Overreaction
Last week I posted a story bemoaning the Republican loss in the House and Senate, but I feel that I may have overreacted a little. In this post, I'm going to explore the reasons why the Democratic victory shouldn't mean too much.
- Nancy Pelosi lost her first battle. Pelosi was pushing for Rep. Jack Murtha to take the number two spot in the House, but was rebuffed by a pretty significant majority. Instead, the Democratic caucus opted for Rep. Steny Hoyer from Maryland. It doesn't really matter that everybody knows that Murtha is crazy and that's why they didn't vote for him; what matters is that Pelosi, despite knowing that Murtha is crazy, picked him and lost. Real world: 1, Pelosi: 0.
- The Democrats' majority is not big enough to override a Presidential veto. Let's face it: if the Republicans don't want it to happen, Bush will veto it. He might as well piss some people off; he's got a piss-poor approval rating and the Republicans are jumping the good ship Bush as fast as they can.
- The 2008 Presidential elections are sooner than you think. The Democrats still don't have a good candidate. A poll in June said that nearly half of Americans would never vote for Hillary. There were similar numbers, of course, for John Kerry and Al Gore. And Barack Obama? My guess is that a Senator that would just be concluding his first term in office in 2008 has no chance of a serious run at the Presidency, although the Vice President spot is more feasible if a more appetizing candidate could be found. If only. And this doesn't even factor in that the racial divide in this country would swing white votes away from Obama and the gender divide would do the same for Hillary.
- There most probably will not be a Supreme Court vacancy in the next two years. Barring a Justice's death, there won't be any new vacancies, at least on the conservative side of the bench. If a liberal Justice retires, the balance of power won't be disturbed by another liberal Justice appointee.