Is the Obama Administration effectively over, even if he wins and Dems retake the House in 2012?

[RTFirefly]

Q. Is the Obama Administration effectively over, even if he wins and Dems retake the House in 2012?

A. Pretty much so, unless the Senate Dems have the guts to end the filibuster. And I don’t see that coming to pass.

It’s all about the calendar, and simple arithmetic.

The Senate is divided into three classes - Class I, which will be up for re-election in 2012; class II, which will be up for re-election in 2014; and Class III, which we just voted on, and can rest easy until 2016.

Right now, we’ve got a 53-47 Senate majority, nowhere close to enough to break a filibuster.

The class of 2012 is the same class of Senate seats that came up for election in 2006 and 2000. 2000 was a good year for Dems in the Senate (we picked up 5 seats that year, if I recall), and we really had to pick up just about every contestable seat in 2006 to go from 45 seats to 51 and re-take the Senate. So there isn’t much left on the table.

How little is left? Well, we should regain Ted Kennedy’s old seat that Scott Brown currently holds. And we can replace Joe Lieberman with a real Democrat, even though that doesn’t change the numbers. And John Ensign in Nevada should be vulnerable.

That’s really it, unless a Teabagger takes out Olympia Snowe in a primary that year. And we’ve got a slew of Dems in red/purple territory coming up that year - Tester in MT, Webb in VA, McCaskill in MO, both Nelsons, Sherrod Brown…it’ll be a tough year.

And we really need to do well in the Senate in 2012, because there are NO good pickup opportunities in 2014, unless Susan Collins loses to a Teabagger. We REALLY maxed out our winning chances in 2008.

In short, the biggest Senate majority Obama has even a decent chance of seeing is on the order of 55-45, and he’ll see that for only the first two years of his second term, if he’s lucky.

So even if we win back the House in 2012 - and by enough of a margin so that we have a functional majority as well as a technical one - Obama still isn’t going to get a thing through Congress besides budgets for the rest of his Presidency. Because he will never again have anywhere near the votes it takes to break a filibuster.

So it’s filibuster reform, or nothing.

[jayjay]

I think they HAVE to reform the filibuster while confirming Senate rules in January/February, because you can pretty much bet the farm that if/when the Republicans do take over in 2012, THEY’RE going to do it, so the argument over “tradition” is a moot point. The only way to make any gains at all for the next two years is going to be to get rid of it.

[Sam_Stone]

RTFirefly: I think that’s a reasonable analysis, but I think the situation is even more grim for the administration:

In 2014, the Democrats will have 20 Senate seats up for grabs, while the Republicans will only have 13. Of those, I think 9 Republican seats are potential turnovers, vs something like 16 for Democrats. So the Republicans have have pretty big built-in advantage going into the election.

But more importantly for right now, those 16 Democrat seats that are at risk are mostly the moderate Democrats, and that means they are going to be much more willing to buck their leadership and vote with the Republicans. The result of that is it’s entirely possible that the Republicans have a working majority in the Senate right now, so long as they put forward reasonably moderate legislation.

That will put Obama in the uncomfortable position of being forced to constantly veto bills put before him, which is not going to play well at all. And if he’s smart he’ll know that and try to co-opt the legislation and take credit for it rather than oppose it while in the end being forced to cave in on it anyway.

It gets worse. One of the more unreported stories of this election was the decimation of Democrats in state governments. Florida and Tennessee are now under complete Republican control, with Republicans controlling both the state legislature and the governorship. Republicans control 25 state legislatures, vs 16 for the Democrats.

That means you’ll see a lot more pushback from the states against any left-wing Obama administration initiatives. And, 2010 was a census year, and Republicans now control the majority of redistricting, which means they’ll likely cook in a an advantage for themselves, either by eliminating Democrat gerrymandered districts, or adding gerrymandered districts of their own.

All in all, this is going to severely limit the Obama administration’s ability to manoever.

[Sam_Stone]

@jayjay

I think they HAVE to reform the filibuster while confirming Senate rules in January/February, because you can pretty much bet the farm that if/when the Republicans do take over in 2012, THEY’RE going to do it, so the argument over “tradition” is a moot point. The only way to make any gains at all for the next two years is going to be to get rid of it.

If the Democrats do that, they’ll be destroyed in 2014. One of the things they got punished for in this election was the way in which they strong-armed health care reform. That really put a lot of independents off. If they come back after being sent this message and respond by eliminating the filibuster so they can continue on their same agenda, there will be all kinds of blowback.

[Ravenman]

Uh, since when does having the Congress in the hands of an opposition party mean the end of an Administration? That would mean Clinton had only two years of a presidency, Reagan barely had a presidency at all, and Nixon was never elected.

