Posted on 11/21/2013 9:40:37 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
President Obama delivered remarks today supporting Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid’s decision to deploy the “nuclear option” ending minority filibusters of some judicial nominees. The Democrats tried to limit the effect of their action, stating that it only applies to nominees below the Supreme Court level.
But the damage done will go far beyond judicial nominees. Bipartisanship in the Senate is dead. Harry Reid and Barack Obama had already done grave damage to it by passing Obamacare. Today they finished it off.
Democrats currently hold a 53 seat majority, plus 2 Independents who tend to side with the Democrats. A loss of just six seats will hand the Republicans the majority in the Senate. After today, that majority means far more and will be far more consequential.
In the 2014 midterm elections, Democrats will be defending more vulnerable seats than Republicans will be. Several Democrats currently holding seats in GOP states were already vulnerable. They include:
Mark Begich, Alaska
Mark Pryor, Arkansas
Mark Udall, Colorado
Open Seat, Iowa (Harkin retired)
Mary Landrieu, Louisiana
Open Seat, Michigan (Levin retired)
Mac Baucus, Montana
Jean Shaheen*, New Hampshire
Kay Hagan, North Carolina
Tim Johnson, South Dakota
Joe Manchin, West Virginia
That’s 11 races, 12 if you count Al Franken in Minnesota, who won his seat very narrowly in what may have been a stolen election. Minnesota has become a competitive state for Republicans in recent years.
The trends in Alaska, Arkansas, Lousiana, North Carolina, South Dakota and West Virginia have tended to favor Republicans in the Obama years. Manchin essentially ran as an anti-Obama Democrat to win his seat, only to turn around and support a controversial gun control measure that ultimately failed. Colorado has swung blue but this year Republicans knocked off a handful of Democratic state senators thanks to another gun control measure.
Reid and Obama are claiming victory today, but it’s a Pyrrhic victory. They will get 11 months to push their extreme judicial nominees into the courts without any input from Republicans. But this is more about politics than nominations. The move comes at a time when Obama needs some headline other than “Obamacare fails again.” He needed some way to fire up his base and give the media something else to talk about. He has accomplished that, for a day or two, and done away with rules that date back to the creation of the Senate along with it.
In 2014 Democrats will be running against a wave of public rejection of Obamacare, which has never been popular. A majority want it either overhauled or repealed. Thanks to today’s “nuclear” strike, Republicans can run all of the above races as “the 51st vote” to repeal Obamacare in the Senate. Landrieu is doubly vulnerable now, having voted for Obamacare and now having voted to support the nuclear option. Her likely opponent, Dr. Bill Cassidy, can run a two-pronged campaign against her as a tool of Obama, who is not popular in Louisiana, and a fool for Obamacare. She and Pryor, who voted against the nuclear option today, may be as good as gone. Udall, Begich and Hagan aren’t far behind them.
*I originally had NH as an open seat. My mistake.
IIRC, Tim Johnson and Max (not Mac) Baucus are also retiring.
That and the fact that maybe 20% of America follows politics enough to know what happened today.
Oh please. Maverick McCain and his girlfriend, Lindsey will do whatever the Democrats want.
Landrieu was one of the original “gang of 14” back during W’s administration when there was talk go going “nuclear.” She was supposedly a moderating voice who worked to avoid the nuke. I guess it matters who’s going nuclear.
“Yep, the moment we swear in a conservative president, assuming we own the Senate and the house ... We run our agenda flat out.”
Would that be like we did when George W. Bush was President?
Not going to happen.
What I mean is even if the Republicans Do control all three branches they will never run "our" agenda. They won't because "our" agenda is NOT "their" agenda.
The truth is the ruling class with Republican after their names love big government just as much as the ones with Democrat after their names.
The fix for this mess, at least in the Senate, is to repeal the 17th amendment. This will make Senators accountable to the states and they will serve at the pleasure of the state legislatures.
This was the intent of the framers for reasons that are now all to obvious.
I don’t think the author of this piece understands that the Democrats have no intention of giving up power, ever.
Maybe they’ll give up a few seats in 2014, but by then they’ll figure out a way to get amnesty passed, demogague minimum wage, gay marriage and birth control long enough and keep the courts from making any meaningful voter id law stick long enough to regain a foothold and eventually a stranglehold on power. That is their plan.
if the GOPe tries to follow their plan, pandering to just enough blocs to win power, it will fail because the party of smaller government can’t offer enough goodies to out pander the party of unlimited government. The road to victory is unapologetic promotion of limited government, aggressive rebuttal of democrat talking points and strawmen, and relatable education the public at large to the false promises of liberalism.
Too bad the House GOP leadership is impotent.
The Democrats want to knock this story off everyone's radar:
O’Keefe Releases Video of O-Care Navigator Conspiring to Release Private Data
See: Gateway Pundit
He's AWOL... again.
-PJ
The issue is whether the Republican establishment is finally going to understand that this is war. As long as they keep playing nicey-nicey, they’ll lose.
You dream!
The next time the Pubbies have the Senate, they will gentlemanly bow to “traditional values”, “reach across the aisle in a gesture of goodwill”, and reinstate the old rules for the benefit of their “Good Friends, the loyal opposition.”
