The Irrelevant House Republicans
Elizabeth Drew has an interesting piece on “The Truth About the Election” but I wanted to comment on this one point:
Obama has spoken a great deal about seeking bipartisanship, but how much this is attainable is yet to be known. The Republican ranks on Capitol Hill will have shrunk as a result of the election, and will be more dominated by the right. Few moderate Republicans in the Senate—Maine Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe among them—remain. In the House, there are only seventeen Republicans from the eastern states between Maryland and Maine, and none from New England. Obama seeks to set a new tone in Washington, but House Republican leaders, and those jockeying for leadership positions, like Eric Cantor (Virginia) and Dan Lungren (California), are playing to their conservative base and are sounding as partisan as ever—if not more so. They appear disinclined to give the new President any cooperation, shortsighted though that may be for their party.
The thing of it is that it doesn’t really matter what Eric Cantor thinks. The House Republicans are, in effect, irrelevant. The House GOP mattered in the 110th Congress because President Bush used his agenda-setting powers to frame a certain number of issues such that Blue Dogs agreed with the Republicans. In the 111th Congress, you’ll have more liberals (making Blue Dog votes less necessary) plus more Blue Dogs (reducing the proportion of the Blue Dog faction you need to get all the Blue Dog votes you need) and a Democratic president who presumably won’t deliberately shift the agenda to terrain that lets the Republicans get the upper hand.
What matters is the Senate. And I would suggest that what matters here is less the number of moderates than the number of people representing states Obama won. Namely — Senators Collins, Snowe, Spectre, Voinovich, Lugar, Grassley, Burr, Martinez, Ensign, and possibly Coleman. Obama will have a strong argument to make that the voters of those states would like to see congress cooperate with the Obama agenda, and he has the organizational tools at his disposal to ensure that voters who feel that way are able to express their feelings to their senators.
55 Responses to “The Irrelevant House Republicans”
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November 26th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
Senator Spectre — an honourable man, he’s long been one of my favourites.
November 26th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Judd Gregg gets off the hook?
November 26th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
Gregg’s a Senator, and lately he’s been applauding Obama’s cabinet picks. The guy knows which way the wind is blowing.
Cantor, on the other hand, is a complete moron.
November 26th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Arrogance doesn’t wear well, no matter who the arrogant party is. Democrats should follow a disciplined, purposeful course, but if they start swaggering around and telling the other side that they “don’t matter,” then the Democrats will quickly lose public support, and will richly deserve to.
November 26th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
Cool! Having just one Party will make things so much more efficient.
November 26th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
I think this was one of the main reasons I got on board the Obama train early on. For some reason way back when Hillary was the ostensible front-runner it just seemed that Obama was more likely to appeal to a broader spectrum of voters, which would then give him leverage against possible dissenters from his policy goals in the Congress.
November 26th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
Spectre is pretty good as far as the opposition goes. Better than Oddjob or Jaws or Grace Jones.
November 26th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
This is also the same reason that the block everything approach that the 110th Senate took will not be as effective in the 111th.
Last year, when the Republicans put blocks on everything the Senate tried to pass, the President was in a position to cooperate with the strategy by ignoring what the Republicans were doing thus setting up the “Do Nothing Congress” narrative.
A Democratic President will be in a position to turn up the heat on selected Republican Senators by publicly calling them out. Even a threat to do so may be enough.
November 26th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
The Blue Dogs are the building blocks of the new GOP. They are the ones who are going to scuttle everything. Until Reid finally starts calling the filibuster bluff.
The solution to the filibuster is to just let them do it. 2 days, 5 days, a month, whatever. Let them shut it down, ever moment saying, up or down vote. Great politics. Great policy. Great in every way.
It will never happen. The congressional leadership, and really much of the membership is in fact Republican.
November 26th, 2008 at 6:45 pm
Rapier,
If I’m not mistaken, aren’t Blue Dogs almost exclusively in the House? Who would the Senate ones be…Lincoln and Landrieu?
