from breakingnews.com "House Democratic Leader Pelosi says House GOP trying to sabotage bipartisan effort in the Senate" "Senate Majority Leader Reid: House GOP debt, budget plan a 'blatant attack on bipartisanship'" I think this was the purpose of the senate deal and why senate republicans were probably eager to go along with it.
I have to give credit to the house leadership for not going along with that stupidity. the democrats thought the Rs were so weak or such sell outs they started pushing for a roll back of the sequester.
If the republicans had any guts, they could break Obama's worthless ass. Obama will not let the country default. Anyways...www.lp.org
The democrats all have their talking points in front of them. 'bipartisan' senate deal will not be 'ransomed' by the house lol
Here is the problem for the Republicans as I see it. They have within their ranks, and particularly in the house, a fraction of their party that is quite far from the centrist thinking of something close to 60-70% of the electorate. These representatives come from safe districts, so politically their concern is less with centrist America and more with their particular constituents -- that's politics! From a purely practical standpoint, however, the Senate Republicans, who have to answer to a much broader electorate, recognize that their electorate is more centrist than the narrowly focused fraction of their party in the House. These Senators realize that with a Democrat in the White House, and a minority in the Senate, there is no possibility of their getting their way by shutting down the government or causing a default. They know that they are playing with political fire, and they have nothing to gain politically by throwing their lot in with the House Republicans. They are between a rock and a hard place, and trying to salvage their political careers. The fundamental problem for the Tea Party is that they are out of step with the majority of Americans. They may be right, they may be wrong, but until they can build a consensus among the broader electorate they will be forced to remain a vocal sideshow.
The gov't is already shut down. As far as i'm concerned they can default, too. So you are saying that we can just call off having a gov't and the democrats will never halt obamacare for one year like they have for the unions. Or make any other of the weaker concessions that the boehner faction presents. Shut'er down!!!!
One more thing. The republican senators got tea partied but good last election cycle. Your thesis about them being able to ignore the tea party is way off base.
the leftst thesis makes no sense. good gerry mandering for control of a body would set things up so the opposition is all loaded up into a few districts and your guys have just a slight edge in many districts. which seems to be the case in the house. so the house guys are safe not because they are gerry mandered in but because Rs got elected on the platform of shutting down obamacare. Which is the will of a solid majority of the voting public. The house Rs must do what they were elected to do... not fund obamacare. They don't need to repeal it. They don't need the Senate or Obama... they simply must not fund it.
In my opinion, the Republican Tea Party Faction is still too weak politically to be able, in the final analysis, to control the Party. Both political parties are pulled between the interests of their donors and the electorate. The Tea Party has relatively weak corporate support, so far as I can tell. As a politician you need your party and you want to go along with party politics so far as you possibly can, but it seems that some Senate Republicans, while not saying this, are thinking I can't go along with this anymore, my political career is at stake. The reason the vote is so powerful in politics is it determines who has a job and who doesn't. The reason corporate interests are so powerful in politics is that corporate money and influence controls the popular media, and the popular media is critical in the formation of political consensus, and hence the votes. The internet may be changing this dynamic , but that remains to be seen.