March 28, 2024

Interesting Times

Oct. 16, 2015

These are interesting times in national politics.

Congress is stumbling along, always just a threatened shutdown away from doing anything.

Soon-to-be former Speaker of the House John Boehner has stepped down from what has become one of the worst jobs in American politics. An old-fashioned dealmaker in the better sense of that phrase, Boehner found himself marooned between an uncooperative White House and an intransigent insurgency in his own party. He became a leader without followers in one of the least popular Congresses in history.

Frustrated with President Obama’s minions and flabbergasted by some in his own party, Boehner decided he had had enough. Luckily, his immediate second-incommand, Kevin McCarthy, was ready to step in and fill the leadership void immediately. Except that he accidentally told the truth about the endless Benghazi hearings, a no-no. McCarthy dropped out before he dropped in.

And the new Speaker of the House is... no one, so far. As this is being written there are candidates but no one with anywhere near the 218 votes needed to secure the post. Maybe Cong. Paul Ryan will ride into the mess and become a consensus candidate and consensus maker. But not yet on the first part and probably not on the second.

Republicans in Congress have painted themselves into an interesting corner by refusing to compromise on so much. It is a near certainty they will retain control of both the House and Senate in the 2016 elections; Republican state legislatures have done a masterful job redistricting and most GOP seats are safe. Still, they won’t have enough votes to get by what will surely be Democratic obstructionism and not nearly enough to override a presidential veto.

Without leadership capable of convincing Democrats to get out of the way, they won’t. And it remains to be seen if anyone is capable of corralling the more rambunctious of the Republican absolutists who don’t play nice unless they get their way all the time.

There is an additional problem facing Congressional Republicans: There is likely to be a Democrat elected president in 2016. It just isn’t at all clear how Republicans can scare up the electoral votes to beat her. Yes, her.

But first, Donald Trump and Dr. Ben Carson currently head the Republican presidential field in what’s rapidly becoming a Mad magazine version of a primary season. With so many candidates still in the field, Trump maintains a clear early lead despite the fact that more than 70 percent of likely Republican primary voters prefer someone else.

Trump and Carson have more in common than you might think.

Neither has ever held public office so have no track record to defend or have criticized. Both are extremely successful in their chosen fields. Both say outrageous things without regard to the consequences. Neither has an actual platform with pesky details to interfere with their off-the-topof-their-head banter.

And neither is likely be elected president.

Frontrunner Trump has offended Latinos (70 percent say they wouldn’t vote for him), women (the “gender gap” is approaching 20 points), and African-Americans (only 35 percent say they would even consider voting for him).

If those numbers are accurate, he cannot be elected. There are now too many states in which women and minority voters make a significant difference.

Only Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush seem to have the potential to break through the current electoral reality; virtually automatic wins in New York and California give Democratic candidates a big head start and make swing state victories a must for any Republican.

If the Republican candidate has already offended entire voting blocs in those states there is going to be another Democrat in the White House. There simply aren’t enough angry white men — Trump’s core of popularity — to overcome that reality.

Which brings us to Hillary Clinton.

The former Senator and Secretary of State has one very big problem — a long and public record to be regurgitated, analyzed, dissected and criticized — legitimately and otherwise. She can’t claim to be an outsider and, as an Obama appointee, she can’t run too far away from his foreign policy since she helped implement it.

Despite all that, Bernie Sanders is not likely to be a serious roadblock to her nomination. It is a stretch to assume even sometimes wacky Democratic primary voters would actually nominate a self-proclaimed Socialist, affable though he may be. Nor will many be fond of his wealth redistribution tax plan. The top 50 percent of income earners whose wealth will be redistributed won’t like it all.

It appears what we’re headed for is an industrial strength version of the last six years. A cranky Republican-controlled Congress confronting a more aggressive Democratic president.

Now would be a good time for a leader to emerge able to bridge that gap.

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