon’ bargaining strategy.... We have just had a demonstration of this technique.... Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.... This strategy worked so well that he ended up with a worse deal than the original offer, plus a banking crisis....
Hollywood loves this strategy: It’s really easy to explain without chewing up screen time, and it’s dramatic. Why don't real-world negotiators more often do this? All negotiations are defined by something called the ZOPA: the Zone of Possible Agreement. The boundaries of that zone are defined by... the BATNA: the best alternative to negotiated agreement.... Anything that either side considers worse than no deal at all is outside of the ZOPA, and no amount of strategery is going to get you there.... Is the ZOPA fixed? Nope.... But... movements...67678548 came from external events that changed the BATNA of one side or the other....
The bargaining chips you include send signals about your intent... how serious you are about negotiating... therefore change the facts on the ground in ways that hurt you rather than help you.... ntransigence and bold demands do not necessarily get you closer to what you want; they often push you further away. Next year, Republicans will be trying to take back the presidency. A Congress that shuts down a few times or spends all its time passing strong, base-pleasing bills that can’t get past the Senate, much less the president’s veto pen, is not going to improve their chances.... But maybe the only way Republicans will learn their limits is by crashing into them, as the Greeks did.... If Republicans... can't learn from Syriza's mistake... they will very likely learn their lesson from President Hillary Clinton.
