Why Bush isn't happy about an all-GOP Congress (Truly pathetic)

The Buffalo News | 11/17/02 | Robert Reich

[Druidstl]

Why Bush isn't happy about an all-GOP Congress By ROBERT B. REICH Featurewell.com 11/17/2002

President Bush must be worried. Why? Because he didn't want Republicans to control both houses of Congress. Like all first-term presidents, his biggest political goal is to be re-elected. A one-term presidency is considered a flop. Two terms and you get a chapter in the history books named after you. You get a decade named after you.

But now that Republicans are in control of both houses of Congress, the president will have less chance of being re-elected in 2004. It would be exactly the same, but in reverse, if a Democrat were in the White House. A Democratic president doesn't want to face re-election with a Democratic Congress.

Why not? For one thing, a Congress that's completely controlled by the same party as the president inevitably pushes that president toward that party's base, which is not where most of the votes are going to be found in the next presidential election.

A Republican-controlled Congress will push George W. Bush to the right. Its domestic agenda will be even more aggressively anti-abortion, pro-death penalty, pro-guns, more tax cuts for the wealthy, less regulation on big corporations.

And the president will have to go along. Or risk the wrath of his Republican conservative base. And if he goes along, he'll risk alienating voters in the vast middle - swing voters and independents he has to rely on if he's going to be re-elected.

Besides, an all-Republican Congress gives voters no one to blame when things go wrong other than Republicans, including, especially, the Republican-in-chief. And of course something's going to go wrong over the next two years.

When Democrats controlled at least one house, Republicans could blame them. A really dumb regulation? The Democrats pushed for it. An embarrassing leak to the press? The Democrats did it. A miscalculation on foreign policy? Democrats made it happen.

Besides, Americans like divided government. They like checks and balances. They'll be less likely to vote for a Republican president in 2004 now that Congress is already under the complete control of Republicans.

George W. Bush didn't need a Republican Congress to get done what he wanted to get done to be re-elected. He can't and won't do much about the economy. As for foreign policy, the president doesn't need Congress any more. He's already got his Iraqi war resolution. And as commander-in-chief, he has free rein to go after terrorism. Democrats aren't going to stop him.

Yes, the president campaigned like mad for Republican candidates. But that doesn't mean he wanted all of them to win. He wanted what any first-term president wants - to gain credit with party loyalists for having done what he could do, to show once again that he can raise a boat-load of money, to keep in his debt those congressional Republicans who did get re-elected and to show the public he's no slouch when it comes to aggressive campaigning. All important prerequisites for 2004.

So the president must be concerned. With Republicans in control of both houses of Congress, the president's chances of re-election have dimmed.

ROBERT B. REICH served as secretary of labor under President Clinton and unsuccessfully sought the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in Massachusetts.

[Torie]

The Pubbies in Congress are in no position to force Bush to do anything. It is the other way around. Also, just why does Reich think that guns and the death penalty will be big federal issues in this cycle? Slashing taxes on the "wealthy" is already dead; there isn't any money for it. The only abortion issue that might escape Roe v Wade is dealing with partial birth abortion, and that is a GOP winner if handled carefully. I don't think the Pubbies have any interest in getting soft on corporate fraud, and cooked books. Maybe it is just me, but I think Reich may be out of the loop.

[Cobra64]

Who is Bush? Or is that President Bush?

[skr]

So Pres. Bush "must be worried" and "must be concerned". Methinks Mr. Reich must be delusional.

[Cobra64]

It seems Reich has come up a little short... again.

That's what happens when you're no longer in Sinkmaster's cabinet.

[Kath]

Yep, this comes from a man who could not even get the nonmination for the seat he went after!!!! And we are suppose to give credibility to this article. I think not.

[Capt. Tom]

Reich missed the part about appointing judges, and geting your programs passed. - Tom

[livius]

Indeed.

Gimme a break, would jaz?

[F16Fighter]

Land of Oz's own Robert Reich surely must have done a few magic mushrooms before writing this absurd essay. OR was it meant to be satire?

Naah!

[Publius Maximus]

Why not? For one thing, a Congress that's completely controlled by the same party as the president inevitably pushes that president toward that party's base, which is not where most of the votes are going to be found in the next presidential election.

Oh, and the Democrats being run by a San Francisco socialist doesn't pull the Democratic party too close to its base for comfort?

[Cobra64]

What brand cigar?

"Lewinsky Delight Brand. Hand rolled, easy on the lips, and will not bite... leaves no aftertaste."

[billhilly]

One reason this dwarf brained "professor" believes his thesis must be because President Bush did not campaign for candidates for both houses of congress.

[wgeorge2001]

"Why not? For one thing, a Congress that's completely controlled by the same party as the president inevitably pushes that president toward that party's base, which is not where most of the votes are going to be found in the next presidential election."

Democrats are so very funny when they are up against the wall; they remind me wiley coyotee and the million hair brained schemes he always tries to catch the road runner with and always invariably fails. You just got to love their tenacity in the face of truth. I guess they really do live in La La land.
And there is another joke; America's first communist state and all the stealing and lying going on in "them their
hills"; California is going to be interesting to watch in the next 5 to 10 years.

[RLK]

A Republican-controlled Congress will push George W. Bush to the right. ....

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I doubt that. The average Republican is an inarticulate timid whip who is is afraid of the right because the right puts him in over his head.

[The Thin Man]

I haven't been able to figure out why the President engaged in nonstop campaining for GOP Senate candidates just before the election if he really didn't want them to win.....but then again who am I to question the words of the immortal Robert Reich?

[Bommer]

Like all Clinton "Experts", they turn out to be Clinton idiots!

[jos65]

Nuff said!!!!

[clintonsgohome]

He's a little turd!

[Bubba_Leroy]

This "wisdom" from a guy who couldn't even win a primary election in Massachusetts.

He didn't lose. He didn't want to win. Losing is winning. That's the new democRAT spin, from the party that gave us "oral sex isn't sex" and "it depends on what the meaning of 'is' is."

George Orwell called it "Newspeak."

[MinuteGal]

What really gets me is that space is afforded by this big city newspaper to Reich's mindless, illogical pap. This paper must have zilch journalistic standards. What a waste of trees to print this total insanity and shovel it out to innocent Buffalo readers.

Bring back Nellie Bly, W.R. Hearst and Col. Robert McCormick!

Leni

[Matchett-PI]

"What's really funny is that the Dems really believe this kind of stuff.(We tend to say "How can this be so? Gosh, they're just spewing out obvious lies?" Ah, but there are different kinds of liars. Some liars are just fools who can't find it in themselves to know the Truth.)"

Jimmy "The Pious" Carter is merely one who instantly comes to mind. LOL