Posted on 06/20/2014 4:58:29 AM PDT by Kaslin
America's two political parties seem to be coming apart.
That's in contrast to the relatively stable competition of the last 20 years, when Democrats have won four of six presidential elections and Republicans won House majorities in eight of 10 congressional contests, always by less than landslide margins. The parties' stands on issues have remained familiar from one cycle to the next.
That pattern seems likely to hold this year, with Republicans favored to hold their House majority, and with a better than 50 percent chance of gaining the Senate majority that eluded them in 2010 and 2012.
But the outlook for 2016 is murky, with a stale Hillary Clinton way ahead of other Democrats and a stable of Republicans closely clustered out of the starting gate with no clear leader or perceptible opening.
Congressional Democrats have been bucking the Obama administration on both right and left.
Senate Democrats rejected judicial nominees as insufficiently liberal. They blocked the nomination of an assistant attorney general nominee who supported the appeal of the murderer of a Philadelphia policeman and a surgeon general nominee who tweeted that "guns are a health care issue."
Democratic Senate nominees have blasted the Obama EPA's power plant regulations, and Arkansas incumbent Mark Pryor now refuses to say whether he'd vote for Obamacare again. Only Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's refusal to call up legislation or allow amendments has prevented other schisms from becoming visible.
Democratic disagreements have also been visible in Hillary Clinton's book promotion tour.
As in 2008, she has apologized for supporting the 2002 Iraq war resolution, and she refused to say whether the Keystone XL pipeline should be approved, even though her State Department report found it environmentally unthreatening.
Clearly Clinton is catering to the antiwar left and to San Francisco hedge-fund billionaire Tom Steyer, who has pledged to spend $100 million to block Keystone.
As the world spins in disarray, she sometimes distances herself from the president she served for four years. She would have aided Syrian rebels, she says, and would not have dropped Egypt's Hosni Mubarak so abruptly. She doesn't quite agree with the Bowe Bergdahl deal.
But she also says the five released Taliban leaders pose no threat to the United States and defended National Security Agency data mining. She squirmed under ABC's Diane Sawyer's questions about Benghazi and NPR's Terry Gross' questions about her late conversion to favor same-sex marriage.
The latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows 55 percent of voters consider her "knowledgeable and experienced," but only 38 percent say she is "honest and straightforward," while 40 percent say she's not. Publishing-world gossip is that her current book's sales lag well behind her 2003 memoir.
Certainly she's not getting the adulation lavished on her in editor Tina Brown's 2011 debut Newsweek cover story celebrating "how she's shattering glass ceilings everywhere!" -- a curious comment for the third female secretary of State. It's hard to be the latest new thing when you've been a major public figure for 22 years.
If Clinton's skittering performance illustrates the splits in the Democratic Party, those in the Republican Party have been glaringly apparent for some time.
Potential 2016 Republican presidential candidates have sharp differences on foreign policy generally, on drone strikes and NSA surveillance, on immigration.
They talk of repealing and replacing Obamacare, but don't specifically say how, and present no common front on taxes or entitlements. They blame the sluggish economy, plausibly, on the Obama big-government policies but don't seem anywhere close to proposing specific alternatives.
Republican primary voters have mostly been refraining from nominating dangerously provocative candidates. But their distrust of party leaders was apparent in the surprise defeat of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.
The perceived failure of Barack Obama's policies is the backdrop here. Polls have shown majority disapproval for the 2009 stimulus package and Obamacare since Obama's first year in office.
And the NBC/WSJ poll is only the latest to show majority disapproval on foreign policy -- and was conducted before the news of collapse in Iraq was fully absorbed.
This has left Clinton with reason to distance herself from Obama even as many Democrats want to move further left. And it has left Republicans with no clear ideas on how to repair the damage at home and abroad.
It's as if both parties are sailing in uncharted waters, with would-be leaders fighting for the tiller.
Or merging???
Yeah I think merging.
We have one party I’ll call the “government” party.
The non-government people and normal Americans are the rest. Are we seeing the non-government people and normal Americans begin to coalesce around some ideas?
The Uniparty has been in an incestuous Relationship for my entire lifetime!
It worked for the Soviets.
