Associated Press
At this point four years ago, congressional Republican leaders made a very careful, very deliberate decision about how to deal with an Obama White House: they wouldn't deal with an Obama White House.
As part of the party's driving ambition to undermine the Obama presidency -- and make Obama a one-term president -- John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, and others gambled on an all-obstruction, all-the-time strategy. Even if the Obama administration was prepared to embrace GOP ideas, Republican leaders would accept no compromises and make no concessions. It was time, they said, for scorched-earth partisanship, not constructive policymaking.
That was then. Four years later, President Obama's name will never appear on a ballot again, and if voters are feeling frustrated, the only policymakers who'll feel the brunt are members of Congress. With that in mind, the message from GOP leaders is noticeably different.
On a conference call with House Republicans a day after the party's electoral battering last week, Speaker John A. Boehner dished out some bitter medicine, and for the first time in the 112th Congress, most members took their dose.
Their party lost, badly, Mr. Boehner said, and while Republicans would still control the House and would continue to staunchly oppose tax rate increases as Congress grapples with the impending fiscal battle, they had to avoid the nasty showdowns that marked so much of the last two years.
Members on the call, subdued and dark, murmured words of support -- even a few who had been a thorn in the speaker's side for much of this Congress.
As a practical matter, the manifestation of this attitude is unclear. If Boehner is eager to "avoid the nasty showdowns" in the next Congress, does that mean fewer government-shutdown threats? When it's time to raise the debt ceiling, will Boehner resist calls to hold the full faith and credit of the United States hostage until Democrats meet non-negotiable demands? Time will tell.
But the mere fact that Boehner is signaling to his caucus that he wants less partisan warfare -- and that his caucus is grudgingly prepared to proceed accordingly -- is, at a minimum, a shift in tone. The Speaker's comments came the same week as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told the Wall Street Journal, "The country doesn't need a tax increase; we have a spending problem. But they control a big part of the government and they insist on taxes."
That "but" makes a big difference.
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That "but" means nothing. McConnell and Boehner frequently try to get R's to be reasonable. Then they recant. I suspect Boehner's next tears will come when he loses his speaker position to someone like Ryan or Cantor. The insiders may know they can't win in presidential election years with this nonsense, but in midyear elections, it is panacea to the morons.
Dan. I'm in full agreement.
I think that whether Boehner holds on to the Speaker slot, or not, will foretell how the next few years are going to be.
Remember when President Obama invited the Republican leaders to the White House after the 2010 elections and the Repubs cancelled because they had to attend a "fund raiser" that night. Notice the arrogance of the fund raisers, probably the Kochs. We are more powerful than the President. The Republican agenda for the last two years has been the Koch's Americans for Prosperity agenda: lower taxes on the job creators, reduce government regulation, etc. The Kochs are skillful negotiators in the political realm. They will still spend millions of dollars on lobbyists to influence the outcomes on Capitol Hill, but they know they will have to retreat a bit from the Norquist "no new taxes" position. Look for them to be adamant about preserving their share of the spending side of the budget, e.g. the oil and gas subsidies. That will be their third rail. If those subsidies go, it will be a sign that the Republican Party is beginning to refuse to drink the Koch.
It's like trying to regain trust in a recovering alcoholic who moved like a tornado through the lives of loved ones but now begins to act decently again because he has sobered up. It all depends on if the alcoholic works a program of recovery on a daily basis. So far repubs have done nothing to garner that trust. Their rhetoric must turn into acts...but I don't have much faith... yet.
Southern republicans are saying that the party lost to Obama because Romney and McCain were way too moserate. Seriously. So tell me,do you really think any southern republican representative is going to compromise?
See yawl at the polls in 2013,2014,2015,....Trust me the far right has yet begun to show how obnoxious they can be!
And if any do compromise, Southern or not, they risk being primaried from even further to the right in 2014. While it's theoretically possible that Congressional Republicans will moderate somewhat out of practical necessity, I don't see that changing the dynamics of Republican primaries at all. In fact, I think it likely that any moderation will only serve to reinforce those dynamics. And as long as this is what passes for Republican thinking on the subject of moderation, the GOP will continue to 'purify' itself for a good long time to come.
Yeah....I don't think so. There's too many tea partiers in the House still and Boehner won't be able to control them. That's assuming this capitulation to negotiation is even made in good faith. Which it's probably not.
