Obama, In Morning Joe Interview, Predicts War Inside Republican Party If He Is Reelected

[kpete]

Source: Huffington Post

Obama, In Morning Joe Interview, Predicts War Inside Republican Party If He Is Reelected

President Barack Obama said in an interview Monday that the Republican party would have to overcome an internal war if he were reelected, but expressed hope that the partisan gridlock in Washington could come to an end.

"There are a whole range of issues I think where we can actually bring the country together with a non-ideological agenda," Obama said in a pre-taped interview on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."

"The question’s going to be, how do Republicans react post-election?" he continued. "Because there’s going to be a war going on inside that party. It just hasn’t broken up. It’s been unified in opposition to me."

Obama has blamed the slow economic recovery during his first term on the obstructionist agenda of congressional Republicans, who have blocked many of the president's proposals. He has repeatedly argued that the House GOP has waged ideological warfare over historically bipartisan issues. Republicans have countered that the president is fundamentally unwilling to compromise.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/29/obama-morning-joe_n_2038103.html

[still_one]

1. He is right, and if the republican party continues to pursue extreme right wing policies, they will

lose for a long time

[Democratopia]

2. You are going to get the Tea Party wing saying Romney was too much to the left.

Everyone else saying the GOP was too far right.

So there will be a war.

What they won't get is if Democrats can win reelection now they won't have any problem in 2016 when the economy will be much stronger, when there will be more non-white, when more older white males will have died. Republicans will have to reinvent themselves or die.

That is why it is so important for Karl Rove and others to do all they can to steal this election.

[oldhippydude]

3. bingo... to them racism is political capital, use it or lose it...

do whatever it takes now... the demographics will kill them going forward..

[Bernardo de La Paz]

6. The right wing Tea partiers will say they weren't hard right enough to match the "real" America

(Edit: wasn't 'nt')

They will double down on hard right policies. The few moderate Republicans will have to mount a do-or-die defense of their vision of the Republican Party. It's an open question whether they will prevail or not.

[Mz Pip]

14. I agree

They willtry to run someone even more reactionary in 2016. If Romney wins they will expect him to give thme what they want or they will primary him so I expect Romney to move right if he wins just to hang on for 2016.

My hopes is that Obama wins and the GOP puts up someone even more hard right in 2016. They will lose badly and maybe then they will will rethink their priorities.

I believe in a 2 party system, in checks and balances, but the current "my way or the highway" GOP isn't about bi partisanship. It's about a scorched earth policy that does a whole lot of damage for the sake of misbegotten ideological purity.

[CrispyQ]

27. The moderate repubs will flee to the right-of-center democratic party.

And probably take us even further to the right.

[randome]

4. Which is why it's important to maintain good ties with the 'intelligent' Republicans.

They may be swayed into helping Democrats fight the Tea Party types.

[oswaldactedalone]

5. ^^^ There is such a thing ^^^

left as an intelligent Republican? Haven't seen any since Lincoln Chafee ran up the white flag and became an Independent.

[Volaris]

8. I think there are, but to not go completley extinct,

they are going to have to put the HAMMER down on the Tea Party. If they are afraid in the least of being seen as too harsh with these people, it won't work. I wish them luck with that, I don't know if they have what it takes.

[wordpix]

11. my bro is a "moderate" repug who still defends the Tbaggers, but he's way too "liberal" for them

he has AA and African friends, has worked on AIDS in Africa, etc.

[randome]

12. I did put the word in quotes. And I laughed when I wrote it, too.

[ibegurpard]

33. not many of them left unfortunately

[onehandle]

7. The only answer is for the teahadists and fundies to split off and form their own party.

Please?

[Iliyah]

9. I have basically ran out of any type of caring for these

right wingers, gop party, tea bat folks. They are mean spirited, hateful lying ass people who uses fear to get ahead. The present GOP party don't care about anyone but their pockets while carrying the Bible and guns. They are the worst of America all awhile claiming how "Christian" they are and any body who does not think like them are evil.

The Democratic party is what America is about - democracy.

[BanTheGOP]

10. The President is being diplomatic, but the GOP needs more than splitting up...

...it needs to be DESTROYED. Period.

The problem is not just political, or ideological. The reason the GOP even exists is because it is allowed to promote its pre-20th century edicts through its financial apparatus provided by the military/industrial/financial nexus that cannot be easily dislodged WITHOUT legal action invoking RICO statutes. We can invalidate the party almost INSTANTLY by bringing suit and preventing stays to financial support of the party.

Let's DO it...NOW!! Before the election.

[llmart]

13. Well, they do love war:)

n/t

[Scuba]

15. In 2016, should the Democrats run a white candidate the Republican Party will disintegrate.

Racists are the core of their base right now.

Of course if Romney should manage a coup, all bets are off.

[-LOKI -BAD FOR YA]

24. it does not matter what shade or gender of the person,running the hate is viral

they did the same with bill clinton,jimmy carter, they are using the good cop,bad cop routine. they hate democrats their cree is survival of the fittest;the criteria should be is this person qualified to commander and chief.i believe a famous Republican wrote of the disintegration of the gop he said a house divided against itself cannot stand .

[BlueMan Votes]

30. the democratic candidate in 2016 will most likely be a white male

and i doubt that it would cause the repugs to disintegrate.

[Scuba]

31. What do you think would hold them together? Their love of tax cuts for the wealthy?

Their disdain for Medicare and Social Security?

Seriously, what do you think would unify them without the race issue?

[lunatica]

16. I fully expect it to get even uglier than the last 4 years

But more of that ugliness will be directly within the Republican party as they try to wrest it from the Teabaggers.

