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[CyclopsRock]

Actually Americas elected a Democratic House, but due to gerrymandering the Republicans held it. I think this has been explained to you before.

And this manifests itself in political bargaining as "strength" how?

 

[The Librarian]

And this manifests itself in political bargaining as "strength" how?

Why are you going around the issue? If the House Republicans received less votes than their Democratic counterparts, then they have no legs on which to stand. They're not representing the wishes of those that have been elected.

 

[electricpirate]

Really? Yes, it's true that some higher income brackets got their taxes hiked but in exchange the Dems lost the estate tax, and the capital gains/dividends tax, permanently. The latter in particular are huge wins for the Republicans.

Estate tax is a win IMO, we got the original (higher?) rates back, just at a higher threshold. given the rise of the mega rich that's more important.

 

[Black Republican]

can we just cut entitlements from the deep red states, thats what the GOP really wants right?

 

[Mgoblue201]

Really? Yes, it's true that some higher income brackets got their taxes hiked but in exchange the Dems lost the estate tax, and the capital gains/dividends tax, permanently. The latter in particular are huge wins for the Republicans.

Well, personally, I think it would've required an immense effort just to extract marginally higher tax rates on those things and probably not without trading something in return. Instead, Democrats got a good percent of what they wanted and didn't have to give much of anything up. And Obama, in setting up another fight, still ensures another deal in the next few months. The lesson the GOP shouldn't be taking away is some self-aggrandizing nonsense about how they forced Obama to capitulate, because they also gave up quite a lot.

 

[CyclopsRock]

Why are you going around the issue? If the House Republicans received less votes than their Democratic counterparts, then they have no legs on which to stand. They're not representing the wishes of those that have been elected.

I don't think it's me that's going around the issue. My original post was in response to someone saying that the Democrats "caved on everything" - my point was that nothing has changed since before the election in terms of their bargaining position. Ok, so they won a few seats so they could afford a few less compromises, but even that depends entirely on the individuals won and lost. Their ability to withstand "caving" was basically identical to how it was before the latest election. Moral mandates do nothing to change that.

Re: the whole "mandate" issue (which wasn't my point, but it is interesting to discuss - and I live in a country where there have been times that control of our entire government and legislature has been comprised by a party that received less votes than another at an election but won for many of the same reasons), do you have any links to the 'gerrymandering'? - that's a fairly serious accusation to level at a process that's based on census results and received no (upheld) legal challenge. That's a genuine question - it's not a process I followed at all, as someone that doesn't live in the US.

But as a wider point, it's an interesting fact that it can happen, but at the end of the day, there's only a single person that's voted in at a national level - the President; and there are now 47.2% of people in the country who receive absolutely no representation at all in the executive. Anyone else (House + Senate reps) is only representing an area within that nation, and once you devolve elections down to such an area, you inherently get the chance that the party that receives less votes could still gain a national majority of seats; But at the same time, you also end up with less people finding themselves represented by someone they didn't vote for. Genuine question: In how many US States did the winning party in the US House elections [I know they're not done at a state level] receive less than Obama's 51%? I suspect it won't be many.

tl;dr there are more ways to determine a mandate than simply who has the largest national popular vote.

 

[The Librarian]

I don't think it's me that's going around the issue. My original post was in response to someone saying that the Democrats "caved on everything" - my point was that nothing has changed since before the election in terms of their bargaining position. Ok, so they won a few seats so they could afford a few less compromises, but even that depends entirely on the individuals won and lost. Their ability to withstand "caving" was basically identical to how it was before the latest election. Moral mandates do nothing to change that.

Re: the whole "mandate" issue (which wasn't my point, but it is interesting to discuss - and I live in a country where there have been times that control of our entire government and legislature has been comprised by a party that received less votes than another at an election but won for many of the same reasons), do you have any links to the 'gerrymandering'? - that's a fairly serious accusation to level at a process that's based on census results and received no (upheld) legal challenge. That's a genuine question - it's not a process I followed at all, as someone that doesn't live in the US.

