By Lee Cary –
Will the Tea Party be ready to respond to an unexpected Democrat challenge to the G.O.P.’s hopes of keeping the House?
On the G.O.P. side, between today and the 2014 elections, what’s likely to change?
Will John Boehner be replaced by a new Speaker? Say, Paul Ryan? There’s nothing now to suggest that’ll happen.
If G.O.P. fund-raising efforts are tepid moving toward ‘14, that could increase the pressure for a new House Speaker, but the decibel level of any talk of that happening is inaudible.
By ’14, will a new Republican Party leader emerge from the Senate, or a Governor’s Mansion, and become the leading challenger for the Presidency?
That’s unlikely. For one thing, it could cause that candidate to peak too soon and, by the ‘16 election, become old news, having been beat up by the liberal media. And Americans, many with the attention span of hummingbirds, don’t like old news and bruised candidates. Particularly Republicans.
So let’s assume, for now, that the G.O.P. undergoes no substantial changes between today and the midterm elections.
On the economic front, let’s further assume things will stagger along the next two years pretty much like they have for the last two, except worse. (I think there are good reasons to think much worse, but let’s assume otherwise for the purposes of this article.) The recession will continue – since it never really stopped, despite all the “green shoots” and recovery happy-talk – and become the new normal.
Additionally, the partisan blame-game will continue unabated. It’s a fixture on the American political landscape.
International events are unpredictable, but excepting the unexpected catastrophic Black Swan, let’s suppose the major tension venues continue as they are now, with Iran and N. Korea in their Oscar roles as the world’s leading bad actors.
In short, the G.O.P. remains the same; the international scene is, essentially, unchanged; the economy staggers forward, perhaps with a more pronounced limp (if we’re lucky).
Shift now to the Democrat Party side, and imagine this surprise:
Two months before the midterms, Vice President Biden announces his retirement from public service. A reality check convinces him that he’s unlikely to be the Democrat nominee in ’16. Several deep-pocket Democrat donors offer to establish a Joe Biden Charitable Foundation to benefit his favorite causes. In other words, Joe’s paid-off to buzz-off.
In fulfillment of a commitment made back in ’08, whereby (1) Hillary’s campaign filed damaging intelligence gathered about Obama’s past in Chicago, followed by (2) her willingness to play the good loser, and (3) Bill’s agreement to campaign aggressively for Obama in ‘12, Obama appoints Hillary as the new Vice President. The liberal media loves it!
This happens two months before the ’14 mid-terms.
Hillary’s substantial fan base is immediately re-energized. The Democrat Party becomes jazzed. Hillary campaigns from Air Force 2, touring the globe looking “Presidential.” And, after she’s the nominee, Obama campaigns for her in the African-American community. She’ll need the Black vote to win. He’ll deliver it.
And, to divert attention away from an ObamaCare full rollout that’s, by then, hitting significant “speed-bumps” (as were the four dead Americans in Benghazi), Obama and Hillary (who back in ’08 described herself as a “proud American Progressive”) jointly announce that, when the Democrats retake the House and hold the Senate, the next big initiative on the agenda will be… nationalizing K-12 public education in order to make American’s children educationally competitive with the other industrialized nations.
Here’s the case in summary: The federal government must manage K-12 for the good of America’s children…who are our future…growing up in an increasingly competitive world…where, particularly those in the inner cities, they’re falling further and further behind educationally. We must do something! If not now, then when? If not the Democrats, then who?
“Ridiculous,” you say. Maybe so. Maybe even probably so. If it happens, though, will the Tea Party be ready to react? You think the Republicans will?
