PrintJanuary 8, 2011
Harry Reid's one-man roadblock
The Democrats are poised to become "The New Party of No," as Kimberly Strassel details in the Wall Street Journal.
The "Party of No" label never stuck to Republicans because Americans support their unified votes against the Obama agenda. As Ms. Strassel quotes Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, "it depends on what you are saying ‘no' to."
Now that the Tea Party cavalry has arrived in the Capitol, bills to stop ObamaCare, cut spending and derail the Obama regulatory agenda will find Harry Reid manning the barricades to prevent GOP reform bills from reaching Obama's veto desk.
With 23 Senate Democrats up for re-election in 2012, as Ms. Strassel quotes Missouri Democrat Claire McCaskill, "any Senate Democrat who claims not to be worried about 2012 ought to be hooked to ‘a lie-detector machine.' "
Which means many Democrat Senators will be under "enormous pressure" to support the GOP effort to roll back the Obama job-killing agenda.
The key insight of the Strassel column is Senator Reid's likely role as Obama's one-man roadblock:
If Mr. Reid does let GOP reforms proceed, some Democrats will join Republicans in voting for them. That puts President Obama in the embarrassing position of having to veto "bipartisan" legislation. The president is counting on Mr. Reid not to let this happen, to be his veto pen, and Mr. Reid's own philosophical inclinations qualify him for that role.
The spin of Obama "moving to the center," is just that, and we can rest assured Obama's pocket checklist for his agenda remains close to his heart.
We can expect to see Harry Reid and company using every procedural trick in the book as the President's one-man roadblock.
Read the full Strassel column for an insightful view of the road ahead.