But as a wider point, it's an interesting fact that it can happen, but at the end of the day, there's only a single person that's voted in at a national level - the President; and there are now 47.2% of people in the country who receive absolutely no representation at all in the executive. Anyone else (House + Senate reps) is only representing an area within that nation, and once you devolve elections down to such an area, you inherently get the chance that the party that receives less votes could still gain a national majority of seats; But at the same time, you also end up with less people finding themselves represented by someone they didn't vote for. Genuine question: In how many US States did the winning party in the US House elections [I know they're not done at a state level] receive less than Obama's 51%? I suspect it won't be many.

tl;dr there are more ways to determine a mandate than simply who has the largest national popular vote.

Eh. You didn't really say much in that entire post. Obama ran on a platform of raising taxes on the wealthy. He won. Democrats retained control of the Senate and gained seats, and received the most votes in the House. Therefore they have a greater bargaining position and a mandate.

Also, BB asking the important questions:

So what happened after Boehner reiterated "go fuck yourself." In my brief experience, those sorts of "conversations" don't end there.

 

[empty vessel]

And (I know this is a dumb question, but bear with me), if we stop t-bill payments, then no one buys them anymore, and we're just royally fucked, correct? As in, we cannot finance our existing debt anymore?

No, we do not finance debt by issuing bonds. Nor can the US government default on bond payments except by political choice. But if the private sector ever decided it did not want to buy US bonds, that would probably be a good thing, because it would force the country to understand that government spending in excess of tax receipts does not require involvement of the private sector.

 

[CyclopsRock]

Eh. You didn't really say much in that entire post. Obama ran on a platform of raising taxes for the wealthy. He won. Democrats retained control of the Senate and gained seats, and received the most votes in the House. Therefore they have a greater bargaining position and a mandate.

I don't even think we're talking about the same thing. You're talking about a moral mandate, I'm taking about actual political power. A moral mandate doesn't help in bargaining positions because the Republicans aren't going to say "Oh, go on then, we'll go against what we think is best - afterall, you have a moral mandate." They think they're right, in the same way the Democrats think that they're right. "Bargaining position" and "a mandate" are two very different things, though in a decent political system they should be aligned.

 

[RustyNails]

I am more inclined to upvote black mamba's posts than PD's, especially now because during election BM time after time proved how polling was skewed and the confidence of Obama winning while PD was acclimating himself to Romney presidency.

 

[The Librarian]

I don't even think we're talking about the same thing. You're talking about a moral mandate, I'm taking about actual political power. A moral mandate doesn't help in bargaining positions because the Republicans aren't going to say "Oh, go on then, we'll go against what we think is best - afterall, you have a moral mandate." They think they're right, in the same way the Democrats think that they're right. "Bargaining position" and "a mandate" are two very different things, though in a decent political system they should be aligned.

Did the House not cave yesterday and vote for the Senate bill?

 

[CyclopsRock]

Did the House not cave yesterday and vote for the Senate bill?

Cave? I'm not sure, really. I don't know enough about US politics to know who this benefits. But it was always going to pass, wasn't it? The point was that the bill that passed was a result of some compromise between the two, which is exactly what you'd expect to happen when you have a split house.

(Again, the original post I responded to was from someone who was surprised that the Democrats had caved - his/her words, not mine - despite the latest election. My point was that the latest election did basically nothing to alter whether they would be 'caving' or not. I have not once suggested that either party is or isn't caving.)

Edit: As a counter question - how much of the bill that ended up passing do you think would not have passed had the 'Fiscal Cliff' occured this time last year? IE What compromises did the Republicans make that they'd otherwise not have, in your view?

 

[RustyNails]

Obama wasnt able to let bush tax cuts expire at all in 2010, which is why he punted it after the election. Iirc, this is the only second time Obama was able to raise taxes in his first term after ACA. Also, the earlier debt ceiling deal that republicans rejected in 2011 was better for them than this deal today.

 

[Drek]

Really? Yes, it's true that some higher income brackets got their taxes hiked but in exchange the Dems lost the estate tax, and the capital gains/dividends tax, permanently. The latter in particular are huge wins for the Republicans.