I think Obama will be re-elected in 2012, and I also think the the GOP leadership will soon learn that governing one of house of Congress means they will have to act a little more grown up than the rhetoric of the extreme Tea Party fringe may indicate right now.

[Der_Trihs]

@Sam_Stone

If the Democrats do that, they’ll be destroyed in 2014. One of the things they got punished for in this election was the way in which they strong-armed health care reform.

:rolleyes: That’s the complete opposite of what happened. They bent over backwards to be pleasing to the Republicans and ended up putting in a warmed over Republican plan that was a total sell-out. They were a collect of weak, ineffectual grovelers; they didn’t do anything even remotely resembling “strong arming”. They don’t have the spine.

[Lantern]

There is a lot more to an administration than passing big legislation. Foreign policy, judicial appointments, executive orders and so on. I expect Obama will shift focus to those things and in reality his legislative achievements in his first two years rival those of Bush or Clinton in their full 8 years.

 While it's highly unlikely that Democrats will ever again have a filibuster-proof majority there is a decent chance of getting some smaller bills through by attracting 5-10 relatively moderate Republicans.

Obama has been smart. He knew he had a unique window to pass big bills in these two years and he used it to the fullest. Perhaps he could have done a better job at communication and creating a larger narrative around his legislative accomplishments. Arguably he took too long with health care and wasted too much time wooing GOP moderates. But taken as a whole he has accomplished a huge amount. It’s unlikely he will achieve comparable legislative success in the rest of his presidency but there are a lot of other things he can do.

[vvill]

@Lantern

It’s unlikely he will achieve comparable legislative success in the rest of his presidency but there are a lot of other things he can do.

Surely if he wins another term he could do a lot more than if he had done better with these midterms and ends up not serving a second term.

[Shodan]

@Ravenman

Uh, since when does having the Congress in the hands of an opposition party mean the end of an Administration?

Ever since the Dems started complaining that they were outnumbered in the Senate 41-59.

Obamacare and the stimulus were what BHO was able to achieve with large majorities in both houses. Obamacare didn’t satisfy anybody, and the stimulus didn’t do anything beyond a skyrocketing deficit. Maybe,** if ** the Dems retake the House and Obama learns something from only controlling one house, and if he gets re-elected, he can achieve more of what he claimed to want. If he can overcome the traditional burden of being a lame-duck President.

Obama isn’t Clinton. He isn’t politically savvy or experienced enough to be able to triangulate or to take credit for what Congress does. There is going to be gridlock, so most of what Obama “achieves” is going to be defensive in nature - he may be able to stop the Republicans from extending the tax cuts, or repealing HCR. But increasing taxes is a hard thing to use to persuade people to re-elect you, and HCR may be even less popular once the effects start to kick in.

Obama’s biggest risk at the moment is to be perceived as fighting to protect the deficit. If it doesn’t go down significantly, and he is seen as the one preventing this from happening, hoo boy - his ass is grass, and the 2012 electorate is the lawnmower.

Regards,
Shodan

[Chronos]

Remember, Shodan, the things that Obama wanted in the health care bill were things that something like 80% of Americans wanted. If the Republicans hadn’t shoved the removal of those things down our throats, we’d be a lot better off, and the people would have gotten something much more like what they wanted.

The reason that the Dems complained about being outnumbered 41-59 was that the Republicans used those 41 to thwart the will of the people.

[Shodan]

@Chronos

Remember, Shodan, the things that Obama wanted in the health care bill were things that something like 80% of Americans wanted. If the Republicans hadn’t shoved the removal of those things down our throats, we’d be a lot better off, and the people would have gotten something much more like what they wanted.

Well, as mentioned, if Obama and the Democrats can’t do better than that (even assuming what you say is true), losing control of the House and being outnumbered by 47-53 instead of 41-59 does not bode well for Obama or his coalition of the easily outwitted.

Because what you are essentially saying is that Obama and the Democrats had a large majority, ideas with 80% support, and wound up with something nobody wanted.

Nice legislating, there, Pelosi, Reid, and Obama.

Regards,
Shodan

[gonzomax]

@Shodan

Well, as mentioned, if Obama and the Democrats can’t do better than that (even assuming what you say is true), losing control of the House and being outnumbered by 47-53 instead of 41-59 does not bode well for Obama or his coalition of the easily outwitted.

Because what you are essentially saying is that Obama and the Democrats had a large majority, ideas with 80% support, and wound up with something nobody wanted.

Nice legislating, there, Pelosi, Reid, and Obama.

