Mitt Romney Better Move to Right, Says Emboldened Tea Party
The Executive branch of the government is meant to be a check on the Legislative branch. It seems that some people believe that the Executive should be a puppet of the Legislative branch, effectively abolishing it except as a rubber stamp for their agenda.
The Tea Baggers, for all they wave the constitution, have no clue as to what’s actually in it.
And if the 2nd amendment remedies don’t work do they start protesting about quartering soldiers?
I do believe that if Romney wins and the Republicans control both chambers, that the agenda will be set by Congress. Unless of course Congress is overstepping. Romney ain’t going down with them if they get stupid. If there’s one thing about Romney, he’ll do whatever he has to do to stay politically viable.
But if Democrats maintain control of the Senate, I think President Romney holds all the cards. He can propose moderate solutions and the GOP will have little choice but to back him or risk a failed Presidency.
That’s about right, I think. Except that the Democrats will still almost certainly have enough votes to sustain a filibuster. So then the question becomes - how much is Romney willing to work with Reid to get things done?
If the electorate moves sufficiently stupidward, will Romney follow?
Obama: Forward
Romney: Stupidward
A President doesn’t really intervene in Congressional process. A filibuster can be beaten if the majority party really wants to beat it:
A filibuster can be defeated by the majority party if they leave the debated issue on the agenda indefinitely, without adding anything else. Indeed, Thurmond’s attempt to filibuster the Civil Rights Act of 1957 was defeated when Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson refused to refer any further business to the Senate, which required the filibuster to be kept up indefinitely. Instead, the opponents were all given a chance to speak, and the matter eventually was forced to a vote. Thurmond’s aforementioned stall holds the record for the longest filibuster in U.S. Senate history at 24 hours, 18 minutes.[10]
However, if the Republicans are in a hurry, then yes, Romney will have to work with reid. I have little doubt that Romney would be inclined to work with Reid. The real issue is if Republicans would go along with that. I’d imagine again that they’d have to or else risk Romney having a failed presidency.
See, that’s the thing. I’ve always wanted to live in The Future. You can’t get to The Future if you insist on living in The Past.
Well I am beginning to understand the stupidward approach. The future just hasn’t turned out as good as it was claimed. If Obama wants people to go with the forward approach he ought to get us our jet packs.
I spend every moment of every day trying to move into the future, but I only end up in the present, 'cause the future keeps moving on me!
The thread title is nowhere close to what the quote says. It’s really a statement of the obvious. Tea Party types don’t trust Romney, so their plan is to force him to follow their lead and he’s pretty much promised to do that even though he’d never say he’s going to defer to Congress.
It’s a rhetorical device.
It doesn’t accurately reflect the issue, though. You’d have to amend the Constitution to get rid of the executive branch and it would screw up the system thoroughly, but there’s no requirement that the executive branch has to take the lead on policy. That’s certainly how it has worked for generations. Things being what they are, we know that Boehner can’t keep the Tea Party caucus in line even on basic common sense moves like the debt ceiling and there’s no reason to believe Romney would be any more successful since they don’t trust him at all.
As I said, it’s a rhetorical device. Nobody is actually calling for the abolishment of the Executive branch. What I was getting at is that the Teabaggers seem to want to take all of the power from the presidency, turning the President into a puppet of (the Far-Right-controlled) Congress. They want all the power, with no checks on that power. This is not ‘abolishing’ the Executive branch, but an ideology that emasculates it and effectively gets rid of it.
Does anybody want their agenda checked? They want to force Romney to fall in line.
Mitt Romney will do what Mitt Romney feels like doing. The Tea Party statements are a warning shot. But whether Romney kowtows to Congress or leads will depend on what’s better for him politically. If there’s one thing we know about Romney, it’s that he’ll be whoever we want him to be.
“All we have to do is replace Obama. … We are not auditioning for fearless leader. We don’t need a president to tell us in what direction to go. We know what direction to go. We want the Ryan budget. … We just need a president to sign this stuff. We don’t need someone to think it up or design it. The leadership now for the modern conservative movement for the next 20 years will be coming out of the House and the Senate. […]
Pick a Republican with enough working digits to handle a pen to become president of the United States. This is a change for Republicans: the House and Senate doing the work with the president signing bills. His job is to be captain of the team, to sign the legislation that has already been prepared.”
-Grover Norquist
Grover’s already on the hot seat with Frank Gaffney and CPAC for his dealings with the Muslim Brotherhood.
That would be a parliamentary system. It does have some advantages over a presidential system, perhaps Publius was wrong about that.
The “we” there, of course, would not include me nor you.