Well, it's not all John A. Boehner's fault as much as the wing of the GOP that continues to pretty much ignore the base and pursue a "we're better at running the Welfare State than the Democrats" strategy.
Yesterday, the soon to be former speaker of the house took to the Sunday morning snore-fests to, essentially, diss the conservative base not just of the rank and file but of his own GOP caucus itself.
On Face The Nation, Mr. Boehner hung out the white flag in an obnoxious manner:
"And so, we've got groups here in town, members of the house and senate here in town, who whipped people into a frenzy believing that they know - they know - are never going to happen."
Great, Mr. Boehner. Then why are there two parties in the first place? Talk about feeding into the conspiracy theories. We give you a substantial majority in the house. We give Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) a majority in the senate. And now you tell us it was all on falsehoods? Now you tell us that we need a Republican president; No kidding, Sherlock?! And a supermajority in both the house and senate. For what? To just drip the socialism slowly or to actually do what we, the voters, want?
I get it that there is a Democrat in the White House, the Dear Leader, President Obama. If Sen. McConnell had testes, he would force the nuclear option and block filibusters and send some of the legislation to the Dear Leader, President Obama, and let him veto it. That is what the Democrats did to then President Ford after the 1974 mid-term elections when they sent bill after bill that President Ford vetoed. Some were over ridden and became law. Other vetoes were sustained.
Taylor Millard over at Hot Air explains part of the problem and that is people being elected to do one thing, stay in Washington, D. C. way too long and become part of the problem.
John Boehner is but a perfect example of such a problem.
Mr. Boehner was elected in 1990 and joined with the Newt Gingrich forces that eventually ousted long-time house minority leader, Robert Michel. And he was all in on the Contract With America that was the cornerstone of the Republicans taking the house of representatives in 1994 for the first time since the 1950s. And when he saw that Mr. Gingrich was becoming politically toxic, Mr. Boehner was part of the so-called group that led to the ouster of Mr. Gingrich as speaker.
So, Mr. Boehner for a while knew how to deal with the internal politics of the GOP caucus. And he moved up the ladder in leadership. And of course in 2010, he became the speaker of the house and the game seemed to change for Mr. Boehner, already a house member for 20 years.
Instead of talking about the efforts to fight the so-called health care "reform" and the other multitude of excesses of Team Obama, the is what Mr. Boehner thinks are accomplishments.
The Ryan-Murray budget and or sequestration.
Extending most of the George W. Bush tax cuts.
Passage of the so-called "Doc-fix" bill.
Mr. Millard, as I am, is not impressed with this record of accomplishment. I suspect most members of the house are not impressed either. And the rank and file GOP voter, forget it.
The problem is that there is just this obsession about the "institution" and "process" among the GOP leadership. Thus what happens is the conservative message is co-opted for elections and then we get crap. All the "accomplishments" Mr. Boehner cites are beyond inside baseball. Did Mr. Boehner have a tax reform plan? HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! How about a plan to at the very least force some reform of Obamacare? HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! Those are but two issues that separate the GOP from the Democrats. And yet, yet nothing! NOTHING!
Now to many voters, the GOP is not a party of reform but of basically greasing the wheels for their clients.
THAT is how Mr. Boehner, and Sen. McConnell are screwing up the GOP.
I pleased that Mr. Boehner is retiring but mad that he did not appreciate the mandate that he was given to be bold and lead. He became the very establishment that he fought against in his early years.
Whoever replaces Mr. Boehner needs to remember that an opposition party can still get what it wants even if the end result is not a absolute victory.
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