Posted on 11/06/2014 2:11:00 PM PST by SeekAndFind
In the wake of Tuesday’s drubbing, soft Democrats in Congress are pledging to stand with the president’s party… for now.
So-called independent Sen. Angus King (I-ME) backed off his pledge to caucus with the majority party in the 114th Congress on Wednesday. He was joined by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) who represents a state which is shifting rapidly from blue to red without the requisite stopover into purple territory.
The story is not the same on the state-level. As the fallout from the 2014 tsunami settles, a wave of party jumpers is sapping the Democrats of authority on the legislative level.
In Manchin’s home state, Democratic state Senator Daniel Hall announced on Wednesday that he would shed his party identity and join the Republican Party. “The Senator, who was not up for re-election on Tuesday, told Eyewitness News over the phone, that the people in his district voted in large numbers against the Democratic Party and he made the change, to best represent their interests,” a local West Virginia CBS outlet reported.
Surely, Hall’s own interests will also be served nicely by the flip. His switch reverses a 17-17 member tie in the state Senate which was to be broken by the state’s Democratic gubernatorial administration. Republicans are now the majority party in West Virginia’s state Senate. The GOP also took control of the state’s House of Delegates on Tuesday night for the first time in 83 years.
Hall was not the only soft Democrat on the legislative level to abandon the president’s party. In Missouri on Wednesday, Rep. Linda Black shed her party label and determined to become a Republican.
“With the addition of Black, Republicans now hold 118 House seats, nine more than the 109 needed to override the governor on a party line vote,” The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. “They also hold 25 Senate seats, two more than the 23 needed to override the governor on a party line vote.”
Black ran unopposed on Tuesday and was reelected by her Desloge constituents as a Democrat, promoting the state’s House Democratic minority leader to call her flip a “deceptive bait and switch.” No matter. Certainly, the majority Republicans in the Show Me State’s legislature will see to Black’s interests.
While this phenomenon seems contained on the legislative level, cautious observers say it is a good bet to watch the Congress. No one likes serving in the minority, particularly if joining the majority is a viable option.
An earlier version of this post identified the next Congress as the 115th Congress
If the Pubbies blow this opportunity they will have done a greater disservice to America than Benedict Arnold!
Dems are running like rats!!!
Democrats feeling some aftershocks from the earthquake Tuesday? Paging Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi.
I do not expect to see this at the federal level, unless Manchin suddenly smells the roses.
In the House, the four Democrats always in question with regard to party jumping, are gone. Mike McIntyre and Jim Matheson retired. Nick Rahall and John Barrow were blown away by double digit margins on Tuesday.
As the Democrap caucus shrinks, it becomes more militantly leftist.
This is how a veto will be overridden.
Some party swaps and some dem crossovers.
Hell, it’ll be close anyway.
A good example of why politcians in general have lower voter approval than the Taliban.
That spells...Impeachment...
Party jumpers may enjoy a short term advantage, but it almost always comes back to bite them in the @$$ later on.
People who run around jumping on bandwagons are liable to get hit by a horn.
Nobody trusts a turncoat.
The handwriting was on the wall. They could have announced some time ago that they would seek reelection as a Republican, and I suspect they would have won fairly easily.
I wonder how many racist libs will see something like “Black joins Republicans” and blindly tweet hateful “Uncle Tom” messages at her.
Barrow had been dodging defeat for years. Probably felt he’d get lucky again.
More good news, this could become a trend in the heartland.
Kristen Powers on FOX today said she expected Manchin to switch..
If Obola vetoes a popular bill (Keystone, coal) and they are able to convince D’s to override it, that will be bigger than impeaching Obola.
No - no impeachment on the horizon. With veto capabilities we don’t want it.
Impeachment would lose the senate and create massive house losses.
We don’t need it anyway if we can manage the teenaged president politically.
Manchin is more useful as a D. Better to reach across the aisle, and expect him to vote against R’s on issues important to WV that are more liberal (union issues, etc)
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