The rates of both went up and the $5M exception from estate tax is now tied to inflation (which actually makes sense to some degree). How is that a win for the GOP? Sure, it didn't go up as high as the far left wanted but it's still an increase. Saying this was a "win" for the GOP is the left wing version of saying that getting 87% of what you want is a "fair compromise".

This is Obama and co. getting 87%, any way you cut it this is a win.

How the actual spending cuts and debt ceiling issues are resolved is the next hurdle and is a more even debate, but this was a democratic victory, period.

 

[CyclopsRock]

Obama wasnt able to let bush tax cuts expire at all in 2010, which is why he punted it after the election. Iirc, this is the only second time Obama was able to raise taxes in his first term after ACA. Also, the earlier debt ceiling deal that republicans rejected in 2011 was better for them than this deal today.

What's your opinion on the reason for this?

 

[Pai Pai Master]

Would be nice if they actually started debates on the debt ceiling and what to do about the sequester now, instead of in one and a half months.

 

[electricpirate]

The weirdest part of the liberal winging here isn't about the deal, it's that somehow Obama got rolled and is in a worse position for the debt ceiling fight. Obama got what he wanted here (No real new cuts, and he traded some tax increases for increased stimulus), and he splintered the GOP caucus in the house. In every other "deal" there was no deal until he got Boehner's entire caucus on board, now it's apparent he only needs to get 20 of them (in the new house), and if 20 of them aren't insane enough to go over the cliff, 20 of them aren't insane enough to crash the world economy. That's a dramatic shift in power, showing that the 66 tea party republicans can't drag the entire country rightward.

Policy wise, Obama got a small win, politically he's now won the first two games of a first to three series. It's not over, but he's in a strong position for the final stretch.

Obama wasnt able to let bush tax cuts expire at all in 2010, which is why he punted it after the election. Iirc, this is the only second time Obama was able to raise taxes in his first term after ACA. Also, the earlier debt ceiling deal that republicans rejected in 2011 was better for them than this deal today.

By a huge margin. Also, the deal offered to Boehner thi year was better for republican's than this. Republican's snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by believing they could keep a united front for unpopular measures forever.

 

[RustyNails]

What's your opinion on the reason for this?

Republicans thought they could make Obama a one term president by stalling economy and blaming him for a slowdown. Obama won by a pretty nice margin and teapartiers got the boot, and there is an open revolt by teaparty caucus against the speaker, whose position now is perilous. All thesr tailwinds behind Obama made today's deal possible. It's really not hard to understand whats going on.

 

[RoninChaos]

I don't get you guys sometimes. You've been criticizing the GOP for not being willing to compromize and now you shoot Obama down in flames because he just compromized.

The fact is that although the deal is not the ideal one what you wanted, it still is a good one. The republicans caved in pretty hard on taxes: you gotta remember that two weeks ago those guys were still refusing tax raises on millionaires!

Agreed.

In 2011, wasn't the deal Obama floated 3 dollars in spending cuts for 1 dollar in tax increases?

Did the latest deal passed have any real spending cuts?

 

[pigeon]

Noam Schreiber sums it up:

This is a self fulfilling argument. Obama is a bad negotiator because he left many issues to be decided in two months, where he will get rolled because...he's a bad negotiator, QED.

Alternatively, Obama won this argument, just like he won the last few confrontations, and so he'll probably win the next one, but in a way where he looks reasonable, which liberals and crazy house Republicans will read as weakness, further marginalizing both.

 

[RoninChaos]

Not yet. Although taxes are a method of behavior modification, I'm not sure we should completely encourage having children

I don't think the tax is to convince people to have kids. Most people aren't going to go "Let me make my expenses go WAAAAAAY up by having to care for a person for at LEAST the first 18 years of their lives, just so I can get a tax credit!"

C'mon, son.

 

[nib95]

And this manifests itself in political bargaining as "strength" how?

