How will president Clark, Dean or Kerry deal with a Repuke Congress??

[SilasSoule]

With Texas Redistricting virtually assured now, The repugs will have an even greater advantage in the house and even if the Senate stays more or less with it's current slim repug majority,it be very diffucult tough for Pres. Clark/Dean/Kerry to repeal tax-cuts and mop up the mess that is IRAQ and Afghanistan and get lesiglation passed that get Americans working again.

What about Tom DeLay sponsored and sold congressial corportate welfare bills? Will this new president use his VETO pen often?

The one advantage I see is greater international cooperation based and on a greater, perceived goodwill simply because it wil be Anyone but Bush.

[FloridaPat]

1. If the media actually reported what is going on with the

republicans, none of them would be elected. They would all be in jail.

[demnan]

2. I would hope they would take a lesson out of Clinton's play book

Remember the Gingrich years? When the House Republicans threatened to shut down the government, Clinton called their bluff. It was a major mistake for them. Clinton let it be known that the Republicans were responsible for the shut down. Another thing that lead to was that people realized they did in fact need their government services during the shutdown. So there was less talk after that of closing government agencies.

You have to play hardball with these bastards. I hope whoever we get in there is willing to do that.

on edit: play book

[Lexingtonian]

3. unkindly.

Well, if we do get a solidly Democratic President, he'll have a serious and insightful take what the bitter fighting of the last 20, if not 40, years is really about.

And that doesn't really leave any option other than outright running warfare of the Executive Branch with a Republican Congress. The key appointments are Treasury, State, and Attorney General. AG is the most important one, really.

The first two years of this Presidency would be a continuing campaign to wipe out the Republicans in Congress. AG investigation of all the Bush Administration scandals- and no one doubts that there will be plenty- will do a lot in that regard. It will be bitter, but the President will have the weight of public opinion behind him time and again. Bush will have spent all remaining goodwill toward Republicans during '04- and he will have pardoned some of the most crooked.

DeLay is the most bitter, and most competent, overt enemy. We'll have to put a particularly vicious and tenacious ethics bulldog on him. Maybe get a full investigation of all of his Texan dealings over the years in the full light of day. He'll in turn force Democrats to do a lot of things via privately funded groups (ACLU, SPLC) by cutting funding for federal investigations.

2005 is the year to clean up the worst of the mess. To cut the operating deficit down and expose Tom DeLay to the full weight of public opinion. To cut deals and mostly get out of Iraq and Afghanistan. To go through the whole Bush/Gingrich/DeLay sellout of the public interest and figure out all the players, the dirty deeds, and the necessary countermeasures. Don't forget that Bush Sr. left Clinton a "present" in the form of an additional $50 billion in deficit spending hidden by accounting tricks.

2006 is then all about investigating and knocking Republicans out of Congress. The fun part is in going to their allies- the NRA leadership, the Christian Right leadership, the crooked business lobbying groups, the defense contractors- and explaining to them that there's a choice between an Easy Way and a Hard Way for them, and in January 2007 they really don't want to have picked the wrong one.

OTOH, I don't really see Clark or Dean adequately prepared to deal with this level of Capitol Hill power politicking and drumming up the popular support to really change things. Any "moderate" or "centrist" Democratic President is a fool disarming himself and blind to the impending attempt to politically mug and hogtie him.

[RC]

5. I disagree with part...

"Any "moderate" or "centrist" Democratic President is a fool disarming himself and blind to the impending attempt to politically mug and hogtie him."

What is needed is honesty. A person with a good sense of right and wrong. A person that is aware of the effects of their action, not just in the short term. A person that puts people and their problems ahead of their own money and power. Another president of who is not afraid to swim in the crowd.

A far Left President now would be too polarizing. A centralist would be more apt to be able to work with both sides to repair the damage currently being done to our country and the world. It takes time to swing the pendulum back.

[SixDegrees]

4. Two things would be critical

The Democratic president could bring about change in Congress's composition if he 1) called for investigations into such things as the missing 28 pages from the Sept. 11 report, the involvement of Dept. of Homeland Secrurity in Texas redistricting mess, the doctored EPA reports, etc., and 2) putting momentum back into real campaign finance reform so that it's government, not special interest, funded.

[newyawker99]

6. Hi SixDegrees!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[wyldwolf]

7. I'm hoping that a good handful of Republican congressmen...

...ride bush's coattails down the tubes...

[NewYorkerfromMass]

8. There's a solid arguement for Kerry right there

Who has the most experience dealing with these very same 'people'?
Who is apt to be treated with anything resembling respect by the assholes otherwise known as the GOP? NOTE: John Kerry and John McCain are friends.

[tsipple]

9. Executive Experience Important

Blatant plug here for Graham, Dean, and to a much lesser extent Clark, all of whom had executive experience. The first two actually dealt with legislatures as governors.