Oops, dead link. Try: Republicans Blow Historic Opportunity To Retake Senate - TPM – Talking Points Memo
And then there’s the Freepers:
Reality: Minus 2.
House: No numbers, just another GOP win, and
.
If the GOP win the Senate, Obama should automatically veto everything until his term ends, just to give them a taste of their own obstructionism.
It won’t be good for the country, but the GOP stopped caring a while back.
I don’t see how vetoing everything the GOP comes up with could possibly be bad for the country.
Frankly, I think the Republicans are counting far too much on the usual “midterm fatigue”. People are pissed at the do-nothing Republicans, and the people who usually stay home for the midterms are going to come out in droves. They probably keep the House, but their majority even with the gerrymandering is likely to shrink. The Senate? Forget about it.
Oh, the polls, you say? RCP has a huge Repub bias. And they are not fortune tellers. Did any of them predict Cantor getting creamed by a Teabagger? :dubious:
That would be soooo great. Please please with sugar on top, Obama, listen to your “base”!
Would you like to make a small wager? If one of these events happens:
- Republicans lose seats in the House
- Republicans lose seats in the Senate
then I pay $100 to your favorite charity. If it doesn’t happen, you pay $100 to mine. Deal?
Hell, he ain’t MY president.
So would you like to place a bet on this Senate prediction?
I predict the GOP will control the Senate. I am certain enough to back the prediction with a bet.
Bricker, wanting to bet?!? If I didn’t see it, I wouldn’t believe it!
By the way, what odds will you give me?
No, it directly responds to your silly suggestion that ramming things through with 51% is somehow acting shady.
Skewed polls?
RCP doesn’t poll, they just compile polls. And predicting unusual turnout patterns is what gets people in trouble. People being pissed at do-nothing politicians? That’s never happened and never will happen. People get pissed at what politicians DO. Not doing anything may not make people happy, but it only pisses off ambitious partisans who weren’t going to vote for them anyway. If you’re a Democrat who had big dreams of transforming our country into Sweden circa 1970, then yeah, you’re pissed off. No one else is.
Can you quote where I said it was “acting shady”?
I don’t wish to attribute things to you that you did not mean. But I don’t think you’re communicating effectively if you’re seriously suggesting that you didn’t mean to create some kind of negative attribution here.
In response to this:
You said this:
In your mind, what did you mean by “ramming things through”?
Did you mean to suggest that “ramming things through” isn’t some kind of underhanded, or negative thing? Why use such violent imagery then? Why not say passing? Or enacting legislation?
“Ramming things through” as in “going against the wishes of 49% of the Senate”. As in “winning by the slimmest of margins”. As in “barely there”. As in “using every trick in the book in order to pass it”. As in “running roughshod over the opposition”. Better? Yes, it is “negative”. No, it has nothing to do with “shady” or “undemocratic”. It is done in the open, so it is not “shady”, and it is done by the rules, so it is not “undemocratic”. Still negative.
Yes, “ramming things through”, “going against the wishes of 49% of the Senate”, “winning by the slimmest of margins” and “barely there” votes do not do anything to alleviate the condition that **iiandyiiii ** was complaining about. If you think they actually do - say it.
Yes, it is “democratic”. No, it does not do anything to help the country.
So it involves tricks, but isn’t shady? I think your palpable disgust is coloring your rhetoric.
Well, the ACA did help the country considerably, by taking us closer to universal healthcare.
But that’s another thread.
They are legal tricks. All within rules. And all they do is blow more oxygen on the fire of partisanship.
You don’t think a standing filibuster is already doing that?
If the GOP decides that simply nothing of consequence will pass without a filibuster, you’re going to get things passing with narrow margins. I don’t see that as a Dem fault, it’s the GOPs fault for demanding unthinking ideological lockstep.
No, I do not. It makes sure that, especially for nominations that are lifetime appointments, extremists are not selected.
Democrats worked themselves into a frenzy, but the facts show that the nomination filibusters were nothing extraordinary.
In the Congressional Research Service report released back then before the “nuclear option” was invoked, it was shown that
For district court nominees:
Obama - Senate approved 143 of 173 nominees
G.W. Bush - Senate approved 170 of 179 nominees
Clinton - Senate approved 170 of 198 nominees
G.H.W. Bush - Senate approved 150 of 195 nominees.
I don’t recall GHWB time Republicans threatening a nuclear option, faced with such huge rejection rate.
For federal appeals court nominees
GWB - 35 of 52 confirmed
Obama - 30 of 42 by that time
See a huge, amazing, outrageous difference? I don’t.
It was not “nothing of consequence” in general. It was a bill that would change, quite significantly, the structure of American life. Passing it by the slimmest of margins is incendiary - mission accomplished, I guess.
GOP Senate leadership was on record that their top priority, legislative or otherwise, was to ensure Obama was a one-term President. Against that type of opposition, it’s either “pass with narrow margins of all or mostly-all Democratic votes” or “don’t pass anything at all”.
Or, “don’t pass it” or “pass it and poison the political atmosphere for decades to come”. As I said, mission accomplished.