Let me take off my advocacy hat and put on my punditry hat. If we take a look at the political climate it appears that we’ve reached an impasse. Here is how DemFromCT puts it:
And when the votes are not there, you concentrate on core principles and look to 2008 to garner more votes (unless conditions change, attracting more R votes).
Here is how Chuck Schumer puts it:
“The Republican leadership and the White House is getting them all to march in line,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, who ranks third in the party leadership. “But it is marching further and further away from where America is. We just keep at it. It’s all we can do.”..
Set aside for the moment the idea that they actually can do more…it doesn’t appear that they intend to do more. How will that play?
The Democrats will be blamed for a failure to deliver, but it will not translate into a boon to the GOP. There will be a couple of primaries against Dems. There will be a lot of talk about how there is no difference between the parties. But the electorate is still going to be eager to punish the GOP next November. Another year of bodybags and bad news will guarantee that.
And the Republicans are probably going to lose senate seats in Maine, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Oregon, Colorado, Virginia, and Nebraska. In fact, they stand a good chance of losing seats in Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina. And if things really turn sour, they might lose seats in Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. Meanwhile, Alaska and Idaho remain wildcards. That’s thirteen senate seats with two additional wildcards.
They lose all of them and we’ll have 66 votes. They lose half of them and we’ll have 58-59 votes.
That appears to be the current strategy. And it is unlikely the Republicans can do much to prevent losses in the 7-8 range.
You’d think they’d respond to this threat. Reid certainly hoped they would respond to it. I’m at a loss to explain why they haven’t responded to it.
In the House, the Republicans are retiring in droves. The landscape keeps getting worse and worse for Republicans. And think about this: how many Republicans are in trouble with the law in spite of a fully politicized Justice Department? How many more will be in trouble with the law once a Democratic Attorney General is sworn in?
And, yet, they won’t move. The Democrats are giving the GOP more than enough rope to hang themselves and they are obliging with gusto.
There’s just one problem. What about the well being of the troops?
