So in the last season of “West Wing,” while the Democratic party was splintered in a divisive struggle between two contenders–one of them a long-time DC operator and the other an idealistic minority candidates–while the already decided white-haired GOP candidate, unpopular within his own party because of some of his policies waited patiently…
The President serving the second term of his presidency was busy organizing a wedding for his daughter.
PAD
• 
At this point the only thing standing between Obama and the White House would be some of his nuttier supporters scaring off folks who are on the fence.
There I totally agree with you Bill (though I’m not so sure I agree it’s a fait accompli and Michelle should start picking out curtains yet….) The more I hear from some of his more deluded supporters, the more the bloom comes off his rose. Honestly, I think they’re more a danger to his chances than anything his enemies could do.
FL and MI will be a problem, hopefully a solution will be found. However much some people like to bandy about that it’s all thier own fault, so they can’t complain, the fact is that is was not the voters in those states who decided to move things around. The state leadership did, so however you slice it, the voters had thier rights taken away by the actions of others. So telling them ‘tough noogies’ and blaming them for it doesn’t strike me as a particularly wise strategy if you want them in your corner come election time…
Patrick: “…the fact is that is was not the voters in those states who decided to move things around. The state leadership did, so however you slice it, the voters had thier rights taken away by the actions of others. So telling them ‘tough noogies’ and blaming them for it doesn’t strike me as a particularly wise strategy if you want them in your corner come election time…”
I’d like to say that you are right, it is not the voters’ fault. It is definitely the fault of the state lawmakers and they should be held accountable at election time. Earlier I said that other states wouldn’t shed a tear, but that was a little too strong. I only meant that this is not such a severe issue that it constitutes a civil rights violation. It is unfortunate, though.
Personally, I do think there should be some punishment, but you are right that things will be smoothed over if there is a compromise. Perhaps cutting their delegates in half would be enough.
One thing about seating those delegates. For all of Hillary’s talk about the horror of disenfranchisement, she’s already rejected Michigan’s proposal for seating the delegates while the Obama campaign has indicated that they’re okay with it. So he wants a 50/50 split but seems willing to compromise while she wants the full count with her getting the full advantage from the votes but she’s unwilling to compromise.
“You brought up race where it wasn’t relevant, and I cited the facts that demonstrated it.”
Ok, just because it’s a slow day and I could use a laugh…
I stated that that Hillary won’t get the nod over Obama, who in the full context of the conversation is identified as the candidate with the most votes and voter support, at the convention because the Democrats are going to be mindful of the fact that putting her over him by a backroom deal would fragment the party and drive away a large portion of the black vote for quite some time. This would be bad in and of itself for them, but they would also see that as losing one of their best smokescreen weapons, the race card, for some time to come as well.
Are you saying that you think that Democrats aren’t considering this possible outcome when looking at the choice that they may be faced with making by convention time? Are you saying that you feel that there would be no repercussions of that nature if the Democrats did a backroom deal at the convention and put Hillary and her fewer overall votes up as the nominee over Obama and his majority of the votes and voter support?
Or are you saying that an observation based on race and politics is not relevant here because the Democrats, owing to the voter stats you pointed out for Obama, don’t need the black vote anymore?
“At this point the only thing standing between Obama and the White House would be some of his nuttier supporters scaring off folks who are on the fence. I look at McCain and I see Bob Dole, with much the same end result.
That’s the one saving grace to this election. I’m not fond of Obama and only slightly more, if at all, truly fond of Hillary at this point. But there is really almost no way that McCain is getting into the Oval Office as anything other than an official visitor or with the guided tour. His attempts to gain favor with the far right aren’t working and it’s just losing him some of his moderate support and the bones he throws to his moderate supporters keep ticking off the hard right supporters.
McCain was never the RINO that so many on the Right labeled him and so many on the left seemed to believe him to be and this race is finally driving that point home to some of the denser political followers out there. It’s a lose/lose thing for him since the libs and moderates are just going to be disappointed in him and a majority the people on the Right that have hated him all these years aren’t going to let go of that hate soon enough to do him any good.
Actually, when really looking at it, I think it’s possible that he’ll end up making Dole’s run for the Presidency look good.
By the way Bill, did you guys make it through the storm front in the new house ok? Some of the news footage from the Carolinas this morning looked pretty bad.
