An Addendum of Sorts to the “Post-election” Post

The latest from the off-blog online discussions: “Ozawa's plan seems to be to get as many people lined up against the tax hike bill--the nuclear restarts are a useful throw-in--or at least on the sidelines and dare Noda to kick the nays out. Normally, a compromise can be worked out; after all, the DPJ has no precedent for doing a Koizumi on anyone, let alone enough HORs to lose the house majority. Moreover, Maehara is the most vocal and unequivocal voice on this, and he's been faced down too often on party and policy issues to be taken too seriously. Does a three month suspension for the ringleader, a shorter one for the other nays, and a verbal tongue lash for the abstainers allow everyone to save face and give Ozawa an excuse not to run in the September leadership election or what? Two problems, though. First, it'll be much easier PR-wise for the LDP and Komeito to force a snap election anyway by holding the deficit bond authorization bill hostage. Second, the DPJ won't be able to put together a coherent election platform. “All in all, it looks like a split, with Ozawa taking a good number of people with him--though many of the non-zombies won't bother to make a serious bid for office when the snap election rolls around. Given what I've seen of Noda's modus operandi, I think that he'll make a show of trying to maintain party unity but make the conditions for staying so onerous--three month suspensions minimum for all nays for starters--that Ozawa has no choice but to pick up stakes and leave. I'm not betting the farm on this because I've seen too often people with skin in the game come up with unforeseen solutions, but that is for me the most likely scenario.” There’s more to follow…