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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsObama Promised To Reach Out To The GOP. Nothing Will Change -----
They will never change and I bet are plotting more obstruction to blame on the Democrats. The red states will never learn. Looking at all the red in many of the worst ones who get the most federal money Obama was not even close.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)Volaris
(10,274 posts)Or I'll have Reid do the Filibuster, and then you will REALLY see what "backed into a corner" means. The President has the clout now to actually DO this, and not have the Dem Congressional block suffer to greatly for it, if at all.
The debt ceiling, and MIDDLE-CLASS tax cut extensions will be a good first test. Get it done, Boehner and McConnell, or on Jan. 01, welcome to a whole new world of legislative pain.
Proud Liberal Dem
(24,436 posts)Although the GOP's obstructionism in Congress was awful and unprecedented in modern history, they at least had a fig leaf of a "legitimate" argument to make that President Obama's agenda was "too extreme" and that they were just the "loyal opposition" standing up against it. This claim, however specious, was bolstered by the 2010 midterms, which were largely viewed as a repudiation or at least a challenge to President Obama's policies. Now that President Obama has stood for re-election and been challenged directly and still won handily, his victory should be seen as a confirmation that the American people want his general vision for the country over the general "Republican" vision that Mitt Romney's candidacy advanced. Sure, Boehner, McConnell, et. al can sit around and play obstructionist games and try to hobble President Obama for the next 2-4 years but I believe that if they do, they and the Republican Party will be increasingly marginalized and challenged and President Obama will have much more leverage and support than he previously did to call out their obstructionism and demand cooperation. It will be up to the Republicans to decide which path they choose to tread (and I don't really trust them to make the wiser choice) but it seems pretty clear that a lot of people want to see things getting done in DC and most people obviously didn't feel that replacing President Obama with Mitt Romney was the correct solution for this. It would have been better if the public had given President Obama an all-Democratic Congress to work with (again) but, unfortunately, it didn't happen, so we're left with pretty much the status quo from two years ago to work (though, perhaps with a few less tea nuts) with and I don't think that more obstructionism is what most people have in mind for the country for the next 2-4 years.