The Democrats and GOP Establishment should drop the pretensions and formally join together to form a new party - the Oligarchians.
Here we are not even to the mid-term and Barone is whining about the races two years beyond that? Where was Obama on the radar in 2006?
Seems like the “Smartest Man in Politics” may be a little light in the wallet if he needs prognosticating for buoyancy this far out.
Hey Michal, you utterly failed in 2012 when your smart guy research was heavily weighted on Dick Morris.
Events coming at us faster than a speeding bullet re still defining the mid-terms and those mid terms will start to define the 2016 races. I imagine it will be a surprise to most of us who will step up and turn this whole debacle on its head. Besides, as the electorate goes, who the hell is paying attention anyway?
There is two parties? Really?
Even if a strong conservative candidate gets close to defeating a moderate conservative, the shot across the bow does damage. When a Brat defeats a Cantor, the shot leaves the ship foundering.
Moderates see and know that they will be next if get sucked into the DC schmoozing crowd and ignore their constituents.
Both political parties are currently on some sort of weird incestual relationship, which doesn’t include jobs.
Jobs are critical.
Yet neither party, is advocating for American jobs.
Tea Party, stand up. Lots and lots of Americans are tired of this.
I’ve been following Barone for a few years; he’s a good analyst. I think he was gobsmacked in 2012 like a lot of other inside-the-beltway types, and with any luck he’s coming to realize he’s got to get out in the hinterlands more.
I liked him too, but like so many others his head eventually got too big for his shoulders.
Definitely merging. Have never seen more RINOs in my life. They don’t do what’s right. They do what gets them elected. Many vote on issues for the public to see near election time then go change their votes to appease the libs. We need men of character with balls in office, not these effiminate lipstick wearing pigs.
The Tea Party IS standing up and we are mobilizing to get the shady politicians out of office and have succeeded much lately. We need more members particularly young ones.
Must be all that brie and chablis.
They’re aiding and abetting soetoro’s Treasons, that’s for sure.
” Have never seen more RINOs in my life. They don’t do what’s right. They do what gets them elected.”
Could it be they reflect the desires of their constituents which is what they are elected to do? After all, over 95% are reelected.
We have one large GOVERNMENT PARTY now - its about the interests of government, growing it, supporting it - and all its beneficiaries and cronies. It could include groups as diverse as business, many leftists, some military, government employees, anyone who gets a check from the Government.
They are highly organized and in control.
the rest of us are scattered and disorganized.
What we have here is a tale of FOLLOW THE MONEY.
Currently, we have a mutually beneficial, cave-in system where “both” political parties spend 40 % more money than they take in as income. [ Note: Their word for “Cave-in” is “Bi-Partisan.”]
40 % of the Annual Federal Spending is for Welfare: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, Aid to Dependent Children, Food Stamps, Rental Aid to Illegal Alien Invader “children” and adults from Mexico, etc, etc, etc.
365 days X 0.6 = 219 days after October 1 (Fed. Fiscal Year) for non-Welfare, Federal expenses, most of which is for salaries.
After the 219 days, (60 % of a year), or 7.3 months, ( April 9, +/-), are up the Feds either print more money or sell bonds to pay for the rest of the Fed. Fiscal year Welfare expenses.
The rest of the year: April 9 to October 1, the US Federal Government spends every second increasing the National Debt burden on us and our Grandchildren’s Descendants.
So much for what our highly paid Federal Politicians in “both” political parties are doing TO us.
Now comes what their smokescreen diversions are: Are you “Liberal or Conservative?”
To test this smokescreen, just ask yourself the following question:
“If a “Conservative Politician” is a Politician who “Conserves,” then who are the Politicians in all of our political parties who have EVER “Conserved” anything?”
My point is that the Left and Right Stream Media are distracting We, The People by this fracturing and splitting topic, while “both” political parties happily continue to convince us that we really do need 40 % more Federal Government than we can pay for.
There is no “fracturing” of any political party, as “both” of our political parties have the same basic goal: KEEP ON INCREASING THE SIZE OF THE US FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.
If you doubt me, then just FOLLOW THE MONEY.
Big Government as God Party. Small Government, and God Rules Party.
“Choose you this day whom you will serve…but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” (Joshua 24:15)
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