It’s not just the kooks that will hurt him–every politician has some nutty acolytes–but Obama’s seeming lack of desire to distance himself from them.
It’s understandable, in the case of Wright. The guy was practically a surrogate father to him and as long as enough of the true believers were telling him it was no big deal and the media wasn’t making a big deal of it he thought he could avoid the ugly breakup. But this is the internet age and news WILL get out. He lost the chance to get ahead of the game.
Obama hasn’t been able to put Hillary away, even after it has become all but impossible for her to win. I see in him someone who has gotten much much closer to the prize than he thought possible at the beginning and is very afraid of blowing it at the last moment. He can afford to play that way for the nomination but he’s going to have to take chances in the election.
By the way Bill, did you guys make it through the storm front in the new house ok? Some of the news footage from the Carolinas this morning looked pretty bad.
The only problem I had was that the yellow rat bášŧárdš who run the networks kept interrupting LOST and SURVIVOR at the absolute worst times to tell us over and over again that there was a tornado watch in counties other than my own.
That may seem petty but when you are watching the all time dumbest person ever to play Survivor get voted off you want to savor every moment. And for all I know the 45 seconds I lost on LOST might have explained every question I ever had…45 seconds on LOST is like a whole season on most shows.
As far as I can see, the only effect the weather had on us was to knock off most of the ripened mulberries from our mulberry tree before I had a chance to compete with the squirrels for them.
Hi All,
Does anyone else think that, when the Dems get to the convention, they are going to let the first round go through, with the supers being careful to NOT vote so that there is a decision made, so that this gets to go to the second round. Then, all bets are off, and the delegates get to go crazy and look for a new candidate, and Al G. steps in as a party unifier, and collects on that debt that Bill and Hill owe him… 😉
Charlie
No, I don’t think that’s going to happen.
It wouldn’t unify the party. The people who have voted for Obama would be *pìššëd*. It would be the absolutely epitome of backroom deals.
Charlie–it’s hard to imagine that, in a year when a woman and a Black man have gathered the most votes, they would then give it to a White guy. A coin flip would have more legitimacy.
And to tie things back to the West Wing
http://news.yahoo.com/s/bloomberg/20080509/pl_bloomberg/aokvep53z0n0
Check out the names in the next to last paragraph.
David
Taking steps to making a topic irrelevant is not mutually exclusive of thinking of that topic. Denying they may be inclusive is a denial of privilege, not of reason. Thank you for confirming that Obama has avoided playing the race card in winning his white voters.
Mike, you’re even more of a brick wall than the last time I was here regularly. Ah the comedy gold I must have missed while I was gone.
Mulligan, glad to hear that the only thing you lost was jam ingredients.
you and the misses are welcome to come visit anytime. You can take pictures and compare them with the one Bill Myers took and discover that we haven’t unpacked a dámņ thing in the last month…
Yes, Jerry, don’t let reality stop you from simply setting a quota on accuracy, by playing the “brick wall” card without invalidating anything I’ve said.
Mike, yer a brick wall cause nothing I said in the post you responded to, and certainly nothing you quoted from it, was about Obama’s qualifications or achievements, Obama using the race card or Obama doing anything at all. I was talking about Hillary’s quest to be president and how she may feel she has nothing to lose by pulling what she’s pulling and, and this is key, about how the Democratic Party will not cut the knees out from under Obama at the convention and give her the nod. One issue, one large issue, that the Democrats would face by doing that would be alienating a huge chunk of the black vote for a long, long time. Another issue would be their inability to effectively play the race card if they cut the political throat of a black candidate who is riding a majority of the popular vote into his party’s nomination at the convention. Both issues would weigh on some of their minds and dissuade them from screwing Obama over.
I was talking about the Democratic Party and its power brokers and what they would or would not do at the convention and how it would not work in Hillary’s favor. You immediately went to Planet M and starting arguing about what Obama was achieving and how he wasn’t using the race card. An odd tact to take since I never said that he was doing so, but that’s why you’re Mike and you can’t get past the brick wall of your own making I guess.
Have a nice weekend.
~8?)`
You implied Obama benefits from the race card, then you say you didn’t refer to his qualifications at all. Jerry, that’s just stooooopid with fiiiiiive ohs.
The words “race” and “black” didn’t even appear in this thread until you introduced them three days in. You accuse me of foisting non-sequiturs for responding to issues you introduced here in the first place. I don’t have to play anything like the brick wall card with you, because you’re simply wrong with no room for ambiguity.
