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What Can 2013 Control of The House and Senate Mean To Republicans or Democrats?
Chances are the voters have already decided the Romney/Obama question; but what House and what Senate will be there for the winner?
I may not be watching the same results you do on Election Night.
I will be watching the Senate and House races all night on November 6, 2012, because neither Romney nor Obama can get much done without some accommodations from the new Congress.
People responding to a poll I have taken, state overwhelmingly that they expect to see a continuing stalemate in Washington, DC.
To me that would seem to indicate that the chances for divided government are very high. But there is a change in this election: Super Political Action Committees (SuperPACs.) This is the first election in which the Supreme Court's controversial decision to allow unlimited spending by such groups has thrown really BIG money into the election process. While both sides have spent about equally on the presidential race, SuperPACs are at work even at the level of state government, and each group thinks they know what they are doing....and why.
Barring a landslide by Obama or Romney, an unlikely scenario now just two days before the voting, the control of the House and control of the Senate will determine what either presidential candidate can accomplish going forward.
Election 2012 was so bitter, and the sides seemingly so far apart, a split control in which the Republicans are the majority in the House and the Democrats are the majority in the Senate seems unlikely to help either a President Romney or a President Obama. In fact, President Obama and the American people have already seen what that looks like, and a President Romney would find such a split an equally great challenge.
I will be watching with special interest to see whether or not the Republicans can eke out a majority in the new Senate. It seems likely that they will retain their majority in the House.
The horns of celebration will already be dying down, and voters will already be going to bed, before the new balances in the House and Senate are final. There may well be House and Senate races which will be "too close to call" or even come down to recounting the ballots before control of the House and the Senate are finalized.
I'm laying in a supply of healthy snacks and juices to see me through the long night and early hours of the day after.
I want to know as soon as I can what the future of America is likely to look like....and whether or not my poll respondents are right in saying that "continued stalemate" is in store for all of us.
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Copyright 2012 Demas W. Jasper All rights resrved.
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Spending, judgeships, treaties, immigration policy, cabinet posts, all depend in large part on Congress. "Continuing stalemate" is predicted. If that happens what happens to hopes for bipartisanship, tax reform, control of entitlements, a balanced budget, and orderly government? Check the evening papers on November 7, 2012 and you may get a first glimpse at what your government will and will not do for the USA in the coming four years....regardless of who sits in the White House.
I must disagree with you my friend , I think a Romney win will bring a renewed sense of working for the common good. And an Obama win will bring the same old stalemate of obstruction and division from both sides especially from Dirty Harry Reid and the supposedly false narrative of a mandate which cause Obama to remain a liberal idealist that will only result in nothing but stalemate for 4 years.
There will always be stalemate as long as one party is in the White House and the other party controls Congress. That’s just the nature of the beast. The SuperPACs are making sure the Republicans take over the Congressional seats in our state. Last major election, two, funded by SuperPACS, won previously Democratic seats. One, an Iraqi vet, has done a semi-decent job, although I don’t like his ultra-ultra-conservative stance, but our local newspaper has gone so far as to call the other a crook. And this newspaper is Republican-controlled! Now both are incumbents running for re-election, and the Koch brothers are funding still another vet for a 3rd seat, this time an Afghanistan vet. Run the vets, sympathy and “patriotism” will get them elected. If they don’t know anything, the better puppets they make for the party!