Because the GOP cheated it's way to holding that House. Were it not for gerymandering, the Dems would have it all. In other words, they do actually have a mandate, at least as far as public votes, opinion and the recent election go.

 

[pigeon]

I don't think it's me that's going around the issue. My original post was in response to someone saying that the Democrats "caved on everything" - my point was that nothing has changed since before the election in terms of their bargaining position. Ok, so they won a few seats so they could afford a few less compromises, but even that depends entirely on the individuals won and lost. Their ability to withstand "caving" was basically identical to how it was before the latest election. Moral mandates do nothing to change that.

I don't understand why you're pursuing this discussion when you clearly don't really follow American politics. The reason the election changed things is that the original GOP plan was to defeat Obama, elect a Republican president and extend the tax cuts. This required them to win the Presidency, which they failed to do, so their plan was a failure, putting them in a bad negotiating position -- they had no clearly defined next course of action. In addition, their political situation became perilous as even many Republican voters seem to believe, according to the polls, that the winner of the Presidential election has a mandate to enact at least some portion of his plans, and so opposing him is likely to have negative electoral consequences for the more moderate Republicans -- who are exactly the ones inclined to compromise in the first place.

 

[slit]

Because the GOP cheated it's way to holding that House. Were it not for gerymandering, the Dems would have it all. In other words, they do actually have a mandate, at least as far as public votes, opinion and the recent election go.

The fact that we allow ANY political party to draw those lines is insane.

 

[RDreamer]

I do wonder what happens next. This vote came up because the stakes were so high that Boehner had to put up the vote despite being mainly a democratic one. That only came about by being after the deadline. So now we've learned literally nothing can get done without mostly democratic support, because too many of the Republicans are still way too hardlined to do anything that can pass the senate and white house. So, now what? Especially now what if Cantor does make a move for speaker. If he gets in would he have even allowed this vote, even in these worst of circumstances for his party? Perhaps he might have at the end of his rope, but he'd probably be even more reluctant than Boehner. If Boehner keeps speaker does he allow votes like these to come up again? The caucus is broken, I think, but I'm just not sure if the gate keeper is broken fully... That worries me.

I'm just unsure of the dynamics here now. It looks like the debt ceiling fight will probably go to or past the deadline again because of this. You can't negotiate in good faith with Boehner or the house, and if you negotiate outside of it, in the Senate, the house still throws a wrench into things.

Basically how the hell do we get anything done without plunging the economy into more "wtf is going on here!?" sorts of spurts?

 

[RoninChaos]

It's God's plan.

Maybe if there was prayer allowed in New Jersey this wouldn't have happened.

 

[Hop]

I do wonder what happens next. This vote came up because the stakes were so high that Boehner had to put up the vote despite being mainly a democratic one. That only came about by being after the deadline. So now we've learned literally nothing can get done without mostly democratic support, because too many of the Republicans are still way too hardlined to do anything that can pass the senate and white house. So, now what? Especially now what if Cantor does make a move for speaker. If he gets in would he have even allowed this vote, even in these worst of circumstances for his party? Perhaps he might have at the end of his rope, but he'd probably be even more reluctant than Boehner. If Boehner keeps speaker does he allow votes like these to come up again? The caucus is broken, I think, but I'm just not sure if the gate keeper is broken fully... That worries me.

Speakers need a majority of the house, not a majority of the majority party, right? If so we may end up seeing that vote fall more along the lines of the cliff vote, with Boehner working with Democrats to maintain his role and further marginalize the Tea Partiers. (Or, comedy result, return of Speaker Pelosi.) If not... yea that's gonna be interesting.

But if Boehner does retain speakership, it'll obviously be by way of Democrats, who will certainly be able to have him by the balls and exert some volume of control.

 

[TacticalFox88]

I do wonder what happens next. This vote came up because the stakes were so high that Boehner had to put up the vote despite being mainly a democratic one. That only came about by being after the deadline. So now we've learned literally nothing can get done without mostly democratic support, because too many of the Republicans are still way too hardlined to do anything that can pass the senate and white house. So, now what? Especially now what if Cantor does make a move for speaker. If he gets in would he have even allowed this vote, even in these worst of circumstances for his party? Perhaps he might have at the end of his rope, but he'd probably be even more reluctant than Boehner. If Boehner keeps speaker does he allow votes like these to come up again? The caucus is broken, I think, but I'm just not sure if the gate keeper is broken fully... That worries me.

