The Republican Party's strategy is brilliant

[CTLawGuy]

1. Obstruct everything to the maximum. Refuse to govern in good faith. This level of partisanship and brazen political hardball has never been seen in modern US history.

2. Obama forced to compromise with worst elements of Dem party or face passage of nothing. He must get every single Democrat in the US Senate and can only lose 40 house dems. No president has ever faced such a daunting threshold to pass even the most controversial legislation.

3. Centrist senators, whom past presidents including the "almighty" LBJ have been free to ignore, have unprecedented power and use it to demand tons of concessions. The dynamic is either give the concessions or get nothing. The centrist needs 1 vote to get what he/she wants, Obama needs 60 votes. Who has the power here?

3. "progressives" blame Obama and the Democrats for failing to do the impossible, i.e. get all 60 Dem votes in the senate. The Republicans are completely to blame, but the "progressive" base doesn't care, and doesn't understand, perhaps because of post primary bitterness, perhaps from believing the media hype and not actually listening to Obama's warning that change won't be easy.

4. "Progressives" stay home in 2010, playing into the Republicans' hands hook, line and sinker. Instead of being punished for playing politics with the lives of Americans, the Republicans get rewarded and celebrate another 1994.

5. Republicans take over Congress and spend two years hamstringing president Obama. Utter deadlock for two years.

[Cha]

1. Yeah, it sucks to see the do nothing

repukes having those are ignorant eating out of their ugly hands.

Thanks for the analysis, CTLawGuy!

[grantcart]

2. Yes and no

It has saved them from being obsolete in Congress.


They are becoming more and more a regional party with nothing going on in the NorthEast. This has extreme long term consequences that the Democrats found out when they were non active in the South and parts of the West for years. If your prospects are so bleak that you don't have anybody running for city council or mayor in an entire region that means that you are not grooming the next generation of congress people or senators.

Also being against everything means that you don't have to be for anything. This has allowed them to paper over an increasingly hostile split between their fundamentalist branch and their establishment branch.

As for being viable for the Presidency they are moving backwards. Key states that the Republicans must win to win the Presidency, like Michigan are unlikely to go Republican for many elections.

They managed to carve out a role but it is a very short term strategy.

They are still waiting for Reagan to rise from the grave and tell them what to do.