Any jackass can kick a barn down, but it took a carpenter to build it. ... Sam Rayburn, 1953
Wondering what the Democratic strategy for 2010 could be, IF they want to be successful?
Well, the longest serving Speaker of the House of Representatives, Sam Rayburn, Democratic Congressman from Texas provides us with some very useful analysis.
This phrase has been bouncing around my head for the past few days now, and I can't escape how perfectly it represents the current state of the Republican Party strategy. I think I heard Lawrence O'Donnell utter this phrase sometime over the past week as he was filling in for Keith Olbermann on Countdown, but he slightly altered it, and I don't recall the attribution.
Then, this morning as I was reading Stephen Pinker's "How the Mind Works", Pinker uses the phrase and attributes it to Sam Rayburn.
And so my quick Google hunt began, first with Wikipedia, and then I found a more "in context" reference on a blog, citing a Northwest Arkansas Times, dateline January, 1953. I did a quick check at NWAOnline, but could find no reference. I might try scouting through other resources to try and confirm it.
Why go to the trouble though? Well, here is the context provided by the site I found it at:
8 January 1953, Northwest Arkansas Times (Fayetteville, AR), "The Washington Merry-Go-Round" by Drew Pearson, pg. 4:
Sam Rayburn, the redoubtable Texan who celebrated his 71st birthday this week, was heartbroken when the Democrats lost last November.
(...)
Republicans will have a tough time finding a better program to replace the Democratic reforms for the welfare of farm and city people, continued Rayburn.
"They are going to learn the difference between construction and obstruction," he added. "Any jackass can kick a barn down, but it took a carpenter to build it."
More than 50 years ago, Sam Rayburn laid out the Republican strategy. AND he laid out the appropriate response. Unfortunately, at the time, he did it POST-Election. I hope that the Democratic Party has the foresight to look back in history, and find that this might well work as an Election strategy for defeating a party that is committed to NOTHING more than "Kicking the Barn Down"