Making the assumption that Obama wins re-election to his second term, congressional Republicans will have lost what had been their main (some might say sole) priority in the years of his first term: making sure Barack Obama was a one-term president. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell even publicly made that pronouncement early on in Obama’s term.
So how will the behavior and actions of the Republicans in Congress change, if they do at all, when Obama serves his second term as POTUS? Will the neverending bill-blocking and rejecting, even when it contradicts previously held stances for Republicans, continue or will there be a more cooperative atmosphere?
Or will their goal be more long-term? To tarnish the legacy of Obama to the greatest extent possible and marginalize anything and everything he has/will accomplish? That is basically what I see happening; no real shift in willingness to work with Obama. Despite the fact that they’ve failed at their mission to make him a one-termer. It’ll be a long slough.
The 2014 Congressional elections come up only two years later.
The President and, by extension, his party get blame for whatever goes wrong during his term. Continuing to make sure that the President fails and the government looks dysfunctional will help in 2014 elections and set the stage for their candidate in the 2016 Presidential elections.
Stopping anything he tries, as usual. It’s not “work for the people who voted,” it’s “work for the people who wanted it the other way.”
“What? He wants more visible crosswalks in areas of he elderly?? Oh, snap! That’ll send paint fumes across the country! He’s only doing this to up his Obamacare-death panel thingy! Come to our prayerfest and help defeat him and his ‘religion’!” ( Speaking as a Santorum supporter. )
Why can’t it be both? Smear Obama’s legacy while simultaneously roadblocking everything he does. In particular there are likely to be some SCOTUS nominations coming up… that’s that the GOP is really after in this election, and I think you can expect those to be radioactive if Obama is the nominator.
The only really interesting thing will be to see which Republicans, if any, defect from the single-minded obstructionism and start to play ball with Obama. A long-term viable Republican party is going to have to concentrate on pandering either to the wealthy or the nutball social conservatives; they can’t pursue both forever. The Tea Party may capsize, or the moderate element may pull away from the crazy element entirely.
So to me, it’s not “what will the GOP do”, it’s “how will the GOP factionalize”.
Realistically, most of the top Republicans expect him to win a second term. Incumbents usually do. That’s why you see the second-raters running this year. The better candidates are waiting until 2016 when they can run against a new Democrat.
Well, Jews don’t strictly speaking have “sexes” like humans do. I think the usual rule is that the smaller spouse lays the eggs and goes with no beard, but that’s only an Ashkenazi custom, the Sephardim don’t follow it.
If (when) Obama wins a second term, Mitch McConnell and the GOP will announce that the single most important thing they want to achieve is for President Obama to be a two-term president.
(Then they will claim victory when they achieve that goal in 2016.)
You know, I wonder how that will play out. “Mr. McConnell, now that you’re failed at achieving your party’s single most important goal, Your Turtleship, are you willing to concede that this effort was an enormous waste of the GOP’s energy and resources over the past four years?”
