Curmudgeon's Corner

What Next?

Posted by Al Campbell on Jan. 21, 2010

Political, Quality of Life, U.S., Wisconsin

What next?  The dust is beginning to settle following the upset election results in Massachusetts. 

President Obama has moved a bit so far as health care reform is concerned but still has a difficult time realizing that only 35% of Americans are in favor of that in its current form.  He is still influenced heavily by those on his staff, and they are strident.  He has scheduled the State of the Union speech for January 27^th, so he’ll not have any health care reform results in place about which to brag.  I’ll bet his speech writers are busy revising that speech.  Will he be just a little bit contrite or will he simply disregard reality and plunge ahead?

Rep. Pelosi is still reeling and talking as if she’ll prevail with the current effort.  Her second in command, Rep. Steny Hoyer is sweeping up after her as he has been doing for many, many months.

Rep. Barney Frank has stepped back from his earlier pronouncement before the results in Massachusetts were known; he now thinks something will pass even though he said earlier that a loss in Massachusetts would mean the death of health care reform; he just has no idea what they can get.

Moderate Democrats are taking the results as vindication of their beliefs that the current versions of health care reform are toxic.  The huffing and puffing typical in Washington has died down just a bit.

Sen. Reid has been strangely quiet since Tuesday.  He has to be pondering his own demise and wondering if there is anything he can do to reverse his personal downfall.

The Dem politicos are wondering if this has killed all their hopes for this year.  They want some goodies about which to preen for the cameras thinking that might mitigate the losses they’re now fearful could be, from their perspectives, catastrophic.

Will this mid-term election be even worse for the Dems than those of 1994?

If that were to be the case, would the Republicans have taken enough lessons from the shift to be able to govern more wisely than they did in that situation?

The “good” Michael Steele is running the Republican Party so far this week, but I await another foot in mouth episode. 

Sen. Feingold seems to have not yet convinced himself that the groundswell of disgust is real.  His ‘listening’ sessions have to have been much more concerning to him than ever before.  True, he has the usual press releases but the You Tube portrayals tell us volumes about what he is hearing.  Is this the election in which the Massachusetts ‘hang-over’ will do him in, too?

Who among the congressional representatives in Wisconsin are vulnerable?  Rep. Kagen has to be very concerned.  Rep. Obey will maintain his bluster but I wonder if he secretly hopes he doesn’t get trampled like Coakley did in Massachusetts.

Does the governorship in Wisconsin go to a Republican this year by default?  Will the Republicans get more parity in the state Senate?

Will the Doyle spending proposals finally fall on deaf ears amongst the controlling Democrats in Madison?

Things such as the Massachusetts election plunge politicians into turmoil.  These upsets remind some that they are vulnerable and really ought to be doing the business of the people rather than falling into lockstep behind their leadership.  Too often, unfortunately, those lessons last for only a month or so and are cast aside after the next taste of “Kool-aid” is made available.  We must not lose this moment; we, the people, are close to having reminded our political class for whom they work!

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The Curmudgeon Blog today is titled "Bipartisanship Is Alive And Well...Sorta".