The 2010 General Election was, in every respect, a massive repudiation of the Democrat Party, the Democrat congressional leadership, and the policies of Barack Obama. While the handwriting on the wall for a political repudiation of this magnitude has been evident for nearly a year, the message that the American people were sending has apparently been lost on Obama and his apologists in Congress and in the media. Instead, he attempts to impose his own version of reality by claiming that it wasn’t his policies that the people objected to… he simply failed to make the American people understand what wonderful things he was trying to do for them.
According to a count by the Washington Post, Obama made no fewer than fifty-five public speeches and statements on his healthcare overhaul program. In speech after speech he tried to convince us that he could provide healthcare to some 20 million people previously uninsured, while improving the overall quality of healthcare, reducing the cost of healthcare for everyone, and doing it all with the same number of doctors, nurses, hospitals, and clinics. It was all a big ration of horse manure and the people were far too savvy to buy into it.
In a Wednesday, October 6 radio broadcast, Obama did his best to fire up his base. Referring to conservatives and Republicans, he said, “They are fired up. They are mobilized. They see an opportunity to take back the House, maybe take back the Senate. If they’re successful in doing that, they’ve already said they’re going to go back to the same policies that were in place during the Bush administration (not true). That means that we are going to have just hand-to-hand combat up here on Capitol Hill.”
Hand-to-hand combat on Capitol Hill? For the great majority of patriotic but mostly uninformed Americans he was speaking in the abstract. However, those of us on the political right know that deep in his heart he was speaking literally. Like most Democrats, Obama sees political violence as no farther away than the nearest ACORN chapter or the nearest AFL-CIO or SEIU union hall.
Then, just days before the election, in a speech directed at a Latino audience on Univision Radio, he said, “If the Latino community decided to sit out this election, then there will be fewer votes and (comprehensive immigration reform, i.e. amnesty) will be less likely to get done. And if Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, we’re gonna punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us, if they don’t see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election, then I think it’s gonna be harder…”
Punish our enemies? Does Obama really think that, because he and most Democrats are willing to grant legal status to anyone and everyone who can creep across our porous borders, the entire Hispanic population will automatically identify with the Democrat Party? No public official has ever before uttered such an unmitigated insult to our Hispanic citizens.
Obama must have been surprised to learn that Latino Republicans did quite well on Election Day, electing a Latino U.S. senator, Marco Rubio (R-FL), two Latino governors, Susana Martinez (R-NM) and Brian Sandoval (R-NV), and five Latino members of the U.S. House: David Rivera (R-FL), Raul Labrador (R-ID), Francisco Canseco (R-TX), Bill Flores (R-TX), and Jaime Herrera (R-WA). Republicans also elected an Indian-American woman, Nicki Haley, as Governor of South Carolina, and two black members of Congress: Allen West (R-FL) and Tim Scott (R-SC)… by Obama’s standards, all “enemies” of conservatives and Republicans.
With Republicans firmly in control in the House of Representatives, the repeal of key Obama initiatives, including Obamacare, will be a first priority and should be quickly accomplished. However, repeal in the Senate will be another matter. With less than 50 Republican votes, and needing 60 votes to overcome a series of almost certain filibusters, they will need to attract at least thirteen Democrats.
So what are their chances? Under normal circumstances it would not be possible to split off as many as thirteen opposition votes on key party-line issues. But these are not “normal” times. Since Obama’s election in 2008, a popular movement has risen up across the nation. It is called the Tea Party… where T-E-A stands for Taxed Enough Already… comprised mostly of political Independents, conservatives, Reagan Democrats, and previously uninspired Republicans. And they are not about to go way; they are here to stay.
In fact, because of the nature of the political tsunami that swept across the country on November 2nd, no Democrat in the United States Senate will cast a vote on any issue in 2011 and 2012 without having at least one eye glued to their 2012 reelection prospects. Because conservatives, Republicans, and Tea Party activists can be expected to flood Senate offices with personal visits, letters, emails, and phone calls each time a major issue is debated, every floor speech, every public appearance, and every vote for the two year period will be heavily influence by prospects for reelection in 2012.