And if nothing else, I trust Rahm can keep the Democrats in line sufficiently well to pass things. That is his entire job description.
November 26th, 2008 at 7:24 pm
Specter..not Spectre, which is the organization contra James Bond if I remember.
This an interesting situation and I sense some of the more moderate Republicans will follow their conscience on occasion..especially since the Repubs are drifting right with lots of dissension.
November 26th, 2008 at 8:00 pm
A minor point, but what I thought was odd in the Drew article was the parenthetical comment at the beginning about Obama being better prepared for the modern presidency than his predecessors, including the vice-presidents except possibly Bush. I’m not sure how she’s defining “modern”, but the only sitting VPs to take office since FDR are Truman, Johnson, Ford and Bush (with Nixon being a former VP), and it’s unclear why she would specify vice-presidents and why she would except Bush senior. I don’t think I agree with her in any event, much as I like Obama, but if she’s going to write as if VPs becoming president are a common occurrence and then randomly except one of the four VPs from her general rule, it makes me wonder if she really was thinking “is he more prepared than Eisenhower? is he more prepared than JFK? is he more prepared than LBJ?”. Maybe she was just writing, decided to use hyperbole, then stuck in an exception at random to make it look like she had thought through what she was saying.
Anyway, end of digression. Don’t let me interrupt the conversation in this thread.
November 26th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Cantor has to have the most over-rated intellect. If you
read the MSM he is always praised for being smart, but he
has never said anything smart or interesting.
He is lucky because he is being compared to his
simpleton colleagues – like Pence et al. So he just
seems smart by contrast.
Newt was probably smarter – even though that college
class he was teaching was a joke.
November 27th, 2008 at 6:46 am
Welcome to the beginning of the one party state. The Republicans in the House and Senate are irrelevant. And with the coming redistricting in 2010, there will be even fewer Republicans in the Houses in 2012. Let the Democrats pass comprehensive immigration reform, and the Republican Party will have no choice but to close up shop.
Image how interesting politics will be in the future when the PResidential eleciton is decided in the Democratic priamry between the Iowa caucuses and the Super Tuesday primaries. If the Democratic nominee does not come out of the existing administration, the transition will last for over a year.
November 27th, 2008 at 8:32 am
Somebody should have told you that your opinion didn’t matter six years ago. Perhaps I am taking this a bit too literally, but I think that everyone’s opinion should be listened to, regardless of how wrong I find them. I never hated anything more than the sense of alienation I felt as a Democrat from 2002-2004. There was a sense that what we thought and said was completely irrelevant because of one election. For all my utter contempt for some Republican ideas, I would never want to subject anyone to that feeling, even them. So while Congressman like Eric Cantor don’t have votes that will tip the balance or ideas that represent the center of this country, we should listen to them, for that is the only way we will avoid the seemingly inevitable pendulum swing back right after we have taken the country too far left. For even if we govern from the left, we must listen to the right.
November 27th, 2008 at 9:10 am
Yes, let’s listen to them. And then do the right thing anyway.
Let them howl their objections, and then when the policies they oppose begin to work, expose them for the ideological fools they are.
And if they threaten to filibuster in the Senate, let them try it. And every day, point out that they are obstructing attempts to save the economy and pin the tail on the elephant, hard, when things get worse. (And increase the protection around the President!)
But hope that some sort of intelligent and realistic opposition party re-organizes around the rump of the Republicans…I don’t trust long-term one-party domination even if it is my party. Corruption is inevitable, leading to a possible backlash and resurgence of the Christina Taliban.
November 27th, 2008 at 11:07 am
I’m hoping that Obama, Biden, and Emmanuel are reading this blog and find the term “irrelevant” to be offensive and counter-productive to the goals of Obama’s administration.
I’m hoping Obama humors silly people like Matthew Yglesias who literally flaunts the term “irrelevant,” but distances himself from such arrogance.
I’m hoping that Obama’s distancing from such childish blog crap sends a message to the childish bloggers who post such claptrap.
