Re: Scary thought. thanks mr. rich
[quote=88Mariner;412561]Some of you, it seems, have made an incorrect assumption that America voted FOR the Democrats. In reality, America voted AGAINST the Republicans.
Let's look at this: According to exit polls, what was the most [I]important[/I] issue in the election? Iraq? Energy policy? Nope. According to CNN, 42% of voters said [I]corruption[/I] was number one. Islamic terrorism came in at 40%....then the war in Iraq at 37%. In sum, it was an overwhelming rebuke of President Bush and the Republican party based on Iraq.
Let's look at corruption: You have scandals that elevated over the past few years, and being played up by the meida....the stench grew too great and voters couldn't ignore it anymore. Republican incompetence regarding the Foley incident was only adding insult to injury btw. Interesting, however, is that terrorism comes in second at 40%. The Democrats are the least-equipped party to ever deal with the issue of Islamic terrorism. That just shows you how far the Republicans have fallen, that they lost their on their signature issue. And.... if there were any other issues that caused America to vote against the Republican Party, it was illegal immigration. An i ssue Republicans have alsoe done nothing to change.[/quote]
Good point. Most of the democrats who unseated republicans this time around are what we call "Blue Dog" democrats. They are moderates, if not outright conservatives wearing blue shirts. This was hardly a win for liberalism.
Secondly, it is common through history for a second term president to lose party control. It has happened to nearly every one.
The next two years will yield little or nothing in terms of legislation. I will explain why:
The democrat party is fractured. It consists of numerous special-interest groups. Evironmentalists, gays/lesbians, blacks, hispanics, blue-dogs, labor unions. So... if a democrat congressman wants to introduce a new bill, he has to get it past all these groups. Each group is going to tack on their own stuff. The black caucus will add on giveaways.... The the hispanics are going to do the same.... Then they have to get the Blue-Dog dems to agree on it, but they are going to disagree with the Black and Hispanic Caucuses provisions.... And then, if you can get past all that, the gays and environmentalists are going to have their way with it. By the time you get done, the bill won't resemble anything close to the original. So.... let's say you get past that, and then the House votes on it and it passes. Well, then you've got to get it past the Senate. Here is where you really run into a problem. The Dems only have a 1 seat majority in the Senate. In order to force legislation through, you need a 10 seat majority. Otherwise you can't override a fillibuster. And even then the president has a veto, and the dems don't have a 2/3 majority in the House to override the veto. So, we're not likely to see much new legislation for the next few years.