Of the 33 senators up for reelection in 2012, twenty-one are Democrats, two are Independents, both of whom caucus with Democrats, and ten are Republicans… most in relatively safe seats.
There is no doubt that Republicans have gotten the word that they are on “probation” and cannot conduct themselves as they did during the Bush-Frist-Hastert-Delay fiasco. If they fail to abide by Republican principles, conservative Republicans and Tea Party activists will be only too happy to take them out behind the woodshed for a bit of “attitude adjustment.” This means, of course, that the work of the Tea Party activists has only just begun.
So who are the 2012 Senate Democrats most vulnerable to a daily pounding by Tea Party activists? Those most susceptible to Tea Party pressure are: Mark Begich (D-AK), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Kent Conrad (D-ND), Herb Kohl (D-WI), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Ben Nelson (D-NE), Bill Nelson (D-FL), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), John Tester (D-MT), and Jim Webb (D-VA).
Senators Begich, Bennet, McCaskill, Tester, and Webb were all elected in their last outing either by less than 50% of the vote, or by less than a 1% margin. Others are showing very poorly in early poll matchups against potential 2012 opponents. These are: Nelson (D-FL; against former governor Jeb Bush), Nelson (D-NE; against GOP Governor Dave Heineman), Menendez (D-NJ; against former CNN anchor Lou Dobbs), Stabenow (D-MI; against former Republican governor John Engler), and Kohl (D-WI; against Republican Congressman Paul Ryan).
Senator Brown (D-OH) won election in 2006 with 56% of the vote; however, recent polls show that just 45% of Ohio voters would vote to reelect him. Senator Conrad was reelected in 2006 with 69% of the vote; however, North Dakota is in the process of turning solid red. Senator Landrieu is one of the most conservative Democrats in the Senate; she won reelection in 2006 with 52% of the vote. And finally, if he is true to his word, Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) will be a Democrat cross-over vote. No Senate candidate in recent times has run as strongly against a president of his own party. Manchin will be given the opportunity to put his words into actions.
Will there be hand-to-hand combat on Capitol Hill? While Obama and a party of some 3,000 of his closest friends were partying it up in Asia, his advisors were almost certainly keeping him abreast of the Democrat leadership battle in the House of Representatives. If, as now appears likely, James Clyburn (D-SC), the most senior black leader in Congress, is pushed out of his leadership role in the Pelosi-inspired round of “musical chairs,” there will be hand-to-hand combat in Congress… Democrats savaging Democrats.
After the way Democrats walked all over their black candidate, Alvin Greene, in South Carolina, after Bill Clinton was dispatched to Florida to dispose of black Democrat, Kendrick Meek… in favor of turncoat Republican Charlie Crist… and as congressional black leaders Charlie Rangel and Maxine Waters are tried on ethics charges by white Democrat colleagues, blacks will have reason to ask why they continue to allow themselves to be exploited by the Democrat Party.
Assuming that Republicans and Tea Party activists can force a repeal of Obamacare in the House and Senate, we are still left with the prospect of an Obama veto. Given the significance of the issues at hand… the real possibility that Obamacare would bankrupt the country and destroy our economy… congressional Republicans must be prepared to play ultimate hardball with Obama.
If he refuses to acknowledge why his party received a “shellacking” in the mid-term elections, and if he refuses to cooperate with Republicans and clear-thinking Democrats, Obamacare opponents will have no alternative but to play the strongest weapon they have. They must call into question his eligibility to serve in the office he occupies.
It is undeniable that Obama was born with dual US-British citizenship and, therefore, does not meet the definition of a “natural born” citizen as required by Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution. Republicans will have to be willing to raise the possibility of public hearings, requiring Democrats and liberal legal scholars to finally provide proof of Obama’s eligibility, and requiring the Democrat Party and its Electors to show cause why they failed to properly vet their 2008 presidential candidate. If not, if they are unwilling to play winner-take-all hardball when the future of the nation hangs in the balance, then we are in for a very long period of hand-to-hand combat… and it won’t be limited to just the halls of Congress.