Posted on 01/02/2013 5:08:45 PM PST by drewh
I think you are right,
Earlier I was watching FNC and they were talking about the pork in the first bill and the Club For Growth against this and a number of House Republicans like Ryan voting against this recent bill, and I came to that false conclusion that it was all in the same final bill.
It looks like this is a scaled down version without the pork that the Senate will automatically pass without the normal procedure. So this is a win not a loss.
As I’ve said before I find it exceedingly unlikely the rats will be gaining House seats in 2014. I know you look at the big picture but I look at it seat by seat.
Basically history says if Obama has 65% approval they will gain 5 seats tops. A repeat of 1998. This is the nightmare scenario. Do you really see that swine having those kinds of numbers? Congressional disapproval will not matter it’s all about the President.
There is only 1 specific seat I worry about right now, California 31 held by Gary Miller, he probably would have lost 2 months ago if he had faced a democrat and not another Republican. Obama won it by 16/17 points, actually it was slightly worse than the 2008 numbers. Cali sucks. That’s the only Republican held seat in either chamber that we start off at a disadvantage in.
Auh2orepublican lists seat in the northeast that are competitive but I doubt most of these will be seeing close races in 2014, only the 3 of the ones in NY did this past election.
We have a decent list of targets, a few Romney districts that quite disgustingly split their tickets. 3 in Arizona that were super close (2 Romney, 1 Obama) giving the rats an unnatural majority in the delegation.
As for the Senate, we need 6, no guarantee, 2012 was a clusterf88k. We have more than enough targets though, early it’s looking good with top candidates in WV, SD and MA if Brown decides to run again.
I admitted you made a good point back then, POTUS and Senate races are far different then House races were districts are crafted by the governors. Ohio generated a few more R seats through redistricting.
A number of Senate races were blown by R party crackpots who were deemed to be purer than their primary competitors, but many of these House R districts are designed to not switch parties if that happens there.
Now that the last crisis is over (the outcome should have been no surprise) we get to look forward to arguing about the next one.
One good sign, MCConnnell and Bohner are telling Dems that nothing will get through the congress, no immigration, no gun control, no VAWA, until the budget and debt limit battles are settled. a great way of putting off gun control till the public forgets about the shooting.
The House will never elect an ex-member as Speaker so the legality or illegality of it will remain academic.
I always thought it was a ridiculous suggestion.
I guess Stockman had the right idea. Pelosi voted for herself again and Boehner didn’t vote so Stockman was the only “present” vote.
If you are going to do a protest why not come up with 1 candidate who is a current member and who is not supporting the Speaker you want removed (Cantor voted for Boehner). All these random votes look silly. GAO Comptroller David Walker? WTF? Walter Jones is mentally ill.
Did you get a load of the DEM protest votes?
McIntyre (scared of 2014) and Lipinski voted for DJ’s Congressman Jim Cooper.
Cooper himself voted for COLIN POWELL!! I bust a gut laughing when I saw that,
Matheson (scared) voted for Dingell
Barrow (scared) voted for his fellow Georgian Lewis.
So that’s 9 GOP votes for someone other than Boehner. 1 present vote and 3 GOP absent including Boehner himself.
5 rat votes against Pelosi and 3 of them absent.
In 1996 4 Republicans voted for Republicans other than Newt and 5 voted present.
I mean 1997.
It shows what a mess congressional Republicans are now. Reduced to nonsense like this.
Last year it was ‘We are going to win easy, America is with us”
Now its :”???? We are mad and confused and mad and don't know what to do. If we cant beat Obama then lets go after Rs symbolically of course”, that is all that is left,
Of course in 2016/2017 Obama moves on and the Dem party will have a vacuum too. He is holding it together now and his successor candidate will probably be white/.
One difference between the protracted coups of 1997 and 2013 was that in 1997 the coup-plotters actually managed to get Newt’s votes below 218 (he was reelected with 216—abstentions and “present” votes lowered the denominator and thus the minimum required) while Boehner got 220 (with 214 required).
Impy, you mentioned “3 GOP absent including Boehner himself,” but I think that there were at least 4 Republican seats that either were vacant or its member didn’t vote. Boehner didn’t vote, Mulvaney and Labrador stayed silent when their names were called, and there was one vacancy: Tim Scott had resigned from the House the prior day (sometime after voting against the tax deal) to accept his appointment to the Senate.
Yes that doesn’t count the vacant seats just people who are current members listed as “not voting”.
Odd that Boehner didn’t vote, Newt didn’t vote in 1997 either.
Traditionally, Speaker candidates don’t vote for Speaker. Pelosi broke with tradition, as usual.
The tradition was both answered “present” rather than not voting at all.
I notice now Boehner has not voted since 2007 when he mimed Nancy and voted for himself. I guess he doesn’t like voting present.
Hastert always voted present as did Gephardt, Foley, and Michel (they have the votes going back to 1991 as I’m sure you know). Newt did so in 1995 but did not vote at all in 1997 (maybe he was hiding).
It seems crass but I would probably vote for myself like Pelosi if I were the party candidate. Maybe even if I were a regular member this year, as a joke.
With all the egos it’s almost surprising no one did.
By tradition, the Speaker of the House abstains on most legislation unless it's a tie-vote or something. That's one of the reasons it was nonsensical rhetoric in the last primary when Newt backers tried to "prove" Newt was "more conservative" than Santorum by pointing out their ACU rating during the last year they served together was something like 92% for Santorum and 100% for Newt. I forget which freeper it was, but they noted Newt probably got that "100%" score from voting for a single piece of legislation that year.
>> It seems crass but I would probably vote for myself like Pelosi if I were the party candidate. Maybe even if I were a regular member this year, as a joke. <<
As I noted, if I was a member of the House this year I'd cast a meaningless protest vote for Allen West. Since it wasn't like he was "challenging" Boehner for the Speakership it wouldn't result in any constitutional questions in the event he's actually "elected" Speaker.
If I was the party caucus leader, sure I'd vote for myself for Speaker. I'm not sure if there's a tradition there or not. They vote to re-elect themselves to Congress when they show up on election day (no doubt Obama voted for himself for President), so why not vote for yourself for Speaker when you're the party caucus choice and/or expected to get the job? I know when there are conclaves for the election of Pope in the Catholic Church, however, it's considered distateful for a Cardinal to "campaign" for the job or vote for himself as Pope. Even when there's 100% consensus on who the next Pope should be, they still won't vote for themselves. I read somewhere that the final ballot for the election of Pope John XXIII was something like 79-1, since he voted for another Cardinal instead of himself.
>> With all the egos it’s almost surprising no one did. <<
That's what surprises me. Given the ego of many of these Congressmen, I shocked none of them (on the GOP or RAT side) cast protest votes for themselves because they didn't like the party leader. And that's not even going into their fan bases that fed their egos. Adam Andrejewski supporters probably think the position of Emperor of the Universe is beneath Adam's talents. Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul's supporters basically consider ANY politician besides them to be an evil constitution-hating tyrant, dontsa know. No wonder these guys are so vain.
You’re right, Speaker candidates traditionally voted “Present” (which would not affect the denominator and, if both candidates so voted, would not affect the vote). Maybe Newt and Boehner withheld their vote instead of voting Present in case they needed to cast a last-minute YEA to go over the top.
As for Pelosi, she voted for herself because she’s a boor.
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