And then there were 60, including Stuart Smalley
Democrats now control two-thirds of the U.S. Senate, a super-majority that redefines American politics.
Republicans will continue to have enormous cultural power, with a 50-50 presence in the media.
But the big debates over the next eight months or so will largely occur within the Democratic caucus.
Conservative and moderate Democrats will fight to downsize the Obama-Pelosi agenda; but so far the left-of-center big tent is holding.
This also gives President Obama a pretty open horizon for making Supreme Court choices.
It is a sign of how far the GOP has fallen that their final toe-hold was pried loose by a Saturday Night Live comedian, Al Franken.
The man who gave us Stuart Smalley toppled Minnesota's veteran Republican Senator, Norm Coleman.
For conservatives, the events of the past couple of weeks heighten to a fever pitch the importance of the 2010 mid-terms.
Those elections can only be viewed as a referendum on Barack Obama's agenda. If Democrats prevail again, expanding their majority and solidifying their mandate, Republicans will face a truly existential crisis.
If the party's leaders can't stop the scandals, the in-fighting, and the ideological nastiness, building momentum (and raising money) for next year's elections will be tough.
posted by Brian Mann @ 6/30/2009 06:42:00 PM
1 Comments
1 Comments:
You are spot-on with the comment that the mid-term elections will be a referendum on Pres. Obama agenda. My fear is that the administration will not come through on their campaign promises. Patience tends to be in short supply when times are tougher and the American people may not respond well if they feel that they have been duped.
The Democrats need to take full advantage of their clear majority and ram as much of their legislation and projects through the system as quickly as possible. I have many concerns that this won't happen due to infighting within the party. It is encouraging that Speaker Pelosi is taking a hard line with the party defectors. Hopefully, she can bring them back into the fold and have them voting along party lines. The threats around support (or lack thereof) for upcoming elections should prove to work in her favor. This type of leadership allowed them to secure enough votes to puch the Cap and Tax bill through the House. With any luck, it will move quickly through the Senate. (The addition of the Minnesota comedian should help.)
We need the same type of force to push through the healthcare legislation. Each and every American should be able to have health insurance. Anything less than 100% would be considered failure. An older gentleman related a story to me over the weekend. He described raising a family of six on a North Country farm. He explained that he always had health insurance for his family. He explained that he did so by sacrificing some of the things that most folks consider to be necessities today. He said, "I always made sure we had health insurance, but you never saw a new vehicle, four-wheeler or boat sitting in my backyard. I had my priorities straight." This type of attitude is rare these days and that is one of the reasons that we need government-run healthcare. Our government needs to protect people from themselves. Congress needs to push healthcare reform through as quickly as possible. They need to quit worrying about how to fund it. Those with the ablility to pay will fund the program. If they don't like it, then they can leave. It's time to be PATRIOTIC.
I have been somewhat pleased with the movement to get our troops out of Iraq, while I do feel that it has been too long in coming and will not proceed fast enough.
Now is the time to strike and strike hard to push the Prsident's agenda through. Don't listen to the whining about running up the score. Just shrug and say, "Too bad. We won."
Hammond
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