1. cowards 2. part of the problem 3. afraid of media 4. think if they are nice, when it's their turn, dims will play nice
Lucy=Dims, Chuck=GOP
Posted on 07/15/2010 10:40:54 AM PDT by onyx
Senior Senate Republicans are not optimistic about their chances of capturing the upper chamber in the midterms and have not put together a legislative strategy in case it happens.
While House Republican Leader John Boehner (Ohio) has started to plan how he would run the lower chamber if he became Speaker, Senate Republicans dismiss their ascendancy to power as a long shot.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) would have his pick of chairing the Finance, Judiciary or Budget panels. But he has not given much thought to the legislative policies he would push as chairman, because he thinks the chance of Republicans winning control is almost zero.
“I haven’t thought about it,” Grassley said. “I think it’s a very slim possibility.”
Grassley hasn’t even thought about what committee he would chair if Republicans captured the Senate.
“I would wait until November to make a decision,” he said.
Senate Democrats will count 59 seats in their majority after West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin (D) appoints a successor to the late Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.). Republicans control 41 seats.
Sen. Richard Shelby (Ala.), the ranking Republican on the Banking Committee, has mused about how he might run the panel with jurisdiction over the financial-services industry. But those thoughts haven’t turned into any concrete plans.
“I have a lot of thoughts, but they’re not crystallized. We’ll have to wait and see what happens,” Shelby said. “The trends look good at the moment, but to take control of the Senate is a heavy lift.”
Shelby said taking back control of the Senate is more difficult than winning the House because only a third of the 100 senators face reelection in November. All 435 members of the House must face voters this year.
Republicans would have to pick up 10 seats, winning three times as many Senate races as Democrats, to become the majority party in the Senate. Thirty-seven Senate seats are up for reelection this year. Republicans would have to win 28 of the races to take control of the chamber.
If Republicans were to perform a minor miracle and flip control of the Senate, lawmakers would have to scramble to figure out what to do with their new power.
Shelby said he would use the Banking gavel to restrict the government regulations that are likely to be authorized by the Wall Street reform bill.
“I would first be looking at the oversight of this so-called financial reform package and see what’s wrong with it, which I think a lot of things are,” Shelby said. “That would be one thing we would really look at, but you can’t really plan an agenda yet.”
Shelby said he would also scrutinize the actions of the Federal Reserve, which many conservatives say has become emblematic of the power of unelected government officials to shape fiscal policy.
Shelby said he would discuss his concerns on Thursday when the Banking Committee considers three nominees to the Federal Reserve Board. They are Janet Yellen, who was tapped to serve as vice chairwoman, and Peter Diamond and Sarah Bloom Raskin, who were nominated to serve as members.
Republican political strategists acknowledge the chances for capturing the Senate are not as good as winning the House but say the possibility exists.
“Just as Robert Gibbs has looked at the math and made clear that the Democrats have a real possibility of losing the House, many others including ourselves have looked at the math and see it’s clear the Senate is very much in play for Republicans,” said Brian Walsh, spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “It wasn’t at the start of the cycle.”
In March of 2009, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report rated only two Democratic-held seats as toss-ups between the parties. It rated the rest as “lean Democratic,” “likely Democratic” or “solid Democratic.”
This month, Cook updated its ratings and placed six Democratic seats in the toss-up column. It rated three others — in Indiana, Delaware and North Dakota — as more likely to be won by Republican candidates.
Jennifer Duffy, senior editor for the Cook Report, said Republicans could capture the Senate if the anti-Democratic wave turns into a tsunami.
“If the wave is big enough, they could carry all those states,” Duffy said.
She predicted a GOP gain of four to six seats is more likely.
“This is going to be one of those elections that sort of proves the old adage that candidates and campaigns matter,” she said. “If the wave is there and not huge then Republicans have the states where they didn’t get strong candidates.”
Duffy said these states, such as Nevada, could help Democrats keep control.
Sen. Kit Bond (Mo.), the senior Republican on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said Republican voters are fired up in his home state. But he thinks it will likely take two elections to wrest control from Democrats.
“I hope by 2013 it happens, but I’m certainly not going to be on it for 2011,” said Bond, who will retire at the end of this year.
Thanks to incumbents Snowe, Collins and Brown voting with democatS ON THE FINANCIAL BILL not to mention NO FILIBUSTER OF KAGAN!
Republicans?? We have a bunch of capons running and clucking when the Rats say something back to them,That has to change.
These )@&@)^&^!* idiots!
If they can’t filibuster a toxic mediocrity like Kagan, forget it.
We live in a banana republic, and they’re Banana Republicans.
“Senior Senate Republicans” never were into ANY heavy lifting. Never want to get thier hands dirty I guess.
WIMPS! Sarah Palin takes on Obama on every issue and when one of the Senators gets around to speaking up, he sounds like a weak and watered down echo chamber of her, IF she hasn’t taken too much heat from the WH for ripping The One and his Marxist policies.
I think there is a very real possibility the Repubs could win control of the Senate in 2010. Isn’t it funny how this MSM article mirrors earlier MSM articles that stated the Repubs could never pick up the House in 2010? I don’t read that anymore.
Me too. I am furious.
Those damn entrenched incumbents.
They don’t have any inclination to FIGHT.
This shouldn’t surprise many people, because with very few exceptions the Republicans hadn’t determined how to govern by 2006, after taking control of Congress in 1994.
Why lead, why rock the boat, why set goals? Heck, so much easier to just go-along-get-along.
You’re right.
Kagan has no business on SCOTUS. Red diaper baby and only 50 years of age!
JMJ
If they are not ready to push and fight for the Majority and lead when they have it. Why Should I waste my time voting for them. Lets find somebody else that understand the future of our country is at stake and we can elect them instead.
They’re entrenched fossils - worthless and harmful to our side.
Useful idiots for the other side.
I despise them all.
If they can take CA, WA and WI, they can do it. Those states right now are very close.
Sad thing is they could easily have taken a majority this year if they hadn’t blown so many seats and had terrible luck in almost every race in 2006 and ‘08. Nice going, American voters! Anyway, a shift of only a few thousand votes in a few states in the last 2 cycles and there would be about 45 or more GOP senators now. So Reid would have been out as majority leader one way or the other next Jan. Now it’s going to be extremely difficult to gain 10 seats. Even if they do we can count on Castle, Kirk, and maybe some others to join the “moderates” quite often.
1. cowards 2. part of the problem 3. afraid of media 4. think if they are nice, when it's their turn, dims will play nice
Lucy=Dims, Chuck=GOP
Good to know, but if the dolts would filibuster Kagan,
they’d give voters something to get excited about!
Shoot, these guys make being a whimp a step up. Years ago I knw wwe were in big trouble down the road when every sentence Hatch would utter always began with “My good friends on the other side of the aisle . . “
PBO
Palin-Bachmann Overdrive!
Shoot, these guys make being a whimp a step up. Years ago I knw wwe were in big trouble down the road when every sentence Hatch would utter always began with “My good friends on the other side of the aisle . . “
PBO
Palin-Bachmann Overdrive!
” They don’t have any inclination to FIGHT.”
FIGHT? I don’t see any evidence that they are breathing!
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