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William Galston

Why John Boehner’s Life Is About To Become a Living Hell

• William Galston

  

  William Galston

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  • Why John Boehner’s Life Is About To Become a Living Hell
  • New Polls Show a Democratic Apocalypse. (But Are They Wrong?)
  • The Elephants and Donkeys Shall Lie Down Together
• October 29, 2010 | 12:00 am

Three surveys released in the past week—Pew, Bloomberg, and CBS/New York Times—illuminate what the American people want from the new Congress that convenes next January. Taken together, these polls offer a warning to a new Republican majority: If you push your limited government agenda too far or refuse to cooperate with Democrats and the White House, you’ll pay a price.

Here’s a question from the Bloomberg poll:

If Republicans win control of Congress, what do you want to happen—do you want the parties to stick to their principles even if it means gridlock and nothing gets done, or do you want the parties to work together even if it means compromising some principles?

The response:

Stick to principles: 16 percent

Work together even if it means compromising: 80 percent

And here are two questions and their answers from CBS/NYT:

What do you think Barack Obama should do—compromise some of his positions in order to get things done, or stick to his positions even if it means not getting as much done?

Compromise: 69 percent

Stick to positions: 22 percent

What do you think the Republicans in Congress should do—compromise some of their positions in order to get things done, or stick to their positions even if it means not getting as much done?

Compromise: 78 percent

Stick to positions: 15 percent

When CBS/New York Times asked people not what they thought Obama and the Republicans should do but, rather, what they expected Obama and the Republicans would do, 72 percent thought that Obama would try to work with Republicans—but only 46 percent thought that the Republicans would try to work with Obama.

The bottom line is that people want results, they know that getting results will require compromise, and they are predisposed to blame Republicans rather than the president if they get confrontation and gridlock instead.

So what of the Republicans’ agenda? Will it jibe with what the public wants?

On October 27, Bloomberg reported that House Republicans plan to slash $100 billion from non-defense discretionary spending as early as January. The Bloomberg survey, released the following day, then asked people to consider some of the things Republicans want to accomplish in the new Congress and say whether they definitely want the GOP to follow through or not. Some of the responses:

[SNIP]

These polls pose a serious problem for the Republican leadership. The new conservative majority will contain up to 80 members who are in sync with the Tea Parties or who owe their seats to Tea Party support, making many of them among 21 percent who think that cutting spending is the single most important thing they can do in Congress. (Some of them have already said that they won’t even vote to increase the debt limit next year.) GOP leaders are going to have to balance this reality on the Hill with the opposing reality of a public that wants more than just budget-slashing—including compromise with the other side of the aisle.

Continues @ TheNewRepublic.com blog
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Very interesting info on the pulse of the nation and the compoition of the new House of Reps.  Pragmatism and practicality are going to suffer greatly over the next two years if Tea party gets hold of the GOP agenda on the House floor; Boehner indeed can expect hellish two years ahead of him.

-- Edited by Sanders on Friday 29th of October 2010 10:01:06 AM