November 27th, 2008 at 11:34 am
Yep, Obama should be able to politely persuade a few Republican Senators to come on board. And if not, he can probably get enough of them bounced in 2010–which again is why he should be able to politely persuade them to come on board
Wow, the arrogance here is just dripping and add in a dash of ignorant. Obama now can get Senators “bounced”? Talk about a rookie point of view. I hate to break the news to you, but historically the Dems have been their own worst enemy. I would not plan on making gains in 2010. There is now no one to blame. This is going to be fun.
November 27th, 2008 at 11:45 am
I love the way the republicans think that Obama has to kiss their ass. Why? They act like they’re the ones with the mandate still. The country voted the democrats in after eight years of republican incompetence that constantly denigrated the democrats and didn’t give one iota of respect to dissent.
Bipartisanship to get things done, but let’s not try to turn Obama into a republican. If he were one, he wouldn’t have won.
November 27th, 2008 at 11:46 am
Bill
So there was SOMEONE to blame for the last 14 years? Who?
November 27th, 2008 at 11:46 am
McConnell is in for a shock if he expects filibusters more that ultra rarely.
ALL those judicial picks. Awesome. Obama will change the 4th Circuit from one of the most conservative to one of the most liberal Circuits the first month he is in office.
Lurking Freepers . . . the nightmare you worried about has arrived!
November 27th, 2008 at 11:56 am
I would not plan on making gains in 2010. There is now no one to blame. This is going to be fun.
Have you looked at the 2010 races? Maybe Blanch Lincoln loses (which doesn’t mean much) but I sort of doubt it. GOP has to hold onto Voinovich, Martinez, and Vittner (I don’t even know if he can run again).
November 27th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Politics will ALWAYS trump “public interest.”
I therefore expect the GOPukes, especially in the Senate, but also in the House, to be not only obstructionist but also uncooperative, viciously partisan, and (gasp) successful.
I think the GOP more or less let this election go Dim, because they know the clusterf00ks left from the Bushevik regime will prove so intractable that NO ONE could address them without a solid 67-vote majority. I don’t even think the Dims will be able to corral and hold a reliable 60 votes.
Remember: It is in the BEST INTERESTS of the GOP–qua “GOP”– that Mr.O fail to solve Murka’s problems, and that he fail as obviously and completely as possible.
I’ll revise my opinion when there is evidence that I am wrong…
November 27th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Fortunately for Obama, he and the people around him are neither as shortsighted nor as stupid as Matthew Yglesias, who sounds a lot like a Bush Republican after the election of 2004.
Obama is engaged in moderate, expansive politics right now because he understands that the worm will turn and Republicans will become more popular in future as people tire of him. That’s why he will engage House Republicans and Blue Dogs.
This is the kind of Nixonian politics that will get Barack a second term. If the thought like Matt he’d be out on his ass in 2012 and we’d get President Wassilla.
Jesus, Matt, and you claimed that Steve Den Beste was a fool?
November 27th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
How many Taliban, Somalia pirates and Iraqi insurgence are there? Not that many in the scheme of things.
The point is, it doesn’t take many bodies to bog down the Democratic agenda. Organizations tend to be scared by anything attacking them no matter how big the numbers. The Democrats are the rule to this idea and not the exception. Just look at Obama’s reaction when a reporter asked him why he his hiring old foggys while touting change. He is going to be bashed on that every day by the Republicans and the press in the red states. Soon the “mistakes” by the Democrats will be making the mainstream press as they will no longer be able to hide the noise the Republicans make.
November 27th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Re: The point is, it doesn’t take many bodies to bog down the Democratic agenda.
I actually think Obama has a well-thought out strategy behind his appointments, espcieally the foreign policy ones. Little noticed amid the Sturm und Drang on Wall Street, but our foreign policy is atually kinda, sorta working OK. At least at keeping things down to a dull roar. I think Obama wants to keep it that way while he focuses on putting out the conflagration threatening the economy. So he’ll continue Bush’s (current) foreign policy with some changes in tone and style and emphasis. There’s a tacit deal offered to the GOP there: give him a free hand with the economy and and foreign policy will stay (more or less) in the GOP mold for the time being. And if that deal is not acceptable then there’s also a threat behind it. The Neocon right is not particularly rightwing on domestic issues; most of them either don’t care about things like abortion and taxes, or else they are even a bit liberal on them. So Obama will seduce the Neocons away from the GOP coalition leaving the Grover Norquist and James Dobson groupies. The GOP will either have to accept the deal or risk losing one of the three legs of their tripod. And two-legged stools don’t tend to balance very well.
