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Originally Posted by Snake Doctor
He's playing real politics now. Or have you not seem him reaching out to republicans even though he doesn't have to?
Case in point, on health care, he said he'd rather get 85% of what he wants in a bipartisan bill than get 100% of what he wants with only 51 votes.
That's something neither of our last two Presidents would have ever dreamed of saying.
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It is good that he is saying this, but I will wait to see if he actually does this.
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The demographics are in favor of the Dems, as are the particular seats that are up for election in the Senate in 2010.
Demographics favor Republicans in the Senate in 2012, but if Obama is steamrolling towards re-election at that point, he'll have some pretty long coattails.
The republicans "might" gain some seats in the house in 2010, but mostly because alot of weirdos got swept in on the Obama wave in 2008, and they'll get swept back out in 2010. A similar thing happened in 1982 (in the house) and 1986 (in the Senate) with alot of people who were swept in on Reagan's coattails. Either way though, they'd have to net over 40 seats to take back control of the house (by 1 vote). There would have to be huge voter dissatisfaction for the country as a whole to turn back to the party they just threw out in the last 2 elections.
Bottom line though is that success breeds success. If Clinton hadn't gotten sucked into playing the "don't ask don't tell" game right off the bat, and hadn't drowned in his own health care initiative, the 1994 Republican revolution wouldn't have happened IMHO.
Obama, so far, seems to be a much more shrewd and disciplined operator than Clinton was early on.
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I still think the republican revolution would have happened. The one thing that Clinton really had going against him was that things were good. When things are good and the economy is chugging along and we are not involved in a war suddenly people start worrying about other things. If you noticed in this last election try as they might the republicans just couldn't make social issues a hot button topic for most people. When people are worried about their jobs and their livelihoods and their kids who are off fighting in Iraq they are less worried about gays getting married, who is fucking who and playing the morality police. Things were pretty good under Clinton which gave people a lot of time to look at him with disgust because he cheated on his wife and it allowed the republicans to focus on the moral and social issues they love. I think even if he would have passed health care and he stayed away from the don't ask don't tell game it would have still happened. He might have done some good things, but he got a blowjob from another woman and some people cannot forgive that.
Some of the republicans are trying right now to reignite the culture war with little result because right now people have other things on their mind. But if 5-6 years from now things are good and the economy is strong and we have the wars under control you can bet social issues will be front and center once again.