Gosh, you worked that hard to twist logic into a pretzel just to make up some silly argument for me when I starting posting here again? You really missed me that much, Mad One?
Thanks, but no thanks. It’s been fun watching you again create Planet M versions of what I or others have said and what we actually meant when we said it, but that’s enough nostalgia for the next month or three.
Spin on, Planet M, spin on…
*****[Shrouded]*****
Also, unripe mulberries are said to have a mild hallucinagenic effect. haven’t tested that myself but it would explain the behavior of the squirrels, who lope around here like they own the place and are oddly unafraid of my greater mass, brain power and opposable thumbs.
You heard it here folks: hijacking the election is wrong not only because It Isn’t Nice,™ but because hijacking it from the black candidate will disenfranchise blacks. With their Extra Special Black Outrage™
And holding Jerry to evidence he’s a racist? That’s Extra Hard Pretzel Logic.™ You go ahead and keep setting your quotas on accuracy, whether you call it shrouding, or you play the brick wall card, or you call others for playing the race card preemptively or for breaking the taboo of mentioning there’s even such a thing as racism.
And, Bill, thanks for picking the perfect time to shelter your racist friend. My residency here has only gotten better and better.
I’m not sure that they do. We had several mulberries trees in our yard before the tropical storm and the squirrels never seemed to loopy. Now, they did act unafraid of most people, but I think that was from the guy who lived here before me feeding them every day and treating them like pets.
Thank you for not denying my last post.
Just to spell things out for those here who haven’t been on the receiving end of your bullying: Declaring war on someone who’s demonstrated only a resolve to be decent is only evidence the resolve to be decent isn’t a part of your intuition. Being decent is alien to you. Being decent is only something you’ve been faking for your own purposes all along, person- who- accepts- a- salary- for- upholding- the- law.
Well I for one am not used to lower life forms being so bold as to look at me with their beady little eyes and not scamper away to the safety of a tree. Luckily our new neighbor has an akita so they are about to get one huge effing surprise.
We also have bats living in our chimney. Amazing how moving into a house in the middle of the town has increased our exposure to the local fauna.
As far as mulberries, I’m amazed at how tasty they are. Apparently the native species (Red Mulberry) is being threatened by hybridization with an invasive Asian species (White Mulberry) which have less tasty berries. I guess ours is a native Red. In fact i’m going out on the roof now to gather some more. If I don’t post in the next two weeks call 911.
To anyone who hasn’t been the recipient of your bullying it might be a small thing to thank you for, Bill, but thank you for not invalidating my not-at-all casual criticism of you. This demonstrates how for you, if it’s deniable, it can’t be too indecent. That’s why you have no reservation against bullying someone who has interacted with you armed only with a resolve to be decent.
Your bullying has been tougher to react to than Jerry’s, because you’re slipperier than he is for me to simply set “it’s a wonder you felt the need to challenge anything I’ve said” as my default reply to you. But after today, what possible evidence could you give whatever guardian angels the universe provides you that my account of you is untrue?
Crispy Mulberry Cobbler
1- fight off the squirrels to get the mulberries. You’ll need 3 cups so you might want to take a stout club or pointed stick. Do it during the day; the flying squirrels only come out at night. I had a flying squirrel jump on my back one night and let me tell you, it wasn’t a whole lot of fun.
2- Ok, wash the mulberries in cool water and toss with a combination of 1 tbl flour, 1tbl sugar.
3- In another bowl add 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar, 1 tsp baking powder. cut in 1/3 cup butter until coarse and crumbly.
4- add one beaten agg, mix to moisten.
5- put berries in greased 8 inch square pan, crumble the topping over it, bake at 350 for about 30 min or until golden.
6- serve with whipped cream or ice cream (Hey! Why not both!). Take some over to that elderly shut in down the street. Sit on your porch with your arm around your wife and make faces at the squirrels as they shake their tiny little fists in impotent rage.
What form of impotence is more prevalent than denial and passive aggression?
Here I am doing the math on how you’ve had no reservation against bullying someone who has interacted with you armed only with a resolve to be decent. The accusation is severe enough for you to deny, but still true enough that your denial can only take an implicit form.
