Over at Talking Points Memo, Brian Beutler explains what this historic Republican victory means for our nation.
The NY-23 seat abdicated by Republican John McHugh (who resigned to become Secretary of the Army) went to Democrat Bill Owens--the first Democrat to hold the seat in over a century. And the CA-10 seat abdicated by Democrat Ellen Tauscher (who resigned to become Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs) went to Democrat John Garamendi.
That creates some simple arithmetic. Yesterday, Democrats had 256 voting members in the House. By week's end, they'll have 258. Last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi could afford to lose no more than 38 Democratic votes on a landmark health care reform bill. Next week, after Owens and Garamendi are sworn in, she can lose up to 40. For legislation this historic and far-reaching, she'll need every vote she can get--and both seem likely to support reform.
Both Garamendi and Owens are likely to support healthcare reform, so the big referendum on Obama's and the Democrat's agenda makes it more likely that reform will pass. What an electoral disaster for them. Meanwhile, New Jersey and Virginia will get bogged down in the usual Republican local issues of property taxes and plastering the Ten Commandments on every blank square inch on public buildings -- I guess this dooms Obama somehow, but for the life of me I can't figure out how.
1 comments:
It's ridiculous the way the media/Republicans are trying to spin yesterday's results. Just flat out ridiculous! I find it amazing that we're supposed to think that the Governors races in VA & NJ say anything about Obama when VA & NJ went Democrat in 2001 when Bush was at the peak of his popularity (and then of course Republicans did very well in 2002.) It's obvious that these Governors races have nothing to do with the President or national politics in general, yet they are focusing on that and not on NY-23 which actually was about national politics! It's just absurd.
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