I'm just unsure of the dynamics here now. It looks like the debt ceiling fight will probably go to or past the deadline again because of this. You can't negotiate in good faith with Boehner or the house, and if you negotiate outside of it, in the Senate, the house still throws a wrench into things.

Basically how the hell do we get anything done without plunging the economy into more "wtf is going on here!?" sorts of spurts?

We do the only thing we can do. Wait till 2014.

Speaking of which....

As of this writing, every single state except Hawai’i has finalized its vote totals for the 2012 House elections, and Democrats currently lead Republicans by 1,362,351 votes in the overall popular vote total. Democratic House candidates earned 49.15 percent of the popular vote, while Republicans earned only 48.03 percent — meaning that the American people preferred a unified Democratic Congress over the divided Congress it actually got by more than a full percentage point. Nevertheless, thanks largely to partisan gerrymandering, Republicans have a solid House majority in the incoming 113th Congress.

A deeper dive into the vote totals reveals just how firmly gerrymandering entrenched Republican control of the House. If all House members are ranked in order from the Republican members who won by the widest margin down to the Democratic members who won by the widest margins, the 218th member on this list is Congressman-elect Robert Pittenger (R-NC). Thus, Pittenger was the “turning point” member of the incoming House. If every Republican who performed as well or worse than Pittenger had lost their race, Democrats would hold a one vote majority in the incoming House.
Pittenger won his race by more than six percentage points — 51.78 percent to 45.65 percent.

The upshot of this is that if Democrats across the country had performed six percentage points better than they actually did last November, they still would have barely missed capturing a majority in the House of Representatives. In order to take control of the House, Democrats would have needed to win the 2012 election by 7.25 percentage points. That’s significantly more than the Republican margin of victory in the 2010 GOP wave election (6.6 percent), and only slightly less than the margin of victory in the 2006 Democratic wave election (7.9 percent). If Democrats had won in 2012 by the same commanding 7.9 percent margin they achieved in 2006, they would still only have a bare 220-215 seat majority in the incoming House, assuming that these additional votes were distributed evenly throughout the country. That’s how powerful the GOP’s gerrymandered maps are; Democrats can win a Congressional election by nearly 8 points and still barely capture the House.

For two months, the nation has suffered through a “fiscal cliff” argument that threatened to plunge the nation into another recession. If the incoming Congress bore any resemblance to the one the American people voted for, however, this threat would have disappeared on Election Day because Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi would have no problem rounding up the votes to eliminate this so-called cliff and set America back on the path to economic growth.

Worse, top Republicans are already threatening to use the looming debt ceiling fight to torpedo the entire U.S. economy unless Congress agrees to slash Social Security or Medicare benefits for seniors. They will have the leverage to attempt this because the incoming House bears no resemblance to the one America actually voted for. And individual Republican House members will be able to engage in this political dangerous game of chicken comfortable in the knowledge that partisan gerrymandering makes many of them untouchable in a general election.
Partisan gerrymanders, like the one that now all but locks the GOP majority in place, have been the subject of repeated court challenges. America can thank the five conservative justices on the Supreme Court for allowing these gerrymanders to continue.

 

[Clevinger]

Who cares? Obama did fine.

Obama cut no entitlements.

He extended UE benefits.

He got what will probably end up at $700 billion in revenue (bottom of $620 billion) all from the wealthy.


I'm fine with it. he also built up massive capital with the public. liberals starting to sound as bad as the conservatives. WAAAAH I DIDN'T GET EVERYTHING WAAAH,

Krugman said it well. If Obama holds firm on the debt ceiling, this deal isn't bad. If he doesn't (which is pretty likely), it's not a good deal and the debt ceiling will likely become Fiscal Cliff Pt.2: Fuck the Poor Edition

 

[mckmas8808]

Go over?

