McDohl wrote:Welcome to Lame Duck Obama. Enjoy your stay for the next two years as Republicans wait to stack the courts with men who want to own vaginas and life begins at sperm.
And then get another Democratic President in 2016.
I don't really see anything changing substantially before the next census. We're going to continue to have a Democratic President, a Republican House, and a split Senate. I think it's just demographics at this point, and the same far-right political stances that are getting Republicans a platform in their own gerrymandered districts are poison to the party on a national level.
Of course, I don't know for sure what's going to happen in two years. We don't even know who's going to be running (aside from Clinton, and yes Clinton is clearly running). We'll know who's going into the primaries in about a year, and I don't think that's time for the Republicans to get a better candidate pool than the one they've got now. And the one they've got now sucks. Romney's made noises about trying again, Perry got hisself those Smart Guy glasses, and Christie sure keeps saying stuff, but...well, that sure leaves us with an extremely weak pool of which Romney is the least weak candidate, which didn't work out so well for the Republicans last time. I know people keep talking about Jeb Bush but I don't see him running right now.
The Democrats, on the other hand, really only have Clinton; I don't think there's anybody who's likely to pose a challenge to her in the primaries. I legitimately think Biden would be a better President than she would, but he's a walking punchline.
The best advantage Republicans have is that there really are a whole lot of people who just can't stand Hillary Clinton, and they can mobilize that demographic to vote for anybody they nominate. But first of all, I don't think those kind of numbers are going to be enough to swing an election, and second, an anti-Clinton campaign is likely to provoke even more public displays of misogyny than usual and have an impact on candidates well outside the Presidential race (think "macaca" and "legitimate rape").
Not that I think a Hillary Clinton win is going to be a big victory for progressives or anything -- partly because she's New Democrat as all hell and partly because I can't imagine there being LESS gridlock in Congress under President Hillary Clinton.
Then again, we're two years out; who the fuck even knows what's going to happen by the next election? I could be wrong about all of this.
But I've been right about every nominee since 2000 except for Kerry. This stuff tends to play out pretty predictably.