I look to the first showdown for the Tea Party to declare themselves a separate party. I look to some of the more moderate libertarians in the Republicans declaring they are really Libertarians. I would say the former is more likely than the latter but the latter is more likely as not. Some of the gerrymandering puts the Tea Party ahead. They will keep most seats in 2014. I think the Libertarian defectors would actually gain some seats.
If so, the Democrats will become the majority party. He knows this threat is real and he will fight to bring them in line and save his party.
But, he is a savvy politician. He knows if the Tea Party brings the government to a halt, he will not be majority leader in the 114th Congress. He is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't.
Ha, a few posts down I was also talking about the ramifications of a potential GOP schism, but for the Dems.
I wonder what the chance is of the Democrats peeling off 20 or so non-mouthbreathing Republicans to support bills that the president wants passed?
At the risk of being called socialist? Worse yet, they would seem weak for putting the nation above the party!
The "republican" party is more like the Chinese government every day. Do your own comparison and see if I am right!
I think Boehner's inherent problem is, he keeps forgetting his backbone when he goes to work. Are the Tea Party a force, yes. Can they be controlled, yes. All it really takes is for someone to just step on their egos. Because seriously the only reason they have power, is because he conceded it. Cantor is a joke and would fold under pressure in a matter of days. The rest will just fall in line. Because none of them has any real clue wtf they are doing. Ideology only gets you so far, and these morons have gone as far as they can go. And it just takes a few people to realize that, and squash them like a bug. Or they are going to end up like The Wig Party,virtually erased from history.
Whig Party?
This will be easy to measure. If the House spends it's time on absurd abortion and ACA repeal nonsense, Boehner is lying.
The tax increase on the wealthy can go up each time the gop stalls. $250k may be too low to start but 50% on a billionaire is not exorbitant. Capitol gains at the current rate is much too low for those making millions as well. Consider also a minimum alternative tax on corporations making millions and not currently paying taxes.
The way the teaparty and their allies, like Grover Norquist, keep the moderate Republicans in line is to threaten to run right wing candidates against them in the Republican primaries. Someone needs to remind them of what happened to some of the teaparty extremists in this election -- they lost to Democrats. Mitch McConnall needs to become a moderate and not an extremists or Kentucy may have a new Democratic Senator in two years, just like Indiana.
The Republicans are looking toward the 2016 presidential election. Painfully aware that the negative campaign and obstructionism they practiced against President Obama backfired, they are changing their tactics in order to woo voters (of all stripes) to the GOP party, instead of trying to scare them away from the Democratic "agenda".
What the Republicans need to remember is that there is an election in 2014 when the entire House and one-third of the Senate need to run for re-election. We Democrats need to work toward reducing the Republican influence in Congress.
I'll believe they have changed when they act in accord with their "changed" attitude, but I'm not holding my breath for that to happen. The Republican penchant for re-defining words needs to be taken into account in figuring out what they actually mean, e.g., "compromise" means "do it my way".
True. Mitch McConnell (R-KY, and Senate Minority Leader), up for re-election in 2014, is already holding fundraisers. Let's see what becomes of his favorite tool, the filibuster.
Until proven otherwise, I'm compelled to assume they're just signaling that they are perfectly willing to cooperate as long as they get 100% of what they want. Neither Boehner nor McConnell has said anything inconsistent with that assumption so far.
Don't worry, Mitch McConnell...your job was to make Obama a one-term president and my job was to make him a two-term president.
Guess who won.
Now his job is to deny Obama as third term (I think he might be successful with this one)
the only was these scum will ever learn anything is when they are politically/metaphorically grabbed by the scruff of their necks and had they faces smashed against a brick wall. Repeatedly. Then dropped and kicked while down. Again repeatedly. The only reason most of them exist is because we let their traitor ancestors off much too easily 150 years ago.
Re: "President Obama's name will never appear on a ballot again"
Not for President, true, but what about Senator or Governor? That's not outside the bounds of legality, or even totally unprecedented. He'd be one of the youngest ex-Presidents ever -- not even "retirement age" -- so why not?
Of course, it all depends on how the next term goes.
I don't see it happening. Eight years as president is very exhausting, I don't care who it is. There's certainly no financial benefit to being governor nor a member of congress, and power is still there to a certain extent just from being a former president. Clinton is prime example.
