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I have a $100 that says the Dems, if they do win the House back, will whiz it down their leg and fail miserably.
That's a pretty safe bet.
I have a $100 that says the Dems, if they do win the House back, will whiz it down their leg and fail miserably.
I have a $100 that says the Dems, if they do win the House back, will whiz it down their leg and fail miserably.
The Senate is where it's at, yo.
The parties have been in gridlock for many years now. What's the point of having a government at all?
government still functions sufficiently to perform necessary services but it does stagnate. Its up to the institutions of government , to reform processes to facilitate less gridlock regardless of the party interests. that is admittedly tricky to do.
You talk about gridlock like it's a bad thing. It's not. Being President isn't supposed to be an easy job... but the ones who are worth their salt find ways to get their agenda passed, even when Congress is controlled by the other party. Reagan did it. So did Clinton. On the other end of the spectrum, there are Presidents like Carter and Trump who can't seem to make much headway even when their party controls Congress. Want to end gridlock? Try electing a President who actually knows what they're doing.
Quite frankly, your party doesn't deserve to have power. They all act like immature children, and put blame on someone else.
Trump is an interesting case when talking about impeachment. While he enjoys very robust support among his base, he's not especially popular among the rest of the Republican party. I grew up in rural Ohio. I know a lot of Trump voters. There are a lot of people who voted for him despite not particularly liking him simply because they were of the opinion "anyone but Hillary".
I also think you have to consider the demographics of the Republican party. They are largely made up of older people, a generation that grew up during the cold war. These people lived a large chunk of their lives seeing Russia as the enemy. If evidence comes to light that Trump was colluding with Russia to manipulate our elections, I think you'll see a large number of those people turn on him very quickly.
I have a $100 that says the Dems, if they do win the House back, will whiz it down their leg and fail miserably.
it seems that the democrats in congress are a bunch of spineless cowardly weasels that.always cave in to the republicans and big business. wish they were more agressive explaining how Republican policies over the last 50 years have brought us to this point. they need to fight fire with fire. Being labled as the "Minority Party" is killing them with white middle/working class voters.
There is no question in my mind that we will take the house with about a 10-15 vote margin and most of those gains will be in purple or red hued states, and I suspect the Senate will stay in republican hands with even a vote or two to spare of republican votes to spare. The real question is what do we do with the House besides stop Republican initiatives?
The first question is whether Pelosi gets the gavel back and it is to be a very complicated question indeed. Several of the moderate or red hued Dems may have to commit not to vote for Pelosi , when in fact that she is the absolute best option to kill future impeachment hearings. Pelosi was adamant against impeachment hearings on Bush and she is against impeachment hearings of Trump. Meanwhile the progressives will demand Pelosi support such hearings to win their votes because that is what they will have promised the base.
Pelosi will try to walk a fine line re-openning the investigations into Russian hacking and meddling and possible Trump connections but discourage any talk that those hearings should lead to articles of impeachment ( exactly what I support myself by the way) while she plots to pack the Judiciary committee with Dems who are likewise skeptical of impeachment.
I think there will also be an 'anybody but Pelosi' movement based on the idea that Republicans have turned her into such toxic presence that she is dead weight. There is another complication. An awful lot of the winning candidates in these primaries have been WOMEN, who are sensitive to this notion that there is much harsher standard applied to Democratic women politicians in national media than men and Hillary Clinton is exhibit A of gender bias that Dems were too silent about. They and the Womens political action groups will be watching very carefully to see how Pelosi is treated. It would be a very rare act to push the very woman out of speakership that largely maneuvered the party into a position to best take back the reins. Normally the party rewards the leadership team that saw those gains, not ditch them to the curb.
Personally, I don't know that there is anyone better capable of sheparding the kind of legislation most likely to force difficult choices on to the GOP and Trump while avoiding the cocky misteps of newfound power.[This is the actual answer to the title question] Nancy well remembers the Henry Hyde impeachment debacle that lost the GOP its majority. That woman is not stupid, she understands the legislative process and she can count votes. I am not sure she can survive this pincher movement.
I think that gridlock so severe that it can only be broken on average once a decade, is a pretty bad thing when national problems requiring national legislative solutions do not go into remission because we cannot find the right President. Its not supposed to be this hard to get series of connected major bills passed. Odd. I think Congress should be able to negotiate and pass bills without a whole lot of presidential leadership, as long as what they pass does not bring out the veto pen. The Congressional leadership is supposed to have its agenda, and press for its agenda to pass through its institution. That is what they are elected to do. Its what the institution was created to do. Congress is not a vassal of the Oval office, waiting for orders to arrive.
