Sushma Swaraj Quotes

Dana Ruth Schwartz. The Republicans who had control of the House of Representatives were reaching the end of the fiscal year and had not yet passed a budget so the government would have to shut down in a few days. They had a very strong position if they wanted to blackmail the Democratically controlled Senate and the Democratic President. The majority of the Republicans decided that they wanted to use the Blackmail tactic, so they passed a budget that they knew the Senate and the President would reject and then the Republicans could hold out for their ransom demands. However, when the Republicans met to decide on what they should demand they neither could agree in what or the timing of their tactics. They had launched a major attack without having a clear objective, an exit strategy or even an alternate if they did not succeed.

Most American politicians and citizens, unlike DeLay, believe that arguing against the opponents’ political philosophy should be done with debate, civil argument, advocacy, speechmaking and writing and not by attacking opponents and confronting them whenever possible. Later, DeLay was convicted and sentenced to jail for money laundering and illegally spending and raising campaign funds. He was also reprimanded by the House Ethics Committee for unethical methods of fund raising for other earlier actions.

Often a candidate will win even though there is a prevailing view that he/she is not well qualified and not worthy of the job. However he/she is not as bad as the other candidate. To win, all a candidate needs is to not be perceived as badly as his/her competitor.

At the time, some House Republicans had taken an untenable and unpopular position and forced the government to shut down by not passing laws authorizing the expenditures. He had been asked his advice for President Obama who seemed to be winning this particular political squabble.

The historian was comparing Obama to other historical presidents who either had a majority of both Houses of Congress or had an opposition party that was generally quite cooperative and willing to compromise for the sake of running the country smoothly. At this point in time there was a Tea Party wing of the Republican that was particularly negative and obstructionist. They tended to threaten and intimidate the main stream Republicans who used the filibuster to block legislation the majority of Senators had voted for more times than all the other Congresses in American history. And that was only in Obamas first 6 years.