250k is 450k. Dividends and capital gain tax raises are a joke. No debt limit change and a 2 month delay in the cuts? Keeping some terrible tax credits and getting rid of others.

No republican would ever take a 50/50 deal like this after the last election. Democrats are very good at capitulating.

Add someone else said here I'd love to have Obama try to sell me a car. 50k car at cost? I'll offer to pay 20k max. Obama would sell it to me for 35k and pay the remaining out of his paycheck for the next year.

:lol

Some liberals are pissed. Wow!

 

[RDreamer]

We do the only thing we can do. Wait till 2014.

Speaking of which....

Wow, that's crazy and depressing.

Speakers need a majority of the house, not a majority of the majority party, right? If so we may end up seeing that vote fall more along the lines of the cliff vote, with Boehner working with Democrats to maintain his role and further marginalize the Tea Partiers. (Or, comedy result, return of Speaker Pelosi.) If not... yea that's gonna be interesting.

But if Boehner does retain speakership, it'll obviously be by way of Democrats, who will certainly be able to have him by the balls and exert some volume of control.

Yeah I'm really not sure how speakership battles tend to go, or how that would change at a time like this. I'm pretty sure it is just a majority of the house, rather than the majority of a party. So, will Cantor's little insurrection risk losing speakership in order to not vote Boehner? I would think the majority of the time they'd vote in lock step so as not to lose the speakership to the minority party. That'd be pretty awful for them if they did.

 

[Chichikov]

Yeah I'm really not sure how speakership battles tend to go, or how that would change at a time like this. I'm pretty sure it is just a majority of the house, rather than the majority of a party. So, will Cantor's little insurrection risk losing speakership in order to not vote Boehner? I would think the majority of the time they'd vote in lock step so as not to lose the speakership to the minority party. That'd be pretty awful for them if they did.

It's the majority of the votes cast, which is exactly why the minority party can't win (unless some people in the majority party decide not to vote for anyone).

 

[RDreamer]

It's the majority of the votes cast, which is exactly why the minority party can't win (unless some people in the majority party decide not to vote for anyone).

Does it go down to two candidates at the end, then? One from each party? So we'd see whether it'll be Cantor or Boehner before the votes are even cast?

 

[Chichikov]

Does it go down to two candidates at the end, then? One from each party? So we'd see whether it'll be Cantor or Boehner before the votes are even cast?

I'm pretty sure it's a completely open vote, you always get a couple of votes for random people, and I think you just repeat the vote until someone gets a majority, but again, this shit never happens.
But man, that will be HILARIOUS if it does.

 

[Frank the Great]

If it comes down to Boehner v. Cantor (ie. if there are not enough republican support for either to get a majority) democrats should consider voting for Boehner. Their votes don't matter anyway, he is easier to work with, and it would make dems look bipartisan as fuck.

The thought of a Cantor House is scary. It would be good politically for dems in 2014 but it would be even more of a disaster functionally.

 

[Dr. Pangloss]

Re: the whole "mandate" issue (which wasn't my point, but it is interesting to discuss - and I live in a country where there have been times that control of our entire government and legislature has been comprised by a party that received less votes than another at an election but won for many of the same reasons), do you have any links to the 'gerrymandering'? - that's a fairly serious accusation to level at a process that's based on census results and received no (upheld) legal challenge. That's a genuine question - it's not a process I followed at all, as someone that doesn't live in the US.

Here is your link: http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2012/11/07/how_ridiculous_gerrymanders_saved_the_house_republican_majority.html That's only for two Democratic/swing states that Republicans completely control. Go look at others like Wisconsin and Michigan. Also, please research before you make any more claims.

 

[RDreamer]

I'm pretty sure it's a completely open vote, you always get a couple of votes for random people, and I think you just repeat the vote until someone gets a majority, but again, this shit never happens.
But man, that will be HILARIOUS if it does.

I know it never really happens, but have we ever been divided like this?

