Having read article after article assuring me that, if there is gridlock between congress and the presidency for the next two years, it will either hurt Republicans rather than Democrats, or both parties equally…
…I think I\’ll put this one to rest.
First off, who is saying this, other than Democrat partisans in the media (not what you\’d call hard to find) – most of whom had no problem at all with the gridlock between the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and the Democrat-controlled Senate; a Harry Reid-led senate that quashed literally hundreds of bills passed by the house by not letting them come to a vote.
You\’ll pardon me if I find their credibility level a bit wanting.
Let\’s ignore them for a moment, and do our own thinking about the political implications of gridlock – using nothing but simple common sense.
In 2016, barring some truly earthshaking developments which no one can foresee, Republicans will have a virtually insurmountable majority in the house of representatives (something like 248 – 187), and a difficult-to-surmount majority in the senate (probably 54 – 44, plus two independents currently caucusing with Democrats).
That means Republicans can run on the premise that electing a Democrat President will guarantee still more gridlock, since the house, and probably senate too, will have a Republican majority – i.e. exactly the situation which the public will have been reacting negatively to. But if the Republican is elected, gridlock ends and things can move forward.
This, of course, is only a benefit for Republicans if they stick to promoting issues that the public supports them on, such as repealing or significantly altering ObamaCare and securing our borders/not handing amnesty to illegals – both of which are supported by a majority of the country in virtually every national poll.
If they do that, gridlock works for, not against, their chances.
And what happens if President Obama makes good on his threat – i.e. he ignores the election results and signs off on unilateral amnesty anyway. How will this affect the 2016 election?
Well, look at what it will do to the current front-runner, Hillary Clinton (or any other Democrat candidate):
-If she supports the President on amnesty she will be lose massive numbers of votes from people who are against both the policy itself and the idea that a President can unilaterally bypass congress as if he were a dictator – a lot of lost votes;
-If she opposes the President on amnesty, she will arouse the ire of a large number of Latino voters, who currently are far more likely to cast their ballots for Democrats than Republicans – a lot of lost votes.
That is a lose-lose situation if there ever were one.
Taking all these factors into consideration, I conclude that gridlock, while not necessarily good for the country (it depends on what legislation is being gridlocked), is a potential major political windfall for Republicans.
What do you think?
