GOP could control House without majority, says Kevin McCarthy (Repugnant-Calif.)

{cough...cough}... I call bullshit...posturing.

nt

The Senate is their bitch.

they POS's are so sure that even reasonable, honest republicans are going to vote for them. Give me a break. There are a lot of unemployed republicans. And they can read, they know who voted against extending their unemployment and sinking all the jobs bills the Democrats proposed. If I were a republican I would say there is a sinking feeling in the pit of their stomachs right about now.

Having the President show up at the auto plant on the news doesn't hurt in making that happen.

Having the Republicans continue to stand in the way of vital legislation doesn't hurt our chances either.

How would this work exactly?

thus giving repugs the majority. Party affiliation has nothing to do with who controls the Senate or the House, it's about who bands together once they get there.

Take Lieberman, for example. He is affiliated with no party (technically he's an independent) but caucuses with Democrats.

So I presuem the House does the same thing. Thanks!

The party with a majority of seats in the House is known as the majority party. The next-largest party is the minority party.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives

That would imply these Dems would need to switch parties.

anyone can run as a Democrat or Repub and win an election, no matter where their ideology lines up on the political spectrum. But on the other hand, just because someone wins an election on a given party ticket does not mean that they have to caucus with that party.

In theory, Democrats could win the House by a huge margin and elect a Repub as Speaker of the House, but Democrats would be the minority party (I think, this last part is correct. I am not certain because it has never actually happened and I don't feel like reading through all the rules to see how it would work on the federal level. But this did happen in the state legislate in Tennessee where the repub was kicked out of his party's caucus and thus Democrats retained control).

This part of the rules is very parliamentarian in nature. Think of it the same way that the English Parliament puts together a government. Basically, one side has to put together a coalition that represents 51% of their House of Commons, but the coalition does not have to be from the same party, it only has to agree to support an ideology and back the head of that party, thus giving that party control of their House.

1) They lose or suffer reduced campaign support.
2) They risk losing key committee positions as well as any chance to chair a committee.
3) They risk more serious opposition in the primary.
4) They risk losing many of their financial and grassroots supporters.

and financial support in exchange for switching. Seems like a very unlikely scenario to me, especially given the recent experience of Arlen Specter, but I guess it is foolish to underestimate a politician's ability to be bought.

and the Senate - without any majority. Of course the Blue Dogs (Republicans in a 'D' suit) are happy to help them.

The "monkeywrench" has been the US Senate for the past 4 years because of it's "rules". As low as my opinion is of most "Blue Dogs", I simply can't envision a scenario where they would do something as asinine as voting for a Republican Speaker of the House- not even if the Republicans somehow manage to win a majority.

George Carlin said it best:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHd_jXtp4Rs

or so. he convinced that there is a one world govenment trying to take over everything.

If the GOP controls congress then it's good to know that they really did support stuff like pay equality for women (called a trial lawyer's dream come true by the GOP), health care reform (which the GOP said would kill grannies and be horrible socialism), the economic stimulus (called pork barrel spending by the GOP), Justice Sotomayor (called 'another activist liberal judge' by the GOP), and reforming Wall Street to protect consumers (called job killing and big government interfering with the market by the GOP).

You would have never known that the GOP supported all of those things based on how almost all of them voted against every single one of these.

Obama is clearly beginning to turn various matters around, and the GOP knows its political zenith was reached months ago, sad for them too many months shy of November.

Also note that this is an ongoing admission that the Senate is not only not in play for the GOP, but that even the Democrats could pick up a seat. This is the reason for their focus on the House -- they don't want anyone to talk about the Senate.

I expect that Democrats and even a good number of independents will chillax and return to the fold in November. This is because things are indeed getting better economically (albeit slowly) and the oil spill is quickly becoming "problem solved" and a big green check mark next to Obama's name. Also, the tea party phenomenon has nearly completely fizzled.

This fall, it's going to be about the "Results President", and he's going to make the case that he's delivered on a wide degree of the progressive and common sense agendas, even if we didn't get 100% of what we desired. And he will succeed in making the case.

I don't think any Democrat would back a Republican as Speaker, they'd certainly be done in their district if they did. Minority government is a strange idea for a country with only two parties.

We had a Democratic House but a couple of conservative Democrats vote for the puke speaker candidate and got suck with his dumb ass.

People seem to forget that all the party stuff is an overlay over the actual Constitutional law which does not deal with them. There is no majority party when it boils down just a majority.

You'll be sorely disappointed if your blue dog rep goes off the reservation and votes for Boner but it can totally happen and there is nothing for it other than throwing them out of the caucus.

If pukes are strategic and sane they could also vote along with conservative Democrats to pick Ike Shelton or someone horrid that we have to be speaker and that would almost be as bad.

There's no way this plan could work for multiple reasons.

1) Take a look at what's happened to party switchers of both parties lately. The last democrat to switch to the GOP was freaked murdered on election day, losing by over 20 points, not even making it to a run off. Specter, a more respected guy by the party he joined, who didn't mess up his switch like Griffith, lost by 8 points, because all of his past statements and ads as a republican came back to haunt him.

2) Do you really think a democrat could switch to the GOP only weeks after winning reelection to the house as a democrat? I mean come on, winning reelection in this tough year would send the message that you did the right thing, you'll likely be able to keep on winning reelection in easier years for the democrats, so why take an unnecessary risk that could kill your career?

3) While at the local and state levels politicians may be able to get away with voting for someone of the other party to be majority leader, largely because most people have no clue who they are and just vote for the party, that won't be the case nationally. Any democrat who does that would be probably be forced out of the party by national outrage, and if they did stay they'd be throwing all of their influence and power in the democratic caucus in the dumpster, because do you really think other democrats will want to associate with you and make you head of a committee or something?

4) If democrats put themselves in the minority they'd be forced into a lot more painful votes by John Boehner then Pelosi could ever come up with. Boehner wouldn't care if they win reelection, he'd rather they get replaced by a radical republican rather then a wishy washy moderate.

5) Whenever this sort of thing happens, the people who cross over often vote for a moderate member of the opposite party (such as what happened in one branch of the PA legislature recently when democrats won a narrow majority, a few of them voted for a moderate GOP to be leader). Boehner is too radical for a moderate democrat to want in charge, and there's not a lot of moderates left after they've left themselves bend to the will of the extremists on almost everything lately.

6) Related to 5, the other way that parties cross over and vote for someone else to be majority leader is for the minority party to vote for a moderate member of the majority party. If the GOP won enough seats, but not a majority, then making a Blue Dog Democrat the speaker the house would seem their only realistic option of success. But even then, this would still be extremely risky for moderate democrats, and might end their careers anyway, it often ruins the career of the guy elected majority leader this way.

be ostracized by Democrats. Maybe. I would hope that this wouldn't be LIEberman/Zell redux.

Rigid orthodoxy has a habit of backfiring.

say that. repugs have been spouting the old "just wait until november". now here comes dear old kevin with "well if we don't get 39, we can still run stuff". yeah right.

And weren't removed immediately from the Democratic Party, I would never donate another dime or ever vote for another Democratic candidate.

Trying to instill false hope on their side, but interesting their expectations are lowering.