GOP Senate Means Obama Owns Gridlock

Jonathan S. Tobin

One of the key Democratic talking points in the waning days of their midterm campaign is to predict even worse gridlock in the next two years if the Republicans win the Senate. Given the unbridgeable differences that already exist between President Obama and the House Republican leadership, it’s hard to imagine the administration’s relationship with the GOP getting any better if the Senate is in the hands of his foes too. That’s why liberals are consoling themselves about tomorrow’s likely loss by predicting that the standoff in 2015 will, like the one in 2013, help their party and hurt Republicans. But that assessment of any future confrontation rests on the assumption that the same rules that applied before will determine the outcome of the next battle. Politicians and pundits need to take into account that this may not be the case.




Let’s concede that some of the key elements of the bruising conflict between Obama and the Republicans in the last two years with a split Congress will still be in place even if both houses are run by the GOP next January.
Even as a wounded and very lame duck, the president will remain a formidable political opponent. Though his personal appeal seems to have reached its expiration date, he’s still a unique historical figure with the ability to command the attention and the support of many Americans. Moreover, the Democrats’ ace in the hole—a mainstream media that is firmly in the pocket of the president no matter how poor his performance or what manner of scandal is brewing—is still there to help spin anything that happens as the GOP’s fault and to buy into Obama’s specious pose as the adult in the negotiating room.
That’s why many people, including some Republicans, fear that a Republican-controlled Senate will only set up the party for a new round of defeats in the court of public opinion once the president demonstrates, as our Seth Mandel speculated earlier today, that he is incapable of rethinking or rebooting his approach to governance. The assumption is that the president’s unwillingness to compromise—which is equally as intransigent as that of the most hardcore Tea Party caucus members—will allow his media cheerleaders to interpret the standoff as proof that the GOP doesn’t want to govern. That will allow Hillary Clinton to run against a “do-nothing” Congress and lead inevitably to a Democratic wave in 2016 that will erase the Republican majorities that will already be in danger due to the large number of GOP incumbents who will be hard-pressed to repeat their 2010 upsets.
That’s a frightening prospect for Republicans even as they contemplate what may be a very good day tomorrow. But Democrats need to remember one pertinent fact before they start spinning the results.
If Republicans control both houses of Congress, that will give them more than their current ability to frustrate the designs of the president and his allies in the Senate. Majorities on both sides of the Hill will enable them to actually pass bills on key issues. If they do–and given the stark divisions in the House as well as in the Senate GOP caucus, that is not a given–that will put the ball in the president’s court as he will then be forced to sign or veto legislation.
Will a veto standoff play the same way as the current formula for gridlock? Democrats hope so, but there is a big difference between a president being able to lambast Congress for not “doing its job” and passing bills and one that is presented with the verdict of the legislature but will not sign. The power to veto is an effective weapon but it is not quite the same thing as being able to point your finger at a House of Representatives that can’t get out of its own way and even pass something its leader wanted.
Republicans face formidable challenges once they are in charge of both houses, though most of these will come from within. But what liberal pundits and even some conservatives forget is that the dynamic next year will be a lot different from the past. Obama is weak and getting weaker in terms of the political capital he has to spend every month. A Congress that puts him on the defensive by passing its own agenda will potentially be offering the nation a coherent alternative to liberal patent nostrums. On a host of issues, including energy, education, and immigration, if Obama’s only answer to Republican bills is to say no, it won’t be as easy for him to say that it’s all the fault of the other side. He’s the one will be saying “no,” not Speaker John Boehner or even the Tea Party. That’s even more more pertinent if he is also seeking to institute one-man rule via executive orders so as to prevent Congress from having its say.
All of which means that the stakes tomorrow are a lot higher than many on the left are willing to concede. A GOP Senate presents the party with an opportunity to not only make Barack Obama’s last two years in office miserable but also to lay the foundation for a strong 2016 effort. As much as it is tempting for Democrats to say they win by losing, the truth is, they have far more to lose in the midterms than they are letting on