Delusion: The Constant Companion Of The Republican Party

     President Obama's decline in popularity polls, as irrelevant as they are, seem to have given some desperate Republicans the hint of a possible restoration of hope that their 6 years of acquiescence to the president had formerly extinguished. In addition to the president's falling poll numbers, Democrats running for re-election keeping their distance from Barack Obama like a healthy person from an Ebola patient, is given by Republicans as an additional sign of hope.
     I hate to burst Republicans' bubble of delusion , but they seem to have forgotten that Mr. Obama is not running for any political office after January 20, 2017. He is politically immune. And as for Democrats who are running for re-election having an aversion to Obama cooties, a sitting president has very little sway with voters as his influence relates to House and Senate races. It is a well known electoral fact that even if voters say they are fed up with congress as a whole, they generally like their own representatives, especially if they voted for him or her.
     Voters are about as unlikely to admit they voted for the wrong person as Al Gore is to admit to the fraud that is man-made climate change. Not that incumbents do not lose re-election sometimes, but the majority do not. This is the advantage of being an incumbent. And if Republicans seem intent on believing that President Obama's waning divinity is going to spell electoral victory for them in November's mid-terms, they may be surprised when they awake with a terrible election hangover on November 5.
     But back to the party of the obtuse, Republicans. A glaring example of the establishment Republicans imperceptive stature was illustrated by comments I recently heard John Cornyn, Republican Senator from Texas, make with regards to his party taking control of the Senate. He actually said that the advantage to having both the Senate and the House in Republican hands would be that they could at least get something passed because President Obama can not veto every bill that comes to his desk. What would be more dull and witless than his statement is if he actually believes it.
     First, there is no limit on presidential vetoes, and secondly Senator Cornyn's statement shows a complete lack of Republican understanding of Barack Obama. It is hard for me to grasp the idea that after almost six years in office and a solid year and half before that running for the presidency in 2008, that there are still some Republicans that do not understand the radical nature of Barack Obama. To actually believe that he would not veto every bill a Republican Senate sent him, and continue to enact his transformative change with executive orders and through the already established bureaucracies of the federal government, is not only foolish, but shows a dulling of the senses unlike any other.
     President Obama is in the proverbial cat bird seat for the next 2 years and four months. He does not even have to pay lip service to those things which a politician running for election pretends to care about. He has unlimited power available to him through the Affordable Care Act and other lesser legislation that has been passed under his administration. And with the new authorities the recent legislation has given him, combined with the authority of executive actions, Republicans are whistling passed a political graveyard if they think gaining the Senate will make much of a difference. But then delusion seems lately to be the constant companion of the Republican Party that has been reduced to irrelevancy in just under six years.