"You fools should have been, time and time again, every time he has violated the Constitution, you should have made an issue about it. You should have punished him in some way; denied him some appointee; obstructed some piece of legislation.
Draw attention to this lawlessness so the American people after a year, or two, or three of you consistently explaining it and hammering away at it would, in fact, be aware of what you’re trying to do and say!
But instead, what do we get? What do we get?
We get John McCain attacking Ted Cruz. What do we get? Chris Christie attacking Rand Paul. What do we get? Karl Rove attacking Mike Lee. The same dug-in entrenched losers who may well cost us the House of Representatives in the next election.
And do you know what Obama will do again if he controls the whole damn thing? And he’s banking on it. That’s why he’s putting all these things off. He’s sucking people in to vote for him and then he’s gonna drop the hammer. Then what do we do? ‘We don’t control any – one half of one third or anything else.’
And what are the Republicans going to do then? Blame the conservatives? Blame the Tea Party? What are they gonna do then? ‘We can’t control anything. We don’t even have one half of one third – of course you don’t! Look what you’ve squandered, the opportunity."
WashingtonExaminer: Behind the scenes -- in whispered asides, not for public consumption -- some Republicans are now worried that keeping the House is not such a done deal after all. They look back to two elections, 1998 and 2006, in which Republicans seriously underperformed expectations, and they wonder if 2014 might be a little like those two unhappy years.Mark notes that these are the same genius consultants in Washington who can't win elections...
"The majority is at risk," says one well-connected Republican strategist. "It should be a good year, but you need to run like you're trying to win, and you need a good, solid strategy."
In 1998, Republicans, with a narrow majority in the House, expected to pick up at least 20 seats. It was a weird year, with the Lewinsky scandal consuming Bill Clinton's presidency. But Clinton wasn't on the ballot -- a fact that didn't stop House Republicans from campaigning against him. "We were going to make the race all about Bill Clinton," the strategist recalls.
It didn't work. Instead of picking up 20 seats, the GOP lost five. (So much for the president's party never picking up seats in the second term.) Republicans kept control of the House, but by a margin so small it made governing difficult.By the way, that second example would be Karl Rove, the so-called architect. He, and they, use conservatives, use the tea party, to win elections, then attack them when voting constituents demand principled decisions out of their elected officials. These same 'dug-in, entrenched losers' constantly supply the MSM with ammunition against conservatives, then blame us when they lose on issue after issue (behavior that's never experienced to this degree among the Left).
In 2006, another president was in his second term, this time Republican George W. Bush. The GOP controlled the House and saw itself heading toward another victory. "The whole focus was on attacking Democrats," recalls the strategist. "There was the belief that the districts were structurally Republican, Bush had carried a number of them, and we had a financial advantage."
But instead of cruising to a win, the GOP lost 30 seats and ushered in the era of Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
In both years, '98 and '06, Republicans concentrated more on going after Democrats than on laying out a solid plan for governance. They were the opposition party more than the alternative party. And they suffered for it.Now, I diverge from York a bit here. I think Republicans should be both an aggressive opposition party and an alternative party of principle. The combination of aggression and ideology has worked for Democrats (just look who's in power), so why not the same level of action, but backed by principle, within an alternative, opposition party? Conservatism supplies that remedy, despite the consultant class' skepticism.
What is the GOP plan for 2014? It's not clear. But there are indications some Republicans believe that, with a weakening president, a strategy based mostly on opposing Democrats will be enough to keep control of the House. But voters are sending some warning signals.
...if Republicans stick to being an opposition party on the attack rather than the alternative party offering an agenda -- then Obama's much-discussed dream of retaking the House in 2014 might come true, despite all the odds. And that would be a nightmare for Republicans.
There are things that the GOP could do to maintain the House, and possibly even regain the Senate. But again, this requires these same mush Republicans that we've previously discussed to muster up enough courage to take action, stand with the handful of conservatives on Capitol Hill and stop this runaway leftist agenda.
Discussing the implementation and impact of Obamacare tied into the upcoming midterm elections, David Limbaugh says it's a false choice to say we either have to make a negative case or a positive one. Essentially, we have to go at it with both barrels blazing!
(Some other great moments in this discussion as well, specifically surrounding Obamacare and Obama's unilateral, willy-nilly changes.)
