[quote poster=Atryn; 26618; 492065]
Originally
posted by
trumper:
Then, in November, they won 63 seats to take control of the House. I'm not sure that's a "number of small local elections in gerrymandered" districts, particularly because legislative redistricting would not actually impact seats until the following election cycle (2012).
Not sure if you need this, but you do realize that redistricting isn't done by the U.S. Congress but by the states? A change in control in U.S. Congress doesn't lead to state-level redistricting, its the other way around. The republicans embarked on major redistricting efforts in many states prior to the 2010 election.
http://www.publicmapping.org/what-is-redistricting
Originally
posted by
trumper:
It was the largest change in House seats in over 60 years. And the biggest item they ran on was opposing Obamacare.
Not in my view... There were many items they ran on, collectively anti-Obama. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was certainly one of those issues and was incredibly mis-represented then as well. People were more attuned (and upset) over the Wall Street Bailout, 9% unemployment, and even the illegal immigration debate.
Originally
posted by
trumper:
Sure, delaying the employer mandate could be viewed as a compromise of his own signature law. The only problem is that no one--not even Congressional Democrats--were actually consulted. So really it's a compromise with one's self.
You didn't read the link did you?
Originally
posted by
trumper:
Yes, the President, Speaker Boehner, Majority Leader Reid, etc have met before. It's how we got sequestration, but how does that change the President's responsibility to at least try to give the appearance of leading? What, he can't be bothered on this subject? Too busy playing golf on a Saturday while the House votes on it? C'mon, seriously.
The President can't go run Congress for them. They need to send him a bill. It isn't his job to run the House or to get the House and Senate to agree. There is no point in him sitting on the steps of the House repeating the same thing over and over again to the idiots there. His position was made clear well in advance (not waiting until the last minute to hammer out something). If you think coddling to the House's juvenile behavior will be constructive in the short or long term, you've got another think coming.
What the president rightly learned from previous incidents and compromises is that if you show you will cave in to this extreme behavior, they'll just do it again next time. Its positive reinforcement of bad behavior, and we all know you cannot deal with an unruly group of children [U.S. House] that way. This is akin to the "not negotiating with terrorists" mantra.
[/quote]
I'm fully aware states do redistricting as I worked on a bill in one of them ;). But, again, they don't go into effect until the election following the census. In this case, that's 2012. So again, your rebuttal that Republicans won the seats in 2010 because of gerrymandering is irrelevant since they were playing in the same district lines that gave Democrats control of the House from 2006-2010 (technically from Jan. 07-Jan. 11, but for our purposes that's irrelevant).
Yes, many issues impacted the election. But how can one argue that 2012 is a referendum on Obamacare while simultaneously saying 2010 had little or nothing to do with it? Right, and that was my point.
I read your link and stand by the he didn't consult anyone point, which the Asst. Sec all but says. If you're talking about compromise referred to on the length of applications all I can say is, ha, they compromised on a proposed rule during a comment period (it wasn't etched into stone the same way).
Agreed, the President can't run Congress for them. And, quite frankly, nor should he. However, if he's going to whine they're not doing what he wants then he should either suggest something beyond repeating the same thing or get out of the way and let Senate Democrats do it. Who, by the way, also rejected attempted to negotiate. If you recall, it was Sen. Maj. Leader Reid who convinced Obama to cancel his meeting (see Politico story) and it was Sen. Reid who rejected sending any negotiators to the conference committee. They have a duty to at least try.