Congress Drives If Romney Wins
Ryan Lizza didn’t include this in his New Yorker profile of Paul Ryan:
Romney, under some pressure, frankly, endorsed [the Ryan budget]. And if Romney were to be elected president, I think this would be an unusual presidency in that it would be led from Congress. You know, one quote I didn’t include in the piece but I think is instructive is there’s this phrase you hear in Washington from some Republicans and some conservative activists that we don’t really want a president with a whole lot of ideas. We know what we want to do, we being House Republicans. We just want a president who’s almost like an auto-pen. We’ll pass the legislation, send it to the White House, and it will be signed. Now granted, Mitt Romney may have a thing or two to say about that, but that’s the – that is the feeling, that is the sentiment among the very conservative members of the Republican class who were elected in 2010. And Ryan, who of course was elected before that, has been sort of the intellectual mentor to that class. And so I think they’re going to be driving the policy in Washington after the elections.
Now that’s a scary thought.
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No worries there with a do-nothing Congress.
I haven’t seen much on Senate races, but if the GOP wins the Senate, then they have both houses of Congress. THEN they’ll do stuff: they’ll start screwing over American the likes of which we’ve NEVER seen.
While the popular vote will be close the electoral vote will not be. Both Nate Silver and Electoral-Vote.Com have Obama getting 300 EVs or more and Romney is losing ground. It would appear there is a chance that the Democrats can hold the Senate.
Winning more seats in the Senate, as we’ve seen, still guarantees gridlock unless one party has 60 seats, or the rules are changed. Winning the Presidency without one or both parties in Congress leaves us with an executive who must govern by executive order and other methods.
If there is an enormous backlash to Obama’s first term (I doubt that) and both the Presidency and Congress become Republican, Barky is right – we will see more change than in FDR’s first two terms and it will be in reverse.
If it looks like the GOP is going to take the Senate I’m voting for Obama. Although I’m sure the Democrats would be as willing to filibuster as the GOP has been, a GOP majority in both houses plus the presidency would be disastrous.
On Ryan Lizza’s point that a president being led from congress would be unusual, I disagree. Obama was pretty much a guaranteed rubber stamp while Democrats held the House. Some of that was due to his inexperience combined with the number of critical issues that seemed to hit all at once early in his presidency. Even in the case of the ACA while Obama did set the ground rules there was not much doubt that he would sign the bill. Off the top of my head the only case I can think of where Obama might have gone against his party’s wishes would be the Afghanistan surge, and even then there has been very little kickback from his party.
This is not to say Romney would be any better. Blindly endorsing Ryan’s budget would be harmful.
(sorry, screwed up the blockquote tags. Bring back post editting, TMV!!!)
barky, is there not an ‘edit’ at the top of your post? It is pale gray and in caps.
write to me personally to let me know. I see the edit button on everyone’s comments, though it is not a button, but the word EDIT