In this mid-term election postmortem edition of "Meet The Press" the essential question is that now that the election is over will Washington DC break its governing gridlock by engaging in compromise to move the country forward? From what was said by the collection of guests and panel participants, the answer is: not likely. Amy Walker of the Cook Political Report answered that there can not be compromise when all the moderates have been voted out.
But at the moment, members of Congress are doing what they do best, which is talk a good game and they want to keep people hopeful that something positive for all of the American people can still happen, given that now the Republicans controlling both houses of Congress while the Democrats still control The White House.
With the exception of the Georgia Senate race (we said it would go to a run-off), our predictions from last week's column were all spot on, and what can be said about that is that they were correct because they were easy calls to make. There are various reasons why Republicans won so big, but one of them IS NOT President Obama's policies even though the Republicans framed this mid-term as a referendum on them.
Today's program made clear that rural and small town America hasn't felt the economic recovery as much as the concentrated population centers have, but by all indicators the economy is moving forward: 5.9% unemployment, record stock market numbers, less deficit spending, healthcare costs growing at a slower rate than they have in a decade. None of which Republicans can take credit for, but they effectively demonized the president so much that they had the Democrats running away from the president's policies. It was a fatal mistake that the Democrats made and frankly with regard to the Kentucky Senate race, if Alison Lundergan Grimes (D) can not admit to voting for Barack Obama then she doesn't deserve to win.
All of the above is the result of President Obama's policies, like it or not. And another indication that the election results were more of the Democrats not standing up for their principles, something that Howard Dean rightly admonished his party for on today's program, than the actual policies is that in 5 red state referendums the overwhelming majority voted for a raise in the minimum wage. This is something that President Obama has been calling for over the years but Republicans are against the raise. (This is just a simple look at the facts of the matter.)
Yet there remains the notion of moving the country forward. What ever you take that to mean (most people think of it in terms of the economy), it's difficult for us to see how that is going to happen considering that the one thing Republicans have said all along, as Senator-elect Mike Rounds (R-SD) reiterated, is that they are going to do all they can to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which in essence is re-litigating the past. "Dismantle it section by section" is how Mr. Rounds put it.
For the President's part, he said that if Congress does not act on immigration by the end of the year, he is going to sign an executive order to reform the policy as much as the law will allow without the consent of Congress. As former Congressman Eric Cantor put it, that would be 'lighting the fuse.' However, we're with NBC's Jose Diaz-Balart in that the president should sign the executive order because it's the House that has been intransigent the most on this issue. Mr. Diaz-Balart said that if it 'poisons the well, then they should change the water.' The Senate has passed a bipartisan bill on immigration but because it came from a Democratic-controlled chamber, the Republican-controlled House just sat on it. Now that the Republicans control the Senate, they'll throw that bill out and recreate another that more reflects their majority view, again this is going backwards.
So now that we've painted a bit of a bleak picture for compromise, where does that leave us? The Republicans' attacks on the President were a winning strategy to win control of Congress and there's no reason why they won't continue that strategy and insist that having a Republican in The White House is best for the country. That the most likely Democratic candidate is Hillary Clinton is incidental in terms of this strategy. It wouldn't matter who were to run on the Democratic side, that person will be framed as a continuation of President Obama, something that Scott Walker didn't fail to mention in his victory lap interview on the program. With Hillary Clinton being the 'front-runner,' she's a bigger profile likely candidate so she's easier to hit.
The panel got into a back and forth about what constitutes incendiary actions in Washington. Eric Cantor said that if the president signs an executive order on immigration that would be considered such an action, though it was the House of Representatives that he lead that subverted any reform. When Chuck Todd presented the scenario of Republicans repealing the ACA as something to carry the incendiary label, Mr. Cantor answered that repealing the ACA is not incendiary because everyone knows that is what Republicans are going to do it. This drew dismissive laughs from the rest of the panel, as it should have. We don't know for sure how these election results will playing out the two years, whether our political leaders can compromise. However, with Eric Cantor's presence on the program today, it reminded us of one thing: we're glad he's gone.
Panel: Jose Diaz-Balart, NBC News; Amy Walter, The Cook Political Report; Stephanie Cutter, fmr. Deputy Campaign Manager for President Barack Obama; Eric Cantor (R), fmr. House Majority Leader
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