More Trouble for the USS Democrats

Thursday, President Barack Obama met with prominent members of the Senate and the House for a bipartisan health care summit. The summit was carried on CNN and was supposed to be a new turning point in health care reform.

Well…much to the absolute surprise of no one outside of Washington, the summit accomplished absolutely nothing. President Obama came out of the meeting looking frustrated and health care reform appears no closer to passing than it did before the summit. Really I still don’t see the point to it all. If you think about it, this meeting was simply a gathering of prominent members of Congress from both parties to discuss and debate a proposal to govern this country. However, last I checked, Congress was a gathering of prominent members of both parties to discuss and debate proposals to govern this country. If the bill couldn’t get anywhere in Congress, how would it do any better in this summit?

Meanwhile, things are looking pretty grim for our Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. With the Democrats odds of keeping control in the House looking slimmer and slimmer, Pelosi is starting to feel the knife at her throat. She has promised to help every Democrat win re-election and many Washington insiders recognize that if the Democrats suffer on Election Day, most of the blame will fall on Pelosi. As if that’s not bad enough, she’s being pressured to get another version of health care passed in the House. While she claims to have the necessary votes, both parties know that this is simply not true. Besides getting over the Republicans, Pelosi needs to control the different factions of her own party. At this point the infighting  among the Democrats is worse than the political sniping going between opposing parties. Add to this the fact that voters are discontent after a year of complete Democtatic control of the government, and the odds of Speaker Pelosi retaining her political favor and her title are very slim indeed!

Is the Democratic Party Self-Destructing?

Thanks to Scott Brown, the political momentum of the US has changed drastically. Once thought to be a party that was down and soon to be out, the Republicans are now seriously attempting to obtain control of Congress. With this in mind, the Democrats are scrambling to regain the support that they had in 2008. Unfortunately for them, the result has been party fighting and disagreement. President Obama is taking the brunt of this unrest as many of his former supporters and party mates (is that what they’re called?) are opposing him Following is a short list of people who have problems with the President and the Democrats in general.

• Nancy Pelosi. Despite her somewhat gleeful appearance at the State of the Union address(body language experts say that much of her performance there was acting), she’s been opposing the president on many issues ever since. She’s stopped the President’s jobs bill, scolded him on health care, and even disagreed with his decision  to not  freeze  military spending.(Seriously? Even if you’re a pacifist, we are currently at war and freezing military spending is incredibly foolish) While it’s great that she’s showing her independence, most of her disagreements are coming at the worst possible time for Obama. His jobs bill was supposed to be a strong bipartisan act. Instead we see disagreements, especially among Democrats. With these Democrats being split between Pelosi and Obama, we may see a Pelosi vs Obama war of words in the near future.
• Unions. Labor unions are frustrated with the Democrats in general. A major supporter in 2008, the unions are now threatening to stay home in 2010.  They’re unhappy with Congress for getting nothing done. Add to this the fact that the Senate failed to confirm labor lawyer Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board, and the likelihood of union support for Democrats becomes little more than a dream.
• Republicans. No surprise here! Still, despite Obama’s recent bipartisan push, the GOP is still finding problems with him. The most recent area is terrorism. Recently, the ranking GOP member of the Senate Intelligence Committee called for the ouster of President Barack Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan. The White House says this request is ridiculous and yet another issue becomes a battleground.
• Democrats, specifically progressives. Obama was asked directly whether bonus payouts to the CEOs of JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs were acceptable, Obama replied by praising both men as “savvy businessmen.” He went on to say, “I, like most of the American people, don’t begrudge people success or wealth. That is part of the free- market system.” After these comments, Democrats were furious! The White House scrambled to contain the damage, but it was too late. Democrats called Obama “clueless” and said that he “doesn’t care, doesn’t understand, doesn’t get it. … It’s called flip-flopping.” In addition, many Democrats are concerned about Obama’s promise to repeal “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” His promise was a great move as it sent a strong signal to the Democrats’ demoralized progressive base that he’s still on their side. Unfortunately, many Democrats see this as little more than rhetoric as no plans have been made to push this plan.

With the Democratic party falling apart, the chance of a Republican takeover of Congress becomes more and more likely. Unless the Dems pull their act together, they could be seeing a lot more frustration in the future.