Interesting Gambling Analogy

From Publius at Obsidian Wings:

When you start losing in Texas Hold ‘Em, you eventually face a difficult choice – a crossroads if you will. The problem is that your chip stack is getting smaller and smaller while the blinds take bigger and bigger chunks of your money each turn. The choice then is whether to go down fighting or suffer a slow death by a thousand cuts.

For those preferring to go down fighting, the advice is to try to hold out for a decent hand (not necessarily a good one) and then go “all in” before seeing the flop (the next set of cards shown face up). The potential benefit of going all in is that you’ll double your chips in one swoop and regain past strength.

The potential downside though is that you’ll be permanently eliminated. Indeed, going all in is pure Russian roulette – there remain 5 cards to be flipped over, and you have no idea what they will be. Maybe they’ll turn out great. More likely, though, they'll be fatal. But regardless, you are completely at the mercy of Lady Fortune at that point.

That’s essentially what the House Republicans did today when they voted unanimously against the stimulus – they went all in before the flop. And now they too are completely at the mercy of the flop -- and fate -- with a less than stellar hand.

Frankly, I don’t think it was a completely irrational move considering the circumstances. The House Republicans’ long-term prospects ain’t good – they’re locked into a declining, southern-centric demographic base getting smaller by the year. Plus, it's not like voting for the stimulus will reverse these trends. If it works, Obama will probably get credit regardless of what the GOP does. Accordingly, the GOP decided to do something more drastic, and then hope for the best by hoping for the worst.

And it might work. The flop might save them. Maybe the economy will get even worse in 2 or 4 years. If so, the Republicans can stand up and say, “if only we had cut more taxes, if only we hadn’t wasted all this money…” And who knows? If the economy continues to tank, that might get some traction.

But make no mistake – it’s an extremely risky strategy. The GOP locked themselves into a game of Russian roullette today. If the economy gets better, or if the GOP somehow manages to block it in the Senate, then the Republicans’ unanimous opposition could send the party into the wilderness for a long time to come. Republicans, remember, picked the wrong horse in the New Deal debate, and ultimately lost control of Congress (with periodic and fleeting exceptions) for about 60 years.