Now look at you taking shut-ins hostage to shelter your dysfunction. Your generosity is only stoked with the resolve you get from feeding off of others anyway. I seems like fruit of a poisonous tree but, hey, I’m only the recipient of your bullying. Why the hëll should that mean anything to anyone else (hostile to any decency that gets in your way)?
It seems
Wow. I thought everyone liked crispy mulberry cobbler.
Thank you for admitting your reading my posts you aren’t invalidating. You’re Monty Hall today.
Should have gone with Sweet-Hot Mulberry Jam.
Spicy jams are all the rage these days. One of them won the Grand Prize at the 2003 Scovie Awards.
3 cups mulberries
2 cups water
1 package powdered fruit pectin
1 tablespoon red chile powder
1 cup sugar (or more to taste)
Crush the berries thoroughly in a bowl and then transfer to a saucepan.. Add the water and fruit pectin. Stir until the pectin is dissolved. Add the chile powder and stir. Heat to boiling. Boil 5 to 10 minutes. Add the sugar and stir until dissolved. Boil 3 to 5 minutes, stirring frequently, or until thick. Allow to cool, place in sterile jars, and refrigerate.
Maybe you should have gone with Mulberry Cider. A nice drink that works well with the warmer days coming on and, if spiked with the right… uhhh… flavoring… you won’t care if you like it or not.
~8?)`
You can also make a good wine but it takes a year for it to age to the appropriate sweetness.
Sadly, I don’t drink. My solution to the warmer days a’comin is to go work in the basement.
Jerry: “Maybe you should have gone with Mulberry Cider. A nice drink that works well with the warmer days coming on and, if spiked with the right… uhhh… flavoring… you won’t care if you like it or not.”
Yeah, I’ll take the spiked Mulberry Cider, but hold the Mulberry Cider and go heavy on the spike. No ice. Thanks.
Bill Mulligan: “Sadly, I don’t drink.”
Yeah, having spent the evening at your house earlier this year, I know you rely on your scintillating personality rather than any “social lubricant.”
Next time, I’ll bring you a six-pack.
Next time, I release the hounds.
I thought they were cats.
No wonder I haven’t been able to teach them any tricks.
Bill Myers, you don’t agree with Jerry on Obama. Since you’ve demonstrated an indifference to my observations of Jerry and Bill, by the standards of debate as it’s known to western civilization, I get to ask: What evidence could be be given to whatever guardian angels the universe provides them to mitigate that:
Mulberries.
Don’t even bother, Bill. He enjoys playing the victim just as much as he enjoys arguing. He’ll continue responding to this in the same way that he’ll continue arguing with anything else. Just don’t bother responding to him.
By all means, no one respond. But I’m not playing the victim, because I’m literally not asking anyone to take my word on anything.
“Mike is a bad witness” has nothing to do with my observations.
gelso
And so a promising thread dies a lingering painful death.
Yeah, it’s a wonder Jerry got so touchy when he was caught implying that hijacking Obama’s nomination will only lose the the democrats support because he’s black. And that Bill felt the need to lead another flood of nonsense into a thread to smother dissent, and stand back and watch his pack-followers blame me for it.
Been on vacation for the last week, but I’ll try and bring this back on topic.
Now, maybe this is simplifying things a bit too much, but wasn’t it stated recently by the Clinton campaign that she’s the best candidate to beat McCain based on the fact she’s got the white vote, and thus is the most well-rounded. However it was worded, it came across as playing the race card by the Clintons, imo.
Unfortunately, this campaign has been far too much about race. Clinton says she can get more whites, blacks are voting at a pace of like 90% in some states for Obama, and Clinton also basically expects to get the Hispanic vote due to the race problems between blacks and Hispanics. It’s rather sad, really.
Craig, I can see why you think it is a sad situation, but I don’t feel that way. I actually feel really good about the place we’re in right now.
Even though this election is partly about race, it is *less* about race than it has ever been before. Obama won Maine. *Maine*. That’s a 98% white state. There are places where Obama’s white support is particularly bad, but that’s not the general rule. Even though Clinton is generally beating Obama among whites, Obama is actually slightly ahead of McCain with whites in the national polls.
As for Blacks, just because they’re supporting a Black candidate doesn’t mean they wouldn’t’ support a white one. They’ve spent their whole lives voting for white candidates. This is the first time they’ve had a chance to vote for a Black candidate who had a chance to win, so I don’t think it’s so bad that they’re pushing hard for it. I think having a Black President in office, especially this particular man, would change the way people talk about race. So this is a legitimate place for race to be an issue.
