Our political Quote of the Day comes from MSNBC’s First Read, quoting The Politico — a look at what most likely soon to be Speaker of the House Rep. John Boenher and a new in-control Republican party plan to do if they gain control of the House — work to make Barack Obama a one-term President via investigations and defunding and stalling parts of Obama’s legislative victories so far:
Boehner’s plans: Speaking of Boehner, Politico is reporting that House Republicans “have held a series of private discussions to plot their first moves if they win the majority in November — with plans to use spending bills and subpoenas to rein in President Barack Obama and satiate their own ravenous base… The plans presently under discussion include defunding some parts of the new health care law and delaying implementation of others, withholding some of the unspent stimulus funds, and using the oversight power of Republican-led committees to investigate the Obama administration. ‘The goal, obviously, would be to make it a one-term presidency,’ said a GOP lobbyist briefed on the talks.” This is going to be a fine line for the Republicans if they get control: Do they really want to be seen as simply an opposition party, even when in control? Over-obsessing on stopping all things Obama might not play well with indies.
Prediction: They’ll risk it. The stragety pursued since Rush Limbaugh said “I hope he fails” right after Obama’s election, when there had been fleeting talk about both parties actually cooperating and compromising to problem solve, has worked, just as the party has been re-invigorated by the Tea Party movement, just as how the stragety of Sarah Palin, Sharon Angle and others to avoid the mainstream media and focus mostly on Fox News and social media has worked.
If it’s not broke, don’t fix it…and for the GOP this has worked.
The bottom line: the prospect is for more politics and polarization and problem solving almost as a kind of afterthought (if it benefits X party or not). And the prospect is for the Democrats to clone and use this same strategy the next time the GOP gets control of the White House.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.