With all due respect, the Reps face a different problem when they are in the majority from the dims.
Every move the reps make is vilified and trashed by the MSM.
This makes it very hard for them to act in an aggressive manner. The reps must not jeopardize their senate majority and the dims know it.
Being villified by a press sinking in trust and circulation isn't the problem it was in 1989. If they find it hard to govern as a Majority because a discredited press calls them mean names, they won't be the majority for much longer.
It needs to be remembered if the American people that elected them gave a damn what the press said, they wouldn't be there. Similiarly most of these people are not in danger of losing their jobs if they govern as a strong conservative, because that's the platform on which their voters voted. They expect results. The GOP Senate needs to deliver or else.
No, could it be they are more concerned about their individual careers and are timid about exercising power!
The Demorats were in power for many years and didn't hesitate enacting stupid, court packing, and pork barrel legislation over the objections of Republicans. (Many Republicans, of course, are also guilty of Pork Barrel legislation.)
You must make hay while you can, and screw the MSM.
'Every move the reps make is vilified and trashed by the MSM'. ---
The MSM is irrelevant, the circulation numbers and TV ratings are plummeting. The Republican Senators will only be effective when they stop worrying about what the NYT is going to say about them and start worrying about what the voters are going to say to them in the next election.
As opposed to the praise heaped upon them when they act passively?
The GOP will get nothing but ridicule and scorn heaped upon them by the MSM no matter what they do. They may as well take some action while they're getting hammered by biased reporting.
It is always vilified and trashed by the press even when they were in minority. Stop making exucuses for failure in GOP leadership.
Perhaps the GOP senators are getting just your kind of advice from idiot consultants. Then that is really the problem. These people were elected to confront these obstructionists not to bend to them. Shut them up, answer them back and get on with it.
***This makes it very hard for them to act in an aggressive manner. The reps must not jeopardize their senate majority and the dims know it.***
Sorry to disagree with you, tkathy, but I believe that about 80 percent of this country's voters are totally unaware of what is going on in the Senate. The Senate Republicans NEED to be strong to get votes. Then they need to crow about sending a strong man to the U.N. to protect this country's interests. And now is the time for them to do it with the U.N. Oil-for-Food program in the news.
Raise money. Buy The New York Times. Put Mark Steyn in charge. Then act in decisive, when neccessary - aggressive manner.