Not going to speak to parliamentary systems but contain myself to Congress. Maybe what you see as Presidents' without leadership skills, is actually a combination of Speakers and Majority Leaders without those skills, and/or periods where top down leadership in CONGRESS as been neutered by 'democratization' reform movements lead by members. You are not going to convince me that Congressional leadership is inherently unable to develop successful coalitions to pass legislation. Any history of Congress will show that effective legislative leaders are far more pivotal to getting bills passed than Presidents. If agendas outside the Presidents, cannot get passed in Congress, I assert that it is inevitably about flaws in the halls of Congress.Exactly so... Congress isn't a vassal of the Oval Office and that's why we have gridlock. You can't look at Congress as the Republicans vs. the Democrats - that's too simplistic. Obviously those parties exist, but when you get right down to the nitty gritty of how bills get passed, I find it more useful to think of Congress as 16 different groups, each with their own outlook. The way things get done and bills get passed is by forming and re-forming coalitions out of those 16 "tribes". If every Congressman and Senator belongs within one of those 16 tribes, then it's hard as hell for them to be flexible enough to reach out and co-operate with enough of the other tribes to actually get something passed. They may be able to reach out to some of the other tribes who are pretty close to them and maybe get 20-30 votes in the Senate, but any idiot can get 20-30 votes on a Bill - it takes a real craftsman to be able to get 51. It's extremely rare to find someone in the Legislative Branch who can muster that kind of grass root support.
Governing Coalitions have to be top-down - the Executive is the only branch of Government that has the ability to condense support from among enough of the 16 tribes. That's just the way it works - even in Parliamentary systems like the UK, only the Government has the ability to run the country. You can't run the country from the Opposition Leader's seat. There are no back bench de facto Prime Ministers. There may be individuals outside of the Executive who pop up from time to time and who manage to "hit above their weight" for a while, but all elected legislatures are constantly churning - coalitions get formed, fall apart, and then take other forms. Deals get brokered. Wheels get greased. And then the whole process starts over again. The only real constant is the leader of the country and his or her ability to ride the waves and harness them to their policy goals.
Not going to speak to parliamentary systems but contain myself to Congress. Maybe what you see as Presidents' without leadership skills, is actually a combination of Speakers and Majority Leaders without those skills, and/or periods where top down leadership in CONGRESS as been neutered by 'democratization' reform movements lead by members. You are not going to convince me that Congressional leadership is inherently unable to develop successful coalitions to pass legislation. Any history of Congress will show that effective legislative leaders are far more pivotal to getting bills passed than Presidents. If agendas outside the Presidents, cannot get passed in Congress, I assert that it is inevitably about flaws in the halls of Congress.
Of course even the most powerful Speakers and Majority leaders will keep their feelers out for a possible veto, but they know also know how to get 'Mr. President' to understand his legislative priorities will die a very quick or slow death, should he pick up that pen on something that matters to the leadership. The President will get his ideas diluted, disemboweled and turned into mulch by every committee chairman that receives them. They simply won't get to the floor if the leadership does not want them too. You know as well as I do, that a President's state of the union and his 'budget proposals' are nothing but glorified suggestions. When it comes to bills, the president proposes, and Congress disposes. Especially those budgets. they are pretty much universally dead on arrival. That is as it has always been and as it should be. Presidents are not supposed to be able dominate the legislative agenda.Nobody in Congress is going to stick their head out and make a compromise to get a Bill passed if the President can cut it off with a simple veto. There's no getting around it, BT... before legislation can move forward in a serious fashion, then the President has to make clear where he stands on the issue. That's what the State of the Union speech is supposed to be about... the President lays out his legislative agenda for the year ahead and then Congress can array themselves relative to that.
That's not say that the unexpected doesn't happen... things occasionally pop up and if the White House is slow to react or misreads public opinion, a savvy Congressman or Senator can make some hay by putting forward a Bill to address the issue that can muster some momentum for a while... but that's a pretty rare occurrence, and it's usually not too long before the issue gets co-opted by the President.
Of course even the most powerful Speakers and Majority leaders will keep their feelers out for a possible veto, but they know also know how to get 'Mr. President' to understand his legislative priorities will die a very quick or slow death, should he pick up that pen on something that matters to the leadership. The President will get his ideas diluted, disemboweled and turned into mulch by every committee chairman that receives them. They simply won't get to the floor if the leadership does not want them too. You know as well as I do, that a President's state of the union and his 'budget proposals' are nothing but glorified suggestions. When it comes to bills, the president proposes, and Congress disposes. Especially those budgets. they are pretty much universally dead on arrival. That is as it has always been and as it should be. Presidents are not supposed to be able dominate the legislative agenda.
In my view, here are the real problems causing gridlock at historic levels. 1. The polarized Congress of today has its roots in the 1970s | Pew Research Center
2. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2013/01/03/5-reasons-why-being-speaker-of-the-house-aint-what-it-used-to-be/?utm_term=.3d11ce0d592e
LBJ had it much easier. 1. He had long-term intimate relationships with virtually every Senator and Congressman. 2. There was a top down power structure pre-Watergate where the congressional leaders and committee chairs had the real power. 3. His party had complete control over both bodies. 4. Political parties controlled a much larger slice of the resources on which Congressmen depended. 5. He exploited the assassination of Kennedy to unify the country around the agenda.My model Presidency is LBJ's.... he knew how to make things happen. Listening to the recordings on his phone conversations with Congressmen and Senators is to hear a master at work. It's like watching Leonard Bernstein conduct the New York Philharmonic. Whether you agreed with his politics or not, it's a thing of beauty to listen to him apply "The Treatment" to Dick Russell or Ev Dirksen.
