that'll change things.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgo7DFhZHG0

...if the Dems had shut down the government during the second Bush administration. The righties would have flipped out and called it the most irresponsible thing to do when we have troops overseas. Yet, here we are, watching these same idiots pray for a government shutdown.

Un-freakin-believable.

The problem is that no one is paying attention. The mouthbreathers on the right are controlling the message and those moderates and left-leaning just constantly hear nothing but anti-Democrat and anti-Obama propaganda.

I don't think there is anything we can do for this election cycle. The country is just so messed up right now that the electorate is willing to elect Republicans to see if it helps. They are going to have to see how little the Republicans are interested in solving problems and witness all the endless investigations and threats to impeach before they understand just how bad a return to power by the Republicans is.

Gear up for 2 years of ugliness.

I'm not so convinced that the GOp and the Teabaggers will be so victorious. Yes they'll take some seats.
But not enough to really alter the landscape.
Too many real fueds going on in the GOp.
Miller/Murkowski. That's a real one going on. I'm sure the most socialist state in the union will just love the idea of losing their SS. Miller has lost all of Murkowski's supporters.

Hayworth/McCain. Big time fued there too.
Rachel did a good story on this last night with EJ Dionnes( I think that's his name)

There was a good comparison to the Reagan Administration I read somewhere the other day.

Both inherited a recession that was still going on during midterms. I think unemployment during Reagans midterm was much higher. Both had almost identical approval at this point.

Reagan was expected to lose a lot more seats than he actually did. So you cannot draw any conclusions yet.

The Repubs have depended forever on hot button voters. Many Repubs claim that they are now independents but for most its not really true. The Repubs just have to hit the one button that will appeal to these narrow minded voters and there are plenty of them. More than 50 percent of voters don't appear able to loook at the big picture and will vote against their own best interests. It used to be that Govt classes were taken in school but it hasn't seem to have been the case for a long time. Most Americans are ignorant of the Constitution and Govt. I am fearful for America through its ignorance and tired of dealing with it at the same time.

Funky system glitch/burp? (Duplicate removed)

And blame it on democrats. When their plan is complete corporations will rule and you will have no recourse.

The Republican-controlled House of 1995 failed to get control of govt spending from the president, failed to exert the enormous power of the purse, because it staged the conflict clumsily, lost the initial PR battle, and then was forced to back down when too many of the majority got cold feet. They won't repeat the same mistakes if they win the House, then decide to go for exerting the power of the purse in 2011.

The first thing that they will do if they want to win this time, is to go over the administration-prepared budget they are given very closely. They may not have time for the ideal solution in 2011, which would be to cut the administration out of the budget planning process entirely, and come up with a plan that divides up the universe of govt spending under their own set of line items, not accepting the division that the adminsitration proposes. The budget is so complex, however, that this best solution may not be practical for 2011. They may have to work mostly with the line items they're given, and fund within that defined universe except on the most important issues, where they will spend the time and energy to rewrite completely. One relatively early "tell" on whether a serious budget confrontation is in the works, will be if we see them start the work of analyzing and reformulating the budget independently of the administration, as far as that is possible this first year. For all we know this is going on already behind closed doors. But if they win control in November, and intend anything like this, you would at least expect word to get out, and probably you would expect them to advertise this process of taking back the power of the purse from the Kenyan usurper.

Based on this analysis, and reformulating as much as is practical, the House leadership will issue this year's spending bills in two stages. The first set of bills will cover core govt functionality, things that everyone wants to see the govt continue to do. The DoJ bill, for example, would fully fund the FBI (well, except perhaps the White Collar Crime squads) and the US Attys, but perhaps not much else. This raft of bills will be designed specifically to put the whole question of a "govt shutdown" to one side, in that they will fund every function and every govt officer and employee whose continuation in their jobs and work would be useful as blackmail to either side.

The second stage funding bills will cover functions and personnel that the House leadership will label as "controversial", not clearly needed, and therefore things we will have to consider for cutting, given the dire state of the economy, and the deficit "crisis", etc. The idea will be to let these bills die, at least once the core funding bills are safely passed.

Now, the Dems in the Senate and the president might consider blocking these core funding bills, because they see what's coming in the next step, that nothing is going to be funded in the second stage but what the House wants, at least that's what will happen if they don't keep the core spending bills as hostages. But if that is their idea, I don't see how they escape blame for a shutdown they stage by holding the core spending hostage so as to get their way on the controversial spending.

It's true that the Dems could downplay the difference, make it seem that both sides are equally responsible for any impasse, by having the Senate move forward with spending bills that don't divide core from "controversial" spending. If they succeeded, there would be two alternative set of spending bills, the House's two-tiered set, and the Senate's more traditional set.

But even if this effort did succeed, the two alternatives would not seem equal to casual observers. Wouldn't it seem that the House version was more conciliatory, less confrontationa, less partisan? It would divide the whole messy, conflict-ridden, process into two parts, the core spending that all agree on, that should be funded now so that the govt doesn't have to shut down while the controversy is allowed to continue over the "controversial" spending, and these controversial spending items that can continue to be argued over as long as necessary.

But the Senate is such that it is not clear that there even would be alternative spending bills ready to compete with the House bills. The Senate Republicans would probably be able to keep the Dems from getting 60 votes for this set of bills, so we would have only one set of bills ready to go, and that's it, nothing else on the horizon, the House's way or the highway. What alternative would Obama and the Senate Dems have in such a case but to let the core spending bills through?

Sure, if the Republicans were too ambitious and nakedly partisan in their funding choices, in whether they put an item in the core vs the controversial bills, this could backfire on them. Their "wets" could get cold feet, and they would have to retreat ignominiously, like in 1995. Another early tell on whether they intend any such maneuver, or really, if they intend any constitutional hardball, will be what the organizing resolution says about the circumstance of the majority changing hands with the defection of members to the other party. If the terms are restrictive enough, if, as the extreme, the Speakership and control of the agenda would not change party to follow the majority, that tells you that they plan to do things later in the session that might tempt their wets to defect, and they want to deter that, or at least limit the damage if it does happen.

And, yes, they would be voyaging into unkown seas, as this maneuver would raise all sorts of constitutional issues, and predictably provoke a reaction from the administration, as it sought ways to divert funds to cover spending on things that the law still required the govt to do, but weren't funded, and to pay the salaries and working expense of the govt officers and employees needed to do these things, but whose positions had not been funded. Shades of Nixon, and impoundment redux. But I think a House controlled by teabaggers would see that as a feature, not a bug. Obama would have to do things to respond to de-funding that could be much more easily portrayed as overstepping and constitutional overreach than what he has already done. The baggers would be in hog heaven, overjoyed to have their worst fears confirmed.

If we could be sure that the other side would mismanage a budget battle as badly as the Reps did in 1995, I would say to Dick Morris, "Bring it!". But I doubt we will have that luxury. They could manage a unilateral rewrite of decades of spending far more extensive than Newt dreamed of, and stand an excellent chance of getting away with it. Why wouldn't they go for it?

.

Dan Coats, trying to get back his Senate seat after an extended stint as a lobbyist, is already attacking Obama for trying to close Gitmo and bring terrorists to Amurika. I expect the worst TV campaign ads ever from the Republicans, who will ramp up the bullshit to a fever pitch. Us good, them evil incarnate. Repeat ad nauseum. The Dems need to go after them big time. Continually point out their contradictions, lies, obstructionism. Dems need to go ugly early, find as much dirt as they can on each Republican opponent, and hammer on it incessantly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6X48Ysu6G4Q