As for Hispanics, the race problems exist, but that’s not nearly the main factor that’s supporting Clinton. She’s befitting from the years that her husband spent building up a relationship with the Hispanic community. She has an advantage with them for the same reason she won Arizona, the people know her.
So yes, race is an issue. But it was an issue in every Presidential race before this, it just wasn’t as noticeable because all the candidates were white. Right now we’re seeing race be less an issue than it has ever been before, and I find that very exciting.
Gee, Jason, all you had to do was to refer to Jerry’s comment you contradict, and your post would have qualified as a screed. It’s a wonder you felt the need to challenge what I say.
@Craig: “Unfortunately, this campaign has been far too much about race.”
I agree with Jason: Obama’s success is indicative of progress. Buried in all the fractiousness of the race for the Democratic nomination is this fact: either a woman or an African-American man will win the nomination. And whoever wins has a real shot at becoming president. That’s historic. It shows that barriers are beginning to crumble in this country.
Yes, there is still much work that needs to be done. There is still much bigotry in this country. But denying the progress that has clearly been made does nothing to help solve the problems that remain.
Moreover, I believe anything that stimulates talk about race is a *good* thing. A great deal of bigotry has gone “covert” and needs to be “outed.”
My father had to adjust to mid-life. Everyone’s dad gets to have a mid-life crisis. US History wasn’t a sterling example of egalitarianism for its first century and a half.
Why shouldn’t the civil rights movement have some slack to go through something of an end-of-youth crisis? How does quarantining civil rights issues to the deadness of our reasoning — and denying it access to our intuition, by denying it its end-of-youth adjustment — benefit it in addressing its remaining concerns?
Yes, there is still much work that needs to be done. There is still much bigotry in this country. But denying the progress that has clearly been made does nothing to help solve the problems that remain.
Which is why some of the people you would think might be on Obama’s side–Wright, Sharpton, etc–seem to be instead doing things that are going to make it harder for him to get elected. If he gets elected it will be that much harder to convince people that they have little hope of succeed in life and their best chance is to give their support to people like…well, Wright and Sharpton.
Personally, I think it’s Obama’s to lose. There’s no great passion out there for McCain, even among those who like him. If Obama can avoid any scandals, (And I think any skeletons would have been dragged out of the closet by the Hillary team long ago), keep his nuttier supporters under control and throw them under the bus if they won’t get in line (his belated but ultimately thorough repudiation of Wright indicates he is willing to do that), not get sick (a worrisome issue–the race has taken a lot out of him and is would be potentially disastrous to have him appear to be the more tired candidate in a debate with McCain), then you have to give him the definite edge.
Yes, there are those who will vote against him because of his race. He can afford to lose West Virginia. There others who have been looking forward to having the chance to vote for a legitimate minority candidate and I think those folks are found in the states that have more electoral votes. I think it will balance out, more or less, and even if it brings out the racist vote that should be more than offset by a huge increase in the youth vote and black vote. And there is no reason to even believe that the white vote is going to go against him; he certainly was able to get plenty of whites to go his way so far. Granted, it was against the an increasingly desperate Hillary and the feckless Edwards campaign but I haven’t seen anything from McCain that makes me think he’s going to be much more effective.
He will have a lot more money to spend than McCain. That is no guarantee of success but I don’t know any candidate who would not rather be the one with the most money.
There are x factors. If McCain beats him in the debates. If Wright or some other “supporter” cuts him off at the knees. He has to be careful not to do or say anything that reinforces the negative picture that the Hillary campaign has tried to paint–snobbish, out of touch, etc. And who knows what outside events might happen, though anything that makes things worse usually makes people want a change and Obama is more of a change than McCain, so… I’m going to assume that the Hillary supporters who say they won’t vote for Obama are mostly just venting and the ones who want her to pursue an independent campaign are sniffing paint fumes if they think there’s ANY chance of that happening.
Nader will be lucky to get .2% of the vote. I’d expect either Bob Barr and/or Ron Paul to get more votes and those will almost all come out of McCain’s side.
In short, McCain would have to do everything right and Obama would have to do a lot wrong and have a string of really bad luck. It could happen–Dukakis was waaayyy ahead of Bush I and blew it but is there anyone who looks at Obama and thinks “Dukakis part deux”?
