The Governing Trap

National Review Online ^ | November 5, 2014 | NRO Editors

[Timber Rattler]

Around 9:00 last night, the TV pundits realized that it would no longer do to say that it was an anti-incumbent year: The vast majority of the incumbents losing — all of them in the Senate — were Democrats. Nor could the election be chalked up to red-state reaction. Republicans took Senate seats in Iowa and Colorado, which voted for Obama twice apiece, and governorships in Maryland and Illinois, which last voted Republican in 1988.

The wave gave Republicans a larger Senate majority than all but the most confident among them had expected, and added to the ranks of their governorships when they were expected to decline. That Senate majority should be expanded further if Republicans do not get complacent about the Louisiana run-off in December.

Already a conventional wisdom about what Republicans should do next has congealed. Supposedly it is up to Republicans to “prove they can govern” even though they do not have the White House. Senator Jeff Flake (R., Ariz.) told NPR listeners that Republicans could do this by moving on trade-promotion authority, the immigration bill the Senate passed in 2013, and corporate tax reform.

[Timber Rattler]

Need to get this out here because I've already seen the usual liberal calls for Republicans to compromise with Obama and "govern," i.e. do exactly what he wants to do.

[Tax-chick]

They need to "un-govern," that is, begin dismantling government's control over the lives and businesses of citizens of good will. The people of the United States don't need to be "governed" as if we were a nation of 2-year-olds. We need defense against enemies foreign and domestic.

Go back to defending the Constitution, as it says in the oath of office, and let the people govern themselves.

[SunkenCiv]

Already a conventional wisdom about what Republicans should do next has congealed. Supposedly it is up to Republicans to “prove they can govern” even though they do not have the White House. Senator Jeff Flake (R., Ariz.) told NPR listeners that Republicans could do this by moving on trade-promotion authority, the immigration bill the Senate passed in 2013, and corporate tax reform.