November 27th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
Matt,
I don’t disagree with your basic premise. However, I think you’re missing something here and that is the ability of Cantor, Lundgren, Issa, Hensarling and co to make a lot of noise when they have the services of the right wing noise machine at their disposal. Talk radio, Faux, publishing, blogs, the usual parasites like Coulter, Ingraham and co all pounding home the messages of Cantor and co, and repeating their whining about how they are being abused by those nasty brutal concentration camp guards led by Nancy Pelosi.
The good news here is that it will all be massively counterproductive and damaging to the GOP because of the appearance of obstructionism and the strident tone that comes naturally to these folks. Remember the $700 billion bailout show. In fact I don’t think the GOP in the main, some do, realizes what a monster they’ve created with the far right media. An evening with Glenn Beck is going to convince any independant or moderate Republican that these folks are nuts as it did with a Republican friend of mine I challenged to watch his show. Now since the real name of the game for the far right media is profit, they don’t really give a damn how bad they make the GOP look just so long as their wingnut audience keeps coming back for more. Inflaming the base has a second advantage for the Dems. It makes it much harder for the three factions in the GOP to reconcile. Just imagine the spaghetti that is going to hit the fan when the subject of immigration reform is revisted. I can’t wait.
November 27th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
JonF Says
November 27th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Neat bit of analysis. You’re right the nationalist leg doesn’t give a rat’s bottom about the religious fundies anymore than the economic conservative leg does. I think you have the dynamics on the unspoken “deal” right too.
November 27th, 2008 at 7:19 pm
Specter talks moderate, but when crunch time came he voted with Bush most of the time. His moderate talk was intended to get face time in the media, nothing more.
November 27th, 2008 at 11:47 pm
President Bill Clinton once confided to an aide,
November 28th, 2008 at 12:35 am
superdestroyer, could you pull your head out of your ass and stop repeatedly posting the same blisteringly stupid drivel all over the web about a “one-party state”?
November 28th, 2008 at 9:08 am
Obama has been pretty savvy about coming out ahead in the framing and PR department. If he works Senate relations right, he can come out looking like the president working towards bi-partisan ship (maybe this where the Lieberman thing could pay dividends) and doing what is best for the country, while the Republicans come out looking like snotty bastards who have a bad case of sour grapes. Of course Harry Reid needs to get with the program and not mess it up. I mean it’s not like the Senate Republicans are left with any A-game players.
November 28th, 2008 at 9:15 am
Matt, perhaps you could link to the article where you indicate that Senators from states that Bush carried in ‘00 and ‘04 should also follow his lead because he carried the State?
What a silly premise. The voters elected a supposedly “moderate” Democrat but the Republicans that got elected at exactly the same time really didn’t get elected but are supposed to follow the Democrats lead? If these voters wanted a Democrat Senator why did they elect RINO’s instead? More confusion about marking ballots from “progressives”? They can mandate the direction of the lives of billions of human beings but can’t figure out a “butterfly ballot”.
Why do I suspect that many, if not most, self-styled “progressives” favored “divided government” while there was a Republican President? Oh yeah, they lack intellectual consistency.
December 1st, 2008 at 2:26 am
Conservatism’s current intellectual chaos reverberated in the Republican ticket’s end-of-campaign crescendo of surreal warnings that big government — verily,
December 6th, 2008 at 7:32 pm
The Shenandoah County Office of Virginia Cooperative Extension at the County Government Center in Woodstock announces the following schedule of activities for the period of November 11 – November 19: Tuesday, November 11: ****Office
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