The Hope for “Cooperation”

The nation is 40% “conservative” and 20% “liberal” and with the absolute wipe-out of the “Blue Dog” Democrats the Democrats have become the Liberal Party. Alternately, the “moderate” Republicans have been pushed to the right by the Tea Party and have become the Conservative Party.

This realignment has been long coming, and was pushed over the line by the TEA Party.

Now this election provided the left with enclaves…tiny little areas of the nation from which they will launch their counterattacks, but mostly those enclaves will be trying to manage their economic future and discovering that they must use conservative economic methodologies to do so.

There are area where the President will find cooperation – education is one of them – and there are areas where there is a HUGE divide, like immigration. Which of the two issues each side decides to use as the opening message will tell us whether the two sides can at least begin with cooperation. I suspect that jobs will be the actual first bi-partisan step, and it will take place along conservative principles.

Whatever they do, any cooperation will not last long. The reason is Obamacare.

President Obama still wants it just as it stands, but the Democrats who are still standing understand that the voters still don’t like that bill and they understand the next elections are right around the corner. I fully expect that they understand that the center moved to the right in this election.

This blog contains a lot of bloggers who contend that President Obama was not sufficiently liberal – didn’t push Single-Payer, didn’t close GITMO, didn’t immediately withdraw from Afghanistan, didn’t end DADT by Executive Order, didn’t…

But even with trying to walk a thin line, President Obama was sent an unmistakable message – too much, too soon. He now has zero hope of a further liberal agenda and the question simply is: Will he become Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter.

We will see soon enough.

 

A New Day in America

Writing in SLATE, Curtis Sittenfeld states:

“I Still Love Obama. Love. Love. Love.”

But then in the sub-head, asks: Am I the last person in America who still adores President Obama?”

The obvious answer is “No” but there are certainly a diminishing number as the election results show.

It was a classic case of “over-reaching” — believing that a few million Yea votes over Nay votes constitutes a “mandate.’” That is not a Democrat or Republican malady, it afflicts both equally.

The Republicans did not win as  much in the Senate as they might have wished, but more than they had hoped for in the house. The Democrats have things to celebrate, and the Republicans have far more to celebrate.

Those House Democrats that survived, particularly those with poor Republican opponents are hearing footsteps and that means that those House Democrats will be looking for cover. President Obama can’t count on many of the surviving Democrats in the House – they are hearing footsteps.

The TEA Party needs to cleanup their candidate selection methodology as do the Republicans in general. The voters have had too many “surprises” with poor candidates – although the Democrats hold the record with Alvin Greene.

There were some Democrat wins that were big: Jerry Brown, who will be EXTREMELY constrained by budget woes; Prop. 23 which Jerry may well delay for years while the California Budget recovers, Barbara Boxer who may not even continue her leadership roll because of her national polls.

Locally, Prop. D tanked, as expected. I hope that delivered a message – but I doubt it.

Democrats can pick and choose their “victories” to make themselves feel better, but in 60 days we will see a massive change in the politics of America as The U-Hauls arrive and leave Washington, D.C.

It was not just Senate and House, it was 10 Democrats as Governor losing their seats to Republicans.

Now we will see if the Republicans learned their lesson last time, and if the Democrats take away the lessons of this massive defeat. The “big government, big spenders” of BOTH political parties are on notice.

The presidential race begins today. The Democrats have one badly tarnished SuperStar – who, as of late last night lost each and every candidate he had gone in to personally support over the past two weeks. The Republicans have some new faces – notably, Crist and Rubio – to ponder and groom.