To me, at this point, the only question is will Obama merely enjoy the luxury of having his party control both the house and the senate by a majority or will it be by a veto proof majority.
Jason M. Bryant: “As for Blacks, just because they’re supporting a Black candidate doesn’t mean they wouldn’t’ support a white one. They’ve spent their whole lives voting for white candidates. This is the first time they’ve had a chance to vote for a Black candidate who had a chance to win, so I don’t think it’s so bad that they’re pushing hard for it.”
Under most circumstances I would agree with that statement. However, I do believe that if the Democratic party were to do a backroom deal at the convention and give the nod to Hillary over Obama, the clear and rightful frontrunner, that there would be a backlash by some in the party and that a large portion of the black voting block would walk out on the Democrats in 2008 and for some years to come.
I’m hardly alone in this thought either. The usual and expected rabble rousing idiots like Sharpton have made such threats, but other prominent black speakers, politicians and journalists have voiced such concerns as well. It also wouldn’t be an undeserved rebuke of the Democratic party if they did refuse to vote for Hillary after watching the party cut the knees out from under Obama. After all, it’s been the Democratic party and its more left leaning voices in the media that have been saying that it’s the evil Republican Party and its supporters who want to suppress the black vote, keep blacks down and would never allow a black man to be president. How do you think that things would play out if the Democrats then turned around and refused to allow the rightful frontrunner the nomination?
It’s also a concern that some in the Democratic party have as well. It’s one of the main reasons that I think Hillary is carrying on a pointless crusade at this point. She can do everything in the world to try and convince the superdelegates that she’s their candidate, but it’s not going to play with the backlash they might be facing. There is no way that they’re going to cut the knees out from under Obama with the popular support he’s getting from all voter demographics just to feed the Hillary ego trip and cut their own throats.
Bill Myers: “I agree with Jason: Obama’s success is indicative of progress. Buried in all the fractiousness of the race for the Democratic nomination is this fact: either a woman or an African-American man will win the nomination. And whoever wins has a real shot at becoming president. That’s historic. It shows that barriers are beginning to crumble in this country.”
I agree. I said much the same about the race here, elsewhere and on my on blog as far back as Obama winning Iowa.
What I said on my blog:
“There’s also a nice little comment on race here that’s been mentioned a little in the last few news blips and that I’m sure will get plenty of discussion time in the next 24 hours of news cycles. Obama, a black man, won in “corn fed, white bread” Iowa. While racism and its ill effects still exist in some small pockets of America and should not be discounted as a negative force in people’s lives, I think that this says a lot about how colorblind the nation really is. At least, one can always hope so.”
But the truth is that there is still racial anger and resentment to be found in many quarters and held by every color of man. If that were not the truth, then many of the rabble rousers would have no power or influence whatsoever and we would not see protests, backlashes and sometimes riots based almost purely along racial lines. We’ve come a hëll of a long way, but the ghosts of our shared sins still haunt us. Rev. Wright, completely separating him from Obama in this statement, would not have been getting the loud cheers and slaps on the back for his racial demagoguery that we all saw him getting in his church. People like David Duke wouldn’t still be making money on the fact that they’re @$$holes and people in conservative radio wouldn’t be able to foment hatred against Muslims or play their asinine “Barack Osama Obama” or “Barack Hussein Obama” games.
I’d love to be able to believe that we’re beyond all that. I’d love it if the things I see everyday from all sides in the racial issues didn’t give my pause, rightly or wrongly, about Obama’s membership in Wright’s church. But I see too much garbage going on in my own community and in the city I work in.
We’re a thousand light years better off than we were 40 years ago and heading in the right direction, but we’re still a thousand light years from where we ultimately need to be.
Bill Mulligan: “To me, at this point, the only question is will Obama merely enjoy the luxury of having his party control both the house and the senate by a majority or will it be by a veto proof majority.”
Aye, that’s another reason that the Democrats cannot let themselves strategically screw the pooch here. They’ve got a lot of talking to live up to after having there last pre-election big talk turn into a lot of hot air. If they, as a party, screw this up then they could very well be back to facing a Dem president with a Rep House and Senate in the following election. Not always a bad thing to have the checks and balances, but I think the Republicans need a good long time out to remember what some of the things they’re supposed to stand for actually means.