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Pinning all hopes on Hillary is beginning to look like a deathbed scenario for Democrats. I don’t think many of us will cave in and vote for her because she’s all we’ve got.
And now, after screw-ups, glitches, clowning around, attacks on healthcare, and the Boehner-Netanyahu follies, the Republicans have pretty much lost 2016.
Center-right Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker writes:
I’m getting that deja vu feeling as House Republicans these past several days have failed to alter the public’s perception that they’re incapable of governing.
This week marked Episode 2, Season 2 in the series “Homeland Security Face-Off.” Subtitle: “How Republicans Forfeit the White House in 2016.” …Parker,WaPo
Crisis! If your own columnist stamps your party with “incapable of governing,” you’re in big trouble.
It continues to get messier, and you can blame both Boehner and the tea party for that. The Republican party has written off a key constituency — Hispanics.
… What we do know is that a Republican can’t win the presidency if the party more widely is considered not ready for prime time.
Without the 40 percent of the Hispanic vote widely considered necessary to win — and enough independents and moderates who are turned off by the more-righteous-than-thou Freedom Caucus — a Republican doesn’t stand a chance. …Parker,WaPo
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In the end, Kevin Drum writes, yesterday’s vote turned out to be a big win for Dems in the House. “I wonder,” he asks, “if Republicans could have gotten a better deal if the tea party faction had been less bullheaded?”
… What if the tea partiers had signaled some willingness to compromise? Could they have passed a bill that repealed some small part of Obama’s program—and that could have passed the Senate? Maybe. Instead they got nothing. I guess maybe they’d rather stick to their guns than accomplish something small but useful. That sends a signal to their base, but unfortunately for them, it also sends a signal to Boehner. And increasingly, that signal is that he has no choice but to stop paying attention to their demands. There’s nothing in it for Boehner, is there? …Drum,MoJo
We won’t know for a while, but maybe the vote on homeland security funding was (finally!) the signal that the tea party is so over.