Rich Lowry: 1994 Nightmare ... Dems Look Out of Touch
[Rich Lowry is a syndicated columnist and a commentator for the Fox News Channel.]
For Democrats willing to see what's before their eyes, the nightmare came into sharper focus over the last week. Another 1994 might be in the offing.
Back then, the beginning of the end came on a procedural vote. A Democratic majority that had held the House for four decades lost a routine party-line vote on a "rule," a basic measure allowing it to control the House floor.
The August vote hit like a neutron bomb. Superficially, nothing changed: The Democrats still had a majority; they quickly re-established control and passed the underlying legislation, a liberal crime bill. Yet Republicans exulted at the whiff of legislative revolution: The Democrats had begun to lose their grip.
Scott Brown's victory last week in Massachusetts is the equivalent of that momentous vote. Democrats still have an 18-seat advantage in the Senate and a nearly 80-seat edge in the House. But the Brown win ends the heroic phase of the Obama era, which lasted precisely a year.
It is still 10 months until the midterm elections, and no one can know how events will play out before then. Will the job market revive? Can President Obama find traction? Yet this much is clear: Obama and the Democrats have done their utmost to create the predicate for a historic wipeout in November. They have put the House in jeopardy, and the consuming question of American politics for the rest of the year is whether they can pull it back.
You could say that it's January 1994 all over again -- but the level of the Democratic peril didn't become clear until much later that year. When Rep. Dick Armey told the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call that spring that Republicans might take the majority in the fall, he was practically laughed out of the room. Democrats have entered the red zone this year much sooner, and much more obviously.
Forewarned by Clinton's nightmare, Obama set out to avoid his predecessor's mistakes, especially on health care: He'd be more deferential to Congress; he'd buy off the special interests, keeping Harry and Louise on his side. That is, he learned every lesson but the most important one: Don't support a radical overhaul of American health care as embodied in a sprawling monstrosity of a bill...
Read entire article at New York Post
For Democrats willing to see what's before their eyes, the nightmare came into sharper focus over the last week. Another 1994 might be in the offing.
Back then, the beginning of the end came on a procedural vote. A Democratic majority that had held the House for four decades lost a routine party-line vote on a "rule," a basic measure allowing it to control the House floor.
The August vote hit like a neutron bomb. Superficially, nothing changed: The Democrats still had a majority; they quickly re-established control and passed the underlying legislation, a liberal crime bill. Yet Republicans exulted at the whiff of legislative revolution: The Democrats had begun to lose their grip.
Scott Brown's victory last week in Massachusetts is the equivalent of that momentous vote. Democrats still have an 18-seat advantage in the Senate and a nearly 80-seat edge in the House. But the Brown win ends the heroic phase of the Obama era, which lasted precisely a year.
It is still 10 months until the midterm elections, and no one can know how events will play out before then. Will the job market revive? Can President Obama find traction? Yet this much is clear: Obama and the Democrats have done their utmost to create the predicate for a historic wipeout in November. They have put the House in jeopardy, and the consuming question of American politics for the rest of the year is whether they can pull it back.
You could say that it's January 1994 all over again -- but the level of the Democratic peril didn't become clear until much later that year. When Rep. Dick Armey told the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call that spring that Republicans might take the majority in the fall, he was practically laughed out of the room. Democrats have entered the red zone this year much sooner, and much more obviously.
Forewarned by Clinton's nightmare, Obama set out to avoid his predecessor's mistakes, especially on health care: He'd be more deferential to Congress; he'd buy off the special interests, keeping Harry and Louise on his side. That is, he learned every lesson but the most important one: Don't support a radical overhaul of American health care as embodied in a sprawling monstrosity of a bill...