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Post by reddog345 on Nov 4, 2010 21:29:59 GMT -5
When I made my usual rounds on the conservative/GOP/right wing blogs and sites after the election, most of them were gloating as expected. But I came across a few opinions saying the house victory was a Pyrrhic victory, as in they won the House but not the Senate which means they put out a lot of effort for poor results. I have some key points which came to mind... - Number 1: They couldn't beat Harry Reid, even though he is very unpopular.
- Number 2: Most if not all of the Tea Party/GOP candidates didn't win in California.
- Number 2-1: Why would Carly Fiorina run? A lot of people despise her on the coasts and at HP.
- Number 3: They couldn't take the senate. Which in my opinion, matters the most.
In my opinion, what will happen is that the Republicans will get seated in 2011 then we'll have a lot of gridlock, infighting, whining, frivolous impeachment proceedings and general insanity. Then the Tea Party base will get angry because the reps can't do what they promised on the trail, such as repeal health care reform. Anything that they do will be vetoed by the senate, and if it slips out, then Obama will veto it. Speaking about the 2012 elections, I'm predicting that the teabaggers will try to run Sarah Palin as a candidate for president and it will fail. Then the gains that the GOP made in the House and Senate will be reduced or lost. |
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Post by Tiger on Nov 4, 2010 21:55:29 GMT -5
I concluded on election night that this changes nothing. The Republicans who are celebrating baffle me. The way things stand, the only thing the Republicans can do is block everything the Democrats propose, like they did their best to do even when they weren't in power. The only difference is that the Republicans will actually be held accountable for their obstructionism instead of being able to blame everything on the Democrats.
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Post by Art Vandelay on Nov 4, 2010 21:59:13 GMT -5
I've always wondered, what's it like to be optimistic?
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Post by stormwarden on Nov 4, 2010 22:07:42 GMT -5
To me, what it will do is give Obama the ability to run against a do-nothing Congress. If that happens, the Republicans will lose any chance of removing him from office, and with it, quite possibly, the House they just won.
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Post by ltfred on Nov 5, 2010 0:57:32 GMT -5
The Republicans can also vote to defund the health insurance bill, at least according to DeMint.
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Post by Bezron on Nov 5, 2010 8:47:41 GMT -5
The Republicans can also vote to defund the health insurance bill, at least according to DeMint. Well, since the funding isn't all in place for the parts that haven't taken effect yet, they will actually be voting down any spending bills that are needed. Thus, the healthcare bill runs into huge deficits and they can point at how it is COSTING HUGE AMOUNTS rather than saving as the SOCIA...errr DEMOCRATS promised. This is a bad thing and possibly the most dangerous thing that they can do. In retrospect, the democrats need to take the podium, apologize for going against what the American people apparently want, start the repeal and start jamming through small parts (since the Corporat...err Republicans have stated that they would be ok with this). Yeah, it will hurt some of the voter base, but without funding, they are going to be hurting much much worse. Thing is, the Dems don't have the stones to do Rovian style heartless politics. So we're pretty fucked. |
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Post by Tiger on Nov 5, 2010 9:32:16 GMT -5
I've always wondered, what's it like to be optimistic? I'm not an optimist. I was expecting the election to turn out much worse. The Republicans can also vote to defund the health insurance bill, at least according to DeMint. Wouldn't that involve passing a new law? |
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Post by Art Vandelay on Nov 5, 2010 9:43:30 GMT -5
I've always wondered, what's it like to be optimistic? I'm not an optimist. I was expecting the election to turn out much worse. That was directed at the OP and his predictions of a democrat victory in 2012. |
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Post by m52nickerson on Nov 5, 2010 12:52:04 GMT -5
The Republicans can also vote to defund the health insurance bill, at least according to DeMint. Wouldn't that involve passing a new law? No, they could do it with the budget. The Democrats in the Senate would have to hold strong and refuse to pass any budget item that defund the parts of the law. |
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Post by Yla on Nov 5, 2010 16:06:36 GMT -5
Wouldn't that involve passing a new law? No, they could do it with the budget. The Democrats in the Senate would have to hold strong and refuse to pass any budget item that defund the parts of the law. That might be, but if this goes on in this style, nothing will ever be accomplished in Washington. Everyone is just blocking everyone. |
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Post by carole on Nov 5, 2010 16:25:40 GMT -5
I think they will spend the next two years blocking everything Obama and the Democrats try to do. I wouldn't be surprised if they went after Obama personally the way they did Clinton - which is just what we need with all the problems our conntry has right now. Of course they will accomplish nothing of their campain promises but will blame it all on the democrats, even the things that could never be accomplished anyway - such as Rand Pau'ls idea to do away with the dept of education. So much of what the republicans are doing right now is just political grandstanding, they know they can't turn the economy around as fast as their followers expect them to, but as I said they will just blame it on Obama and the democrats not working with them. Come 2012 their campaigns will be based on needing a republican majority in congress and the senate and a republican president - because you know it solved so many problems the last time we had that situation.  |
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Post by Old Viking on Nov 5, 2010 17:39:01 GMT -5
The results are meaningless. The federal government is totally dysfunctional and will remain so.
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Post by carole on Nov 5, 2010 17:45:58 GMT -5
The results are meaningless. The federal government is totally dysfunctional and will remain so. LOL - you mean it's broken? Say it ain't so. |
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Post by Random Guy on Nov 6, 2010 18:24:31 GMT -5
I remember it being predicted a few years ago that the center-right Republicans and the fundie extreme right Republicans could potentially have a falling-out and split the party into two camps, which may well be coming true at this point.
I'd originally recalled this when I noticed that Huckabee and McCain had their own groups of followers in 2008, but with the Tea Party wackiness lately I'm definitely considering that the possiblility might become a reality by 2012. The good thing is, of course, that it pretty much guarantees a victory for the Democrats at that point.
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Post by ltfred on Nov 6, 2010 21:51:28 GMT -5
The Republicans can also vote to defund the health insurance bill, at least according to DeMint. Well, since the funding isn't all in place for the parts that haven't taken effect yet, they will actually be voting down any spending bills that are needed. Thus, the healthcare bill runs into huge deficits and they can point at how it is COSTING HUGE AMOUNTS rather than saving as the SOCIA...errr DEMOCRATS promised. This is a bad thing and possibly the most dangerous thing that they can do. In retrospect, the democrats need to take the podium, apologize for going against what the American people apparently want, start the repeal and start jamming through small parts (since the Corporat...err Republicans have stated that they would be ok with this). Yeah, it will hurt some of the voter base, but without funding, they are going to be hurting much much worse. Thing is, the Dems don't have the stones to do Rovian style heartless politics. So we're pretty fucked. This is an incredibly bad idea. First of all, it would be an admission that the bill is bad. It's also an obvious bait-and-switch on the part of the Republican party. They say that they'll pass the parts independently- right now. Obviously, they won't actually do this. It's also not Rovian politics. What Rove would do is declare the enemy to be unpatriotic losers willing to settle for second best health insurance. He'd label them hyppocrites for taking their top-of-the-line government health insurance and leaving everyone else to their crappy private insurers. He'd probably start a few congressional investigations into Republican funding by health insurance companies or perhaps into private insurance waste, perhaps ramp up the terror alert status if there's danger of repeal. Label the Republicans 'health terrorists', perhaps. This would, at least in the short term, work. |
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