And you rarely see votes being brought up that will get a majority support only in the opposing party in the house, too, and that just happened. I'm not sure a ton of Republicans would risk throwing their vote to someone else and losing the speakership, but I really can't predict this batch of republicans....

I'm definitely not expecting speaker Pelosi or something like that. That'd be hilarious if it did happen, though. Talk about implosion of the party....

 

[Frank the Great]

How could a Speaker Pelosi ever happen? Republicans would need to vote for her in order to reach a majority and they would rather perform abortions on Reagan's grave than give Pelosi any power.

Or am I misunderstanding the procedure? I thought a House majority, not a plurality, is necessary to elect the Speaker.

The only way Pelosi can win speakership is if Republicans vote for her or not vote at all.

Thanks, that's what I thought.

 

[Chichikov]

How could a Speaker Pelosi ever happen? Republicans would need to vote for her in order to reach a majority and they would rather perform abortions on Reagan's grave than give Pelosi any power.

Or am I misunderstanding the procedure? I thought a House majority, not a plurality, is necessary to elect the Speaker.

Yeah, the only way Pelosi can win speakership is if Republicans vote for her or not vote at all.

 

[RDreamer]

Yeah, the only way Pelosi can win speakership is if Republicans vote for her or not vote at all.

Ah, that's what I was trying to ask before. So Republicans can't split their own vote for Cantor and Boehner leaving the Dems as a solid block? They'll literally have only one candidate up for speakership at the end, right, be it Cantor or Boehner?

 

[Fenderputty]

If it comes down to Boehner v. Cantor (ie. if there are not enough republican support for either to get a majority) democrats should consider voting for Boehner. Their votes don't matter anyway, he is easier to work with, and it would make dems look bipartisan as fuck.

The thought of a Cantor House is scary. It would be good politically for dems in 2014 but it would be even more of a disaster functionally.

I think at this point I would rather Cantor. House republicans were so, so, so close to getting destroyed by the country last night. If Cantor was the speaker instead of Boehner, I don't think the bill even gets voted on and we all watch the republicans weaken their negotiating position while continuing to destroy their brand.

 

[thefro]

Ah, that's what I was trying to ask before. So Republicans can't split their own vote for Cantor and Boehner leaving the Dems as a solid block? They'll literally have only one candidate up for speakership at the end, right, be it Cantor or Boehner?

That's not going to happen unless there's a big-time civil war in the party. If the Cantor & Boehner forces were that sharply divided they'd probably end up nominating a 3rd person that both sides could live with.

 

[RDreamer]

That's not going to happen unless there's a big-time civil war in the party. If the Cantor & Boehner forces were that sharply divided they'd probably end up nominating a 3rd person that both sides could live with.

We're going to get a Paul Ryan speakership aren't we? lol

But yeah that's what I didn't know, if there was a sort of nomination process or something where we'd know beforehand who it'd likely be.

 

[Averon]

So the next big event in the Senate is filibuster reform. Any updates in how that's going?

 

[Fenderputty]

The dems would have to now the R vote was split to make a move like that too. Would the R's vote first?

 

[Rocket Scientist]

The dems would have to now the R vote was split to make a move like that too. Would the R's vote first?

It would leak out who was going to win so everyone would probably know.

 

[Particle Physicist]

We do the only thing we can do. Wait till 2014.

Speaking of which....

Do you have a link to that article? I want to share it

 

[RDreamer]

I think at this point I would rather Cantor. House republicans were so, so, so close to getting destroyed by the country last night. If Cantor was the speaker instead of Boehner, I don't think the bill even gets voted on and we all watch the republicans weaken their negotiating position while continuing to destroy their brand.

Unfortunately I'm not in a good enough financial position to hope our economy gets practically destroyed just so the Republicans can, too.

 

[TacticalFox88]

Do you have a link to that article? I want to share it

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/20...ote-by-over-7-percent-to-take-back-the-house/

 

[ivysaur12]

We do the only thing we can do. Wait till 2014.

Speaking of which....

Seems about right. The Dems don't have a real chance to take the House until after 2020.