The endangered GOP House majority?

[DonViejo]

2014 will be a tough lift for Dems, but they may be closer than you think to winning back complete control of DC

BY STEVE KORNACKI

Republican congressional candidates received more than a million fewer votes nationally than Democrats last November and the House GOP’s approval rating – according to its own pollster – stands at just 27 percent, 19 points lower than the Democratic total.

This has created an uneasy backdrop for this week’s House GOP retreat in Williamsburg, Va., where Republican lawmakers have gathered to assess the fallout from the ’12 election and the recent fiscal cliff skirmish and to plot strategy for the 113th Congress. Fears from at least a few Republicans that the party could lose the chamber in the 2014 midterm elections are leaking into the media.

Adding to these worries is the prospect for further brand damage in the weeks and months ahead, with fights over the debt ceiling, sequestration and the continuing resolution that funds the government all looming. There is a strong consensus on the right to use at least one of these deadlines to make a stand for deep cuts to social safety net programs – Medicare, Social Security, maybe Medicaid too – without giving any further ground on revenue. The prospects of Obama and Democrats agreeing to anything like this are dim, and the GOP figures to pay a disproportionate public relations price if no agreement is reached.

If the GOP’s doomsday scenario –loss of the House in ’14 – were to be realized, it would be an earth-shattering development in Washington. With the Democrats’ 55-45 Senate majority seemingly safe heading into ’14, it would hand President Obama and his party complete control of the government, giving them two years to pursue the sort of expansive agenda that defined the first half of his first term – and that’s largely been stymied since Republicans won the House in the 2010 midterms. Democratic agenda items that have been on hold since the end of 2010 – climate change, anyone? – would again take center stage and the 114th Congress would have the potential to rival the 111th in terms of lasting, consequential output.

-snip-

read more:
http://www.salon.com/2013/01/18/the_endangered_gop_house_majority/

[NewJeffCT]

1. It will be tough with states like Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan

so damn gerrymandered.

we just have to hope that we can hold onto the Senate because the GOP nominates more loons like Mourdock, Akin, O'Donnell and Angle. It's easier for the crazies to slip through in the House.

[Jim__]

2. Without a super-majority in the senate, or a change to the filibuster rules ...

... control of the House won't give the Dems any more real power than they have now.