Be Afraid. The GOP’s Plan To Lose The House

Matthew Continetti has a post up at the Free Beacon entitled Be Afraid: The Democratic plan to take back the House. In it he argues the House GOP majority in danger because the Democrats, led by Obama, are playing for keeps and have already begun their campaig. He’s also worried that conservatives are being complacent in thinking that the electorate will be like 2010’s and not 2008 or 2012’s.

We discussed this at some length on the podcast last night. I agree that despite all the advantages the GOP has, safely gerrymandered districts, the historical trend that says in the sixth year of a presidency the opposition party almost always picks up seats, and no Obama on the ticket, they could still lose control of the House.

My theory on how the House could flip to the Democrats hinges on the make up of the electorate, but for a reason different than Contineti’s….I don’t think Obama’s voters will show up any more than they usually do but I think the GOP’s may stay home.

Right now there’s a lot of conservative displeasure with the House and there’s likely to be more by the end of the year. Imagine this scenario for how the year end battles play out….

After hiding from constituents during the August recess Congress returns in September and House leaders start talking up delay instead of repealing ObamaCare. As part of a “grand bargain” they shut off the sequester (in whole or in part) in exchange for what some will call a massive tax hike, that’s followed with a CR/Debt ceiling hike that has a higher baseline than they had previously been working from because the sequester was modified, so now they can spend more money like they've wanted to all along. There’s a delay in the ObamaCare individual mandate but the subsidies go into effect for states that have working exchanges, the ban on disqualifying people because of pre-existing conditions stays and they “fix” ObamaCare’s high risk pools by funding them again (without any offsetting cuts in the “slush fund”) to top it all off they pass pieces of amnesty, including the DREAM Act which would have the effect blessing Obama’s lawless administrative acts. The Democrats wanting the issue more than the bill won’t move it out of the Senate so Hispanics are mad at the GOP for not going all the way on amnesty and conservatives are mad they tried to sellout.

Under these conditions it’s very easy to see conservatives throwing up their hands and saying, what’s the point?

Now could this all play out another way? Sure. But is the above scenario science fiction? Not even remotely.

As I said, we discussed this during the podcast last night. I think we did a pretty good job of fleshing out the issues from both sides. Take a listen and decide if you think the House GOP majority is in some real danger next year. I think it is.

posted by DrewM. at 10:36 AM

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