Regards,
Shodan

Outwitted? They were filibustered over and over. That is not poor planning but simply numbers. 41 is enough to filibuster. The new Senate numbers don’t change a thing. It still will achieve a right wing filibustering pouting funk.

[Lobohan]

@Shodan

Well, as mentioned, if Obama and the Democrats can’t do better than that (even assuming what you say is true), losing control of the House and being outnumbered by 47-53 instead of 41-59 does not bode well for Obama or his coalition of the easily outwitted.

Because what you are essentially saying is that Obama and the Democrats had a large majority, ideas with 80% support, and wound up with something nobody wanted.

Nice legislating, there, Pelosi, Reid, and Obama.

Regards,
Shodan

As it happens the Senate Republicans had decided to be pouting stupid children for the entire last two years. This isn’t a random slander, it’s a fact. They’ve been using filibusters and other procedural holds twice as much as any before them.

Remember Shodan, facts are things that both parties have to deal with. You can’t just ignore them because they tell you different in Conservative-Town. Well you can, but you shouldn’t. Unless you just don’t care about facts.

[ralph124c]

Obama IS finished-his oft-touted “health care reform” is being challenged by the state of Missouri-and I think the US Supreme Court will find the act unconstitutional…so much for the alleged “brilliant lawyer”.
Bear in mind-MOST of the opposition to Obama comes NOT from republicans, but from his own party-imagine you are a WV democrat-and Obama goes around telling everyone that we have to stop using coal.
The man’s next two years will quite interesting-hopefully he will jettison some of his more egregiously incompetent cabinet members (Bernancke, Geithner)…only time will tell!

[jayjay]

@ralph124c

Bear in mind-MOST of the opposition to Obama comes NOT from republicans, but from his own party-imagine you are a WV democrat-and Obama goes around telling everyone that we have to stop using coal.

Most of the opposition from Dems is because Obama is TOO CENTRIST, not because he’s too liberal. And the whole WV-coal thing…what can you do when so many states are so backward and reactionary? Welcome to the 21st century, folks! Do try to keep up!

Sometimes I do wish I were one of the comfortable majority just so I had the luxury of ignoring all this stupid politics stuff. But, being a gay atheist, I kind of have to defend my very existence against the forces of retrograde thinking that keep trying to make this country one that would relegate me to exile or imprisonment, and, at the moment, those forces are concentrated on the right and in the Republican/Libertarian/Christofascist coalition-thingy.

[Absolute]

It’s pretty clear that everyone is living in their own little world in this thread.

[gonzomax]

I love it that righties are underestimating Obama. You think you have broken a code he can not discern. He can do what a lot of us want, prosecute some bankers. A nice rich guy who profited mightily from selling fraud walking a perp walk would go a long way to bringing back the love.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

The Obama administration can actually START now that the racists’ little temper tantrum is over. The Republicans actually have no choice but to implement his agenda now. They will be his bitches for the next six years, just like they were Clinton’s bitches after '94. It’s much easier to be obstructionist in the minority than the najority, and the Republicans now have the worst of both worlds – they will have the obligation to initiate legislation, but not the ability to modify it or sign it into law. They can’t do nothing and whatever they DO do has to pass the Senate and get signed by Obama. The notion that it will somehow hurt Obama for him to veto a bunch of teabagger bullshit is pure, retard fantasy on their part.

By the way, the meme that voters were reacting against HCR is a complete crock. Polls show that Americans favor everything in it. The displeasure was that it didn’t go far enough. Americans are not outraged that their insurance companies can’t cancel their policies if they get sick. Only insurance companies are upset about that.

Obama is going to be on money someday. Count on it.

[Starving_Artist]

@Diogenes_the_Cynic

By the way, the meme that voters were reacting against HCR is a complete crock. Polls show that Americans favor everything in it.

Ahem…

Why did Obama put his health plan so far ahead of the economy? To do what the Clintons couldn’t? His rush to do it sparked a broad resistance that has only spread since the bill was passed. The public sensed that healthcare was a victory for Obama, and maybe for the Democrats, but not for the country—and contrary to Democratic hopes, public support for the measure has continued to drop to as low as 34 percent in some polls. A significant majority, some 58 percent, now wish to repeal the entire bill, according to likely voters questioned in a late October poll by Rasmussen.

[bolding mine]

Cite

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

When you ask them if they’re against it, they say they are. When you ask them, point by point, what they oppose, they support everything in it.

And a great deal of those who say they don’t like it, don’t like it because it didn’t go FAR enough, not because they buy into teabagger mythos that it was a socialist takeover of health care.

It’s not going to be repealed, by the way. Not a fucking chance in the world.