MAKE DC LISTEN: TELL YOUR SENATORS, ESPECIALLY THE DEMOCRATS !
State .... Senator .... Party .... Phone
AK Mark Begich D (202) 224-3004
AK Lisa Murkowski R (202) 224-6665
AL Jeff Sessions R (202) 224-4124
AL Richard C. Shelby R (202) 224-5744
AR John Boozman R (202) 224-4843
AR Mark L. Pryor D (202) 224-2353
AZ Jeff Flake R (202) 224-4521
AZ John McCain R (202) 224-2235
CA Barbara Boxer D (202) 224-3553
CA Dianne Feinstein D (202) 224-3841
CO Michael F. Bennet D (202) 224-5852
CO Mark Udall D (202) 224-5941
CT Richard Blumenthal D (202) 224-2823
CT Christopher Murphy D (202) 224-4041
DE Thomas R. Carper D (202) 224-2441
DE Christopher A. Coons D (202) 224-5042
FL Bill Nelson D (202) 224-5274
FL Marco Rubio R (202) 224-3041
GA Saxby Chambliss R (202) 224-3521
GA Johnny Isakson R (202) 224-3643
HI Mazie K. Hirono D (202) 224-6361
HI Brian Schatz D (202) 224-3934
IA Chuck Grassley R (202) 224-3744
IA Tom Harkin D (202) 224-3254
ID Mike Crapo R (202) 224-6142
ID James E. Risch R (202) 224-2752
IL Richard J. Durbin D (202) 224-2152
IL Mark Kirk R (202) 224-2854
IN Daniel Coats R (202) 224-5623
IN Joe Donnelly D (202) 224-4814
KS Jerry Moran R (202) 224-6521
KS Pat Roberts R (202) 224-4774
KY Mitch McConnell R (202) 224-2541
KY Rand Paul R (202) 224-4343
LA Mary L. Landrieu D (202) 224-5824
LA David Vitter R (202) 224-4623
MA Edward Markey D (202) 224-2742
MA Elizabeth Warren D (202) 224-4543
MD Benjamin L. Cardin D (202) 224-4524
MD Barbara A. Mikulski D (202) 224-4654
ME Susan M. Collins R (202) 224-2523
ME Angus S. King I (202) 224-5344
MI Carl Levin D (202) 224-6221
MI Debbie Stabenow D (202) 224-4822
MN Al Franken D (202) 224-5641
MN Amy Klobuchar D (202) 224-3244
MO Roy Blunt R (202) 224-5721
MO Claire McCaskill D (202) 224-6154
MS Thad Cochran R (202) 224-5054
MS Roger F. Wicker R (202) 224-6253
MT Max Baucus D (202) 224-2651
MT Jon Tester D (202) 224-2644
NC Richard Burr R (202) 224-3154
NC Kay R. Hagan D (202) 224-6342
ND Heidi Heitkamp D (202) 224-2043
ND John Hoeven R (202) 224-2551
NE Deb Fischer R (202) 224-6551
NE Mike Johanns R (202) 224-4224
NH Kelly Ayotte R (202) 224-3324
NH Jeanne Shaheen D (202) 224-2841
NJ Jeff Chiesa R (202) 224-3224
NJ Robert Menendez D (202) 224-4744
NM Martin Heinrich D (202) 224-5521
NM Tom Udall D (202) 224-6621
NV Dean Heller R (202) 224-6244
NV Harry Reid D (202) 224-3542
NY Kirsten E. Gillibrand D (202) 224-4451
NY Charles E. Schumer D (202) 224-6542
OH Sherrod Brown D (202) 224-2315
OH Rob Portman R (202) 224-3353
OK Tom Coburn R (202) 224-5754
OK James M. Inhofe R (202) 224-4721
OR Jeff Merkley D (202) 224-3753
OR Ron Wyden D (202) 224-5244
PA Robert P. Casey D (202) 224-6324
PA Patrick J. Toomey R (202) 224-4254
RI Jack Reed D (202) 224-4642
RI Sheldon Whitehouse D (202) 224-2921
SC Lindsey Graham R (202) 224-5972
SC Tim Scott R (202) 224-6121
SD Tim Johnson D (202) 224-5842
SD John Thune R (202) 224-2321
TN Lamar Alexander R (202) 224-4944
TN Bob Corker R (202) 224-3344
TX John Cornyn R (202) 224-2934
UT Orrin G. Hatch R (202) 224-5251
UT Mike Lee R (202) 224-5444
VA Tim Kaine D (202) 224-4024
VA Mark R. Warner D (202) 224-2023
VT Patrick J. Leahy D (202) 224-4242
VT Bernard Sanders I (202) 224-5141
WA Maria Cantwell D (202) 224-3441
WA Patty Murray D (202) 224-2621
WI Tammy Baldwin D (202) 224-5653
WI Ron Johnson R (202) 224-5323
WV Joe Manchin D (202) 224-3954
WV John D. Rockefeller D (202) 224-6472
WY John Barrasso R (202) 224-6441
WY Michael B. Enzi R (202) 224-3424
- See more at: http://tedcruzforsenate.org/tell-your-senators-to-oppose-cloture-on-h-j-res-59/#sthash.CvqYzXvd.s4d7EOIg.dpuf
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