I've heard all of the hand-wringing before... Nixon resigned, Ford was listless and Carter couldn't anything passed even when the Democrats had a huge majority. Congress was broken, the country is ungovernable.... malaise... blah blah blah.
But then, somehow, Reagan made it work again... and then, after him, Clinton did too. And they both did it with hostile Congresses. How? The same way LBJ did... but constantly staying engaged. By twisting arms. Day in and day out. That's how you make the system work.... you've got to fight day and night, tooth and nail to get your bills passed. Very few Presidents get that.
LBJ had it much easier. 1. He had long-term intimate relationships with virtually every Senator and Congressman. 2. There was a top down power structure pre-Watergate where the congressional leaders and committee chairs had the real power. 3. His party had complete control over both bodies. 4. Political parties controlled a much larger slice of the resources on which Congressmen depended. 5. He exploited the assassination of Kennedy to unify the country around the agenda.
As for Reagan, he definitely did succeed against the odds at getting his agenda through Congress, but he did not 'twist arms day in, day out' and NOBODY that gave an honest assessment of Reagan would have claimed he 'constantly stayed engaged' in anything. He was about as hands off and disengaged as any president other than Trump. Remember that was his excuse for not knowing about Iran Contra? Lot of talk back then his over-delegating and disengagement. People whispered about Nancy and 'Prime Minister' Don Regan vying for influence during a mentally weakened second term . But Reagan was able to go over the heads of Congress. Media and journalist outlets were far fewer pre-cable, pre-internet and with Newspaper readership already declining. This was the last decade of the three network domination and the peak percentage for Americans watching those television and Ronald was not known as the 'Great Communicator for nothing! He could give one hell of a speech. He benefited from perfect timing for unique skill set. Reagan was an actor by trade and the man sure knew how to say his lines for a camera - combination of Will Rogers truisms and B Western magic!.
As for Bill Clinton, his legislative record is a definite mixed bag. His good results came when he also had both houses. He shoved the Omibus reconciliation of '93 through without a GOP vote, just like Obama did ACA, NAFTA, and the Brady Bill, and but he failed on Health care reform, the Employment nondiscrimination Act. Once the GOP got control the only real success that was consistent with his agenda - was the Children's state insurance fund. the rest were Republican initiatives of Republican ideas, that Clinton worked hard to sell as his victories.
There is no question in my mind that we will take the house with about a 10-15 vote margin and most of those gains will be in purple or red hued states, and I suspect the Senate will stay in republican hands with even a vote or two to spare of republican votes to spare. The real question is what do we do with the House besides stop Republican initiatives?
The first question is whether Pelosi gets the gavel back and it is to be a very complicated question indeed. Several of the moderate or red hued Dems may have to commit not to vote for Pelosi , when in fact that she is the absolute best option to kill future impeachment hearings. Pelosi was adamant against impeachment hearings on Bush and she is against impeachment hearings of Trump. Meanwhile the progressives will demand Pelosi support such hearings to win their votes because that is what they will have promised the base.
Pelosi will try to walk a fine line re-openning the investigations into Russian hacking and meddling and possible Trump connections but discourage any talk that those hearings should lead to articles of impeachment ( exactly what I support myself by the way) while she plots to pack the Judiciary committee with Dems who are likewise skeptical of impeachment.
I think there will also be an 'anybody but Pelosi' movement based on the idea that Republicans have turned her into such toxic presence that she is dead weight. There is another complication. An awful lot of the winning candidates in these primaries have been WOMEN, who are sensitive to this notion that there is much harsher standard applied to Democratic women politicians in national media than men and Hillary Clinton is exhibit A of gender bias that Dems were too silent about. They and the Womens political action groups will be watching very carefully to see how Pelosi is treated. It would be a very rare act to push the very woman out of speakership that largely maneuvered the party into a position to best take back the reins. Normally the party rewards the leadership team that saw those gains, not ditch them to the curb.
Personally, I don't know that there is anyone better capable of sheparding the kind of legislation most likely to force difficult choices on to the GOP and Trump while avoiding the cocky misteps of newfound power.[This is the actual answer to the title question] Nancy well remembers the Henry Hyde impeachment debacle that lost the GOP its majority. That woman is not stupid, she understands the legislative process and she can count votes. I am not sure she can survive this pincher movement.
First you get trump nuetered then put him on a short leash and a muzzle, then wait 2 years and put him down.
Quite frankly, your party doesn't deserve to have power. They all act like immature children, and put blame on someone else.
Jesus Christ, the absolute irony.