Y. S. Jaganmohan Reddy Quotes

Morris had it wrong. He perceived that the Senate could not be a check on the House or the President because to him, the Senate was the house of aristocrats and America really did not have aristocrats since there was no nobility so that there would be no difference between Representatives and Senators-–they both were drawn from the same egalitarian population. He missed however that the Senate, being elected by states, would represent a broader constituency than a member of the House, and because of this broader perspective, would come to see issues in nationalist and state terms while Representatives would perceive the same issues in local terms. Hence the two houses of Congress became effective checks on each other, and the Senate on the President because not of different social or economic class, but of broader and narrower perspectives. It was not what Senators were but what they would become once they were elected and had to be reelected.

At the time most of the racists in the country, especially in the South were Democrats. The liberal Republicans were in favor of Civil Rights along with most non Southern Democrats, but the very conservative Republicans were also opposed to Civil Rights. When Lyndon Johnson, pushed through the Civil Rights Act, the Southerners were furious at their Democratic party. The Conservative Republicans, seeing an opening, courted and pandered to the anti-civil rights Democratic members of Congress, and promised minimal civil rights enforcement. Soon almost all the Southern Democrats became Republicans and the Democratic Party was weakened at the Presidential level and the new conservative Republicans shifted American politics until Bill Clinton and Barack Obama with Congressional Democratic majorities regained power. Nixon’s accurate observation about the Democrats began to be true for the Republicans while the Democratic party no longer had a civil rights struggle every time the party developed a platform or had a convention.

Carter philosophically did not see his role as the head of his party anywhere near as important as his Presidential role. At the same time, Carter had forged Congressional majority support from a coalition of conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans. However, that alienated him even more from the liberal Democrats who even fielded Ted Kennedy as a primary candidate against him. Carter won the nomination but lost many of his own party for the general election and he lost to Ronald Reagan.

At the time Congress was gridlocked in bitter hyperpartisan conflict. Most people called for more comity and bipartisanship and most politicians wanted more bipartisanship but blamed the other party for the rift. Mourdock, arguing for less bipartisanship and no compromise defeated Richard Lugar in the Republican Senatorial Primary election. Lugar, one of the most respected and effective Senators was a statesman who worked with any and all to find effective compromises to reach national solutions. The nation was so politically polarized that the Republican Indiana voters ousted one of their most senior senators because he was effective at developing national solutions. See {626717} and {302706} for other Mourdock’s outrageous comments. While this rhetoric won in the Primary, it lost him the general election in a state where Republicans had a strong majority and should have had the seat.

At the time Congress was gridlocked in bitter hyperpartisan conflict. Most people called for more comity and bipartisanship and most politicians wanted more bipartisanship but blamed the other party for the rift. Mourdock,arguing for less bipartisanship and no compromise defeated Richard Lugar in the Republican Senatorial Primary election. Lugar, one of the most respected and effective Senators was a statesