Congressional GOP: ‘We are not happy’

October 14, 2007

The NYT’s Carl Hulse reports today that Republicans on the Hill have a serious morale problem. The White House communications team invited some congressional counterparts to the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue the other day, and was apparently disappointed to see their widespread depression. Said one of the senior Republican congressional aides who attended the White House gathering, “We are not happy, no doubt about it.”

The leading cause of the discontent, at least right now, is the Republican sense that they’re loosing the S-CHIP battle in a big way. Hulse noted that Ed Gillespie and others at the White House are encouraging congressional Republicans to just wait for the storm to blow over, while GOP lawmakers believe the president’s aides “[do] not fully appreciate their political difficulties.”

Stuart Rothenberg had a similar report in Roll Call the other day.

“It’s just stunning to me,” one veteran Republican strategist told me this week, “that after seven years of Republicans complaining that the president won’t use his veto, [the White House and Republican Congressional leaders] choose their big showdown to be over children’s health care. Good Lord, it probably polls at 80 percent!”

Added the GOP insider: “If we had been talking about cutting spending and waste in government for years, we could oppose SCHIP. But now we are finally going to get religion on spending?”

So what advice would this Republican give his party’s Members of Congress? “If I were in a swing district, I’d vote to override. There’s no way I’d take a bullet on this.”

One GOP lawmaker added, “It’s stupid politics. The leadership is putting pressure on Members [to sustain the veto], promising to rebuild the brand. I don’t know why our guys are following [Bush] into the sea like lemmings.”

Maybe out of habit?

The S-CHIP override vote is slated for Thursday. Stay tuned.

Maybe they should stop complaining and vote their consciences if they have any.

Too much groupthink.

  • Looks like they’ve drunk so much Kool-Aid that it no longer gives the much needed sense of invincibility. Hang on while I get my jeweler’s loupe so I can find my teeny tiny violin.

    “It’s just stunning to me … that after seven years of Republicans complaining that the president won’t use his veto, [the White House and Republican Congressional leaders] choose their big showdown to be over children’s health care.”

    No, what’s stunning is that the Grand Old Pricks are just figuring out that standing near the ill-mannered chimp in the Oval Office means they eventually will get splattered with the shit it flings around. Or it would be stunning if I didn’t already have a boatload of examples of these people’s mind-boggling ignorance and arrogance.

    And now they’re upset and depressed because they think the choice between siding with the little bastard in the White House and voting for sCHIP is a hard choice? Really? I can’t help what other choices they find difficult. “Should I stick this pencil way up my nose or use it to write a note?” “Gee, should I pull my dick out of this blender or should I keep it in there?” What the fuck?

    And I won’t even comment on how disgusting it is to think about fat pampered Scrooges walking around with their lower lips out because they can’t decide if they’re for or against health care for kids and they can’t call the Democrats names on this one or imply it will lead to terrorists under our beds An’ its too hard an’ why’s the pResident bein’ so mean, waaaah!

    Fuck them. A long period of depression followed by unemployment is the least they deserve.

  • It’s got to be a pretty freaky feeling for Republicans in the house especially, who came to into office in the period since 1994 and with very few exceptions have essentially never made a decision of their own on any issue of any real consequence, to be seriously considering voting in defiance of what passes for their leadership these days.

  • “I don’t know why our guys are following [Bush] into the sea like lemmings.”

    ooohh, ooohh, pick me! i know the answer!

  • Lemmings get a bad rep. The Disney “documentary” on them was staged, and others have done a thorough job of debunking it. Do a google search on “lemmings disney” to get the real scoop.

  • Could it be that having your brain in Neutral and your mouth in Drive for six years has a downside? If any of us outside the Beltway had lived our lives the same way we’d be living on the street.

  • ***Congressional GOP: ‘We are not happy’***

    Myself (hanging alife-sized effigy of Bush from the tall pine out front): “Ask me if I care.”

  • <nerd> “Loosing” means “releasing”. “Losing” means “getting beaten” </nerd>

  • Interesting link, Daniel, though it requires a correction: “A few days after Democrats recruited state Senator Ethan Berkowitz….” Ethan Berkowitz was a member of the Alaska House, never the Senate. He represented a small, affluent neighborhood in Anchorage. The only statewide exposure he ever got was by having the traditional last word in floor debates as House Minority Leader.

    As for SCHIP, I wonder if the GOP can spin this in their favor. Since the veto override depends on Republicans to pass, they can claim credit for ramming it through.

  • The late great Molly Ivins predicted this not long after the 2004 election. I’m paraphrasing, but it was something about how in Texas they teach a chicken killing dog from killing any more chickens. The tie a dead chicken around the dogs neck and let it rot. The fetid carcas eventually causes the dog so much grief and misery that it will never look at another chicken, And that George W Bush was that same fetid carcar strapped around the necks of all Republicans for all time.

    Of course she wrote it much better, God, I miss that woman.

  • @10: Actually, Ethan Berkowitz ran for Lt. Governor in 2006 with former governor, Tony Knowles. He’s well known in the 49th state and likely has better name recognition than Dianne Benson the other contender for the Democratic nomination. In spite of running against Young in the last election, I’m doubtful that many Alaskans remember her.

  • Demographics was going to make the Republican Party irreleavant in a couple of decades. The incompetence of Bush just made it happen faster.

    The real question is how will politics work in the U.S. with only one political party. If the Democratic Party’s instincts to keeping fighting partisan fights after the Republican Party is irrelevant, the result could be an entrenched one party state where no issue can be discussed and the current power blocks do everything they can to hold onto power.

    The other alternative is that all of the former Republican voters act as a huge moderating force on the Democratic Party once all of the former Republicans start voting in the Democratic primaries.

  • I think this S-CHIP issue is really going to hurt the Democrats. They’ve clearly over-reached, and this will highlight some deep divides within the party.

    Or at least, that’s what they’ll be saying on CNN tonight.

  • AK Liberal: “Actually, Ethan Berkowitz ran for Lt. Governor in 2006…”

    Fair enough. I shouldn’t have said House Minority Leader was his only statewide exposure. In my defense, the fact that I could forget it so easily demonstrates how little it added to Berkowitz’s cachet. (Then again, Sarah Palin parlayed an unsuccessful bid for LtGov in the 2002 primary into a winning bid for Gov….) I’m skeptical whenever anyone asserts that Berkowitz is “well known” to Alaskans because, although he’s familiar to me, too many voters are just plain ignorant.

  • Well, if something polls at 80%, we might see Harry Reid actually push for it and refuse to compromise with the moronic 20% holdouts. But I doubt it.

    Hey Harry: You suck ass.

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