I still can't bring myself to call the creeps that like Rape so much they want to make it legal or legitimate a party. They remain the Teabaggers to me. The inside of their minds must be like being in a pustule, maggot infested sewer.

[Jim Lane]

17. I hope Obama is deliberately lying for reasons of political expedience.

I hope he doesn't really believe this:

"There are a whole range of issues I think where we can actually bring the country together with a non-ideological agenda," Obama said in a pre-taped interview on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."

The important things are all intensely ideological. Will we have progressive taxation? Will we protect Social Security, Medicare, and a whole array of means-tested programs? Will government rein in corporate polluters and Wall Street crooks? Will we stop wasting huge sums on our bloated military?

The "non-ideological agenda" is how early in the year we switch over to Daylight Saving Time.

Obama's a smart guy. I'm sure he's noticed that the "bring the country together" program that he began in 2009, which eschewed partisanship, has spectacularly failed. The better way to bring the country together is for him to emphasize the ideological agenda, to expose the Republicans as the lunatic right, and to bring the country together in electing a Democratic House and a more strongly Democratic Senate in 2014. (Unfortunately, I think it's too late for him or anyone to flip the House this year. If he'd followed this more confrontational approach beginning, at the latest, a few months after his inauguration, when it became undeniable that the Republicans were engaged in pure obstructionism, there's a good chance that the catastrophe of 2010 wouldn't have happened. That's water over the dam, but let's at least learn from the mistake.)

[Blanks]

25. Blaming it on obstructionists is a losing proposition.

It looks like whining. I'm extremely frustrated by the republicans in congress standing in the way of progress, but I think the president handled it well by not bringing it up all the time.

Pointing it out is a good idea. I wish there had been a super PAC hammering away at it, but it would not have worked for the president to gripe about it a lot.

Nobody likes a whiner. I think it would have done him a lot of damage to keep complaining about it.

[Jim Lane]

28. I agree. That's the political expedience I saw in lying.

Nevertheless, I think he has some room for being more overtly critical. He could put more emphasis on his positive plans, such as pushing the American Jobs Act, and then note (almost in passing) that the GOP blocked it.

Also, even if we agree that he must avoid whining, he doesn't have to bend over backward to sound bright and sunny about the prospects for bipartisan cooperation. His comments in the OP border on actively concealing the obstructionism.

[Blanks]

32. True, there was room to be more critical.

It's bound to be a tough balance to find. I have a lot of suggestions about how the Obama campaign could have done better.

The only thing I am certain of though; is that they did a better job than I ever could have. This campaign has gone on forever and it looks like (at least to me) that the smartest thing that they did was to fight the battles against disenfranchising voters in OH, FL, PA etc.

I would say that here at the end of the campaign; he showed the people of New Jersey that he meant it when he said that he was president for all Americans. Hopefully that will resonate with the people who are unaware of the shenanigans that the republican controlled house has been up to.

[Grins]

18. Bwahahahahahaha! Pass the popcorn! (N/M)

[FiveGoodMen]

19. "Republicans have countered that the president is fundamentally unwilling to compromise"

If there were a god, their tongues would snap off when they tried to say that.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

20. It's a huge, preposterous lie and must be exposed as such every time it is uttered. nt

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

21. The way I see things

There is a God who allows us to screw up as much as we like.

However, following his will is ultimately easier and yields better results than self will.

Lying about who the obstructionist is just self will and karma will eventually bite them.

[KurtNYC]

22. It has already begun -- they had to steal several primaries from Ron Paul

because they believed that if Ron Paul got the nomination THAT would rip that party in half. IMHO it would have.

Once Romney finally loses this thing the finger pointing will rage.

[Blanks]

26. With the bad weather on the east coast...

and Ron Paul's position on natural disaster relief (which it looks like Romney has borrowed) the republicans (especially the Paul-bots) would be extremely vulnerable to criticism right now.

It seems like Ron Paul used some natural disaster in Texas (where a bunch of people were killed) as an example of why FEMA wasn't necessary.

I think Ron Paul did break the party in two anyway (partly because they did steal votes from him like you mentioned) because some Ron Paul supporters are going to vote Libertarian even though they know the candidate won't win. Not all Ron Paul supporters are die hard republicans. Some just want to legalize drugs.

[johnlucas]

23. This election is the end of the Southern Strategy

2 terms of a Black President kills that old Southern Strategy forged after LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law to kill Jim Crow.
Those Dixiecrats have been against us ever since & the Republicans needing their numbers in the face of growing Democratic dominance absorbed those racists into their party.
With that move the Republican Party threw away every tie to what Abraham Lincoln represented in that party's founding.
Abraham Lincoln being that President who shook up an earlier racist order that enslaved Black people.

When Obama gets reelected & reelected in a LANDSLIDE at that, it is like holywater to vampires the effect his reelection will have on the Republican Party.
They can no longer go any further with that strategy or they make themselves more & more irrelevant as time goes on.
They made a deal with those devils & the Republican Party may lose its soul in the process.
Lay down with dogs, you're gonna wake up with fleas.

Somewhere along the line they became a party about the greedy rich as the Democrats atoned in FDR's era & became a party for social & economic justice.
Being composed of the predatory rich, warmongers, theocrats, & bigots is not a coalition to be proud of.
They may just have to go the way of the Whigs after supporting such deplorable sets of people.

Maybe they can transform but after all this time I doubt they have anywhere else to go.
Democrats survived by purging their bigots. I don't think the Republicans can survive even if they do.
They spent too long laying down with those dogs.
John Lucas

[Arugula Latte]

29. I think they should draft from the pool of College Republicans

and use real bayonets. But not horses -- poor things. Keep them out of this.