Yes, but "unlikely to appear on a ballot" is not the same as "will never appear on a ballot."
It's sloppy reporting.
(And remember Teddy Roosevelt.)
Obama might not run for office again [1] but can you imagine the apoplexy across the country if he were nominated for a seat on the Supreme Court?
[1] IMHO a stupid and wasteful custom.
Teddy? He ran for a third term as president. That's not a possibility now. There's only one POTUS who continued in electoral politics, and that was John Quincy Adams who went on to serve several terms in the House after one term as President. The only other to even try to continue in electoral politics was Andrew Johnson, who ran for his old Senate seat after finishing Lincoln's second term and won, but died before the beginning of the following session. So, from the historical perspective, it's very unlikely that Obama will run for any other office.
I mentioned Teddy because he was quite active in politics and a thorn in many sides after his term as POTUS.
And "unlikely," even when repeated several times, still does not equal "never."
Lots of lessons to go around, but that includes some lessons to be learned on the left. Chief among them...
Democrats need to step up their game in off-year and mid-term elections.
Too many young people only vote, if at all, during the Presidential elections. There needs to be an intense effort to educate people who always lean left or have a propensity to vote Democrat when the time comes, and let them know, in Senate elections and state & local elections and special elections, Republicans still have a better ground game. The GOP needs to lose ground EVERY election in order for them to truly understand that their policies are abhorred and can't be weaseled in from the bottom up. T
The Republicans have no ground game, they have seniors who vote every time. The midterms will certainly be a challenge in 2014. My prediction is that if the R's continue with the obstruction and the 9% approval rating, they will get thumped once again.
Maybe a look at mid-terms and off-elections needs to be looked at, but I have always believed (and still do) that the 2010 election results were due to the wide margin of Obama supporters that became frustrated and disappointed by a president who had promised 'hope and change' and instead delivered a willingness to cave even before negotiations began. In other words a unique set of circumstances that, unfortunately, we'll have to live with for at least a decade. Redistricting has already taken place, for better or worse.
Except for the house, Republican ideas got pretty soundly rejected, and unless the party can learn to 'cope and change', things will only become more difficult for them. The party cannot continue to force out anyone not willing to march in lockstep with the most extreme members and hope to survive.
As O'Reilly said, this is not the traditional America anymore where only the votes of old white males count. Women got the vote in 1919. Minorities were granted the right to vote in 1964. And what is gained by primarying your own members as a means to keep them in line? Eating your own young, so to speak, is not the way to increase your population.
The Republicans do have a ground game, a very effective one. Obama just had a much better one. In the Wisconsin recall election, Walker survived because of the ground game in the issue based sectors of the voters. The Dems ground game did not do the same for Barrett in the cities. In Iowa, Obama won Black Hawk County by 20,000 votes but a popular democratic state senator won by less than a thousand. We have to recognize that the forces in control of the Republican Party are still in command in many states.
Expect the Kochs and Rove and co-horts to retool and fine tune their message, but rest assured, they have not been defeated. But they can be defeated if the Dems don't make the mistake of looking past 2014 and get all focused on 2016.
"But...", Mitch McConnell said. Wow, how utterly conciliatory and gracious he is. He is the partisan's partisan, the ideologue's ideologue. He isn't in Congress to do work for Kentucky or the USA, but only to do work for the Republican Party. His working mantra is: Party first. Country last. He failed at making President Obama 'a one-term' president, and he failed at caring about solving our country's woes. So let's help oursevles 'win' in 2014 by cheering for him to 'fail' at re-election. This country (and Kentucky) can do much better than having his jowly unfortunate visage remain in Congress.
I think Boehner flatters himself. He's not in charge of the house Republicans, never was. If Grover Norquist starts making conciliatory overtures, then maybe something might get done, but the GOP will continue to satisfy itself with gains in state legislatures, at the expense of being a national party, until their approach begins to fail at all levels. These are not rational actors, they're ideologues, and they will happily guide the ship straight into the rocks in order to prove that they're "real" conservatives.
And McConnell, along with Bachmann and all the rest of them, still haven't managed to wipe all of the egg off of their faces yet. One-term president indeed...Maybe now they can get down to a little bit of work.
Are any reporters going to ask the republicans who met at the first instance of Obama's election to plan Obama's failure, what their plan are now that they have met to plan his failure this second term?
I have not seen anything in the news that suggests that they have been confronted on this point. Have you?
Ultimately, they failed. They lost the battle after going all in. Now what are they going to do? Roll over? Play dead? No. They are going to continue to obstruct because that is all they know.
IMHO
Steve,
This whole "negotiation" smells like the public option debate all over again, where the President makes a few verbal nods towards the public option before throwing it overboard in the desire to cut a deal. The Republican position is, OK, we're ready to deal, what are you going to give us in exchange for nothing? If Obama caves on returning to the Clinton-era rates on the top 2%, but gets to close a few perfunctory loopholes so that he can raise the retirement age and make serious cuts to Medicaid, he will have completely blown it...again. But this is the direction it seems to be going. I'm stunned...but hoping to be wrong.
I have a sneaking suspicion that Boehner wouldn't be all broken up if he lost the Speaker position. The Tea Partiers have given him hell and probably a lot of ulcers in the past couple of years. He has been Speaker in name only, but he "lead" from behind the Tea Party zealots, and he couldn't get a thing accomplished without their approval. They are "true believers", and as such, will not see the recent electoral thumping as anything other than a call to arms, to move further to the right, and be even more vocal in their opposition to anyone and anything that doesn't give them 100% of what they demand. I would not be shocked to see Boehner pushed aside in favor of Ryan or Cantor, or if they want to go totally batsh** crazy, Crazy Eyes Bachmann.
Nah, I ain't buying it. These guys have an extremely long history of saying one thing, then doing another. They had very little problem signing the pledge to Norquist not to raise taxes, maybe they would like to sign a pledge not to obstruct Democratic legislation. I didn't think so. No, they're going to pull the same BS this time around, you can count on it.
I seethe and wrend my hair every time the terms Social Security and Medicare come up as necessary to cut because of the the terrible fiscal trouble we are in. Last night, I did a little calculation and found that my family (me, my wife, and our two daughters) have paid a collective 100 years of taxes or contributions for Social Security and Medicare.
I am dumbfounded that politicians (either D's or R's) believe they can welsh on the benefits we have paid for a hundred years (160 years for the family by the time the kids get Social Security and Medicare) in good faith. The idea that my benefits "wouldn't change", but that I would accept less for my children is just repugnant. Or do they think I'm sort of a Republican parent, ready to sell my children's future for my own comfort.
I seethe and wrend my hair every time the terms Social Security and Medicare come up as necessary to cut because of the the terrible fiscal trouble we are in. Last night, I did a little calculation and found that my family (me, my wife, and our two daughters) have paid a collective 100 years of taxes or contributions for Social Security and Medicare.
I am dumbfounded that politicians (either D's or R's) believe they can welsh on the benefits we have paid for a hundred years (160 years for the family by the time the kids get Social Security and Medicare) in good faith. The idea that my benefits "wouldn't change", but that I would accept less for my children is just repugnant. Or do they think I'm sort of a Republican parent, ready to sell my children's future for my own comfort.
There is no way social security should be cut, as the program is NOT in fiscal difficulty. Fixes that have been made already will keep it solvent for decades to come. It has been calculated that if the cap on income that is taxed for social security were removed, social security would be funded to 97% of its obligations. Means testing would easily take care of the remaining 3%. After all, do Bill Gates or Warren Buffet or Mitt Romney really need a monthly social security check after they retire to make sure they keep a roof over their heads, pay utilities, eat and pay other expenses?
If there are any showdowns, it will be because Senator Reid hasn't even had the Senate vote on a SINGLE BUDGET in 4.....yes FOUR.....years as Majority Leader. A leader??....I think not.
It's a record. It's also a record that President Obama has NEVER signed a budget in 4 years. It's very easy to run a slipshod government when no one has to adhere to a budget for any year out of four years, isn't it? Indeed, it is.
The American people DESERVE better than this crap. It is a shame that the majority voted for FOUR more years of the same, NO ACCOUNTABILITY, governement. Good luck everyone.....see you in Greece.
WOW! Just absolutely shocked that almost all comments here are based on the past election. It is OVER, people, and time to move forward. Let's have some real, substantive, conversation here about how the Democratic Party is going to (finally) move the United States into a beautiful future that all Americans will enjoy for years to come. We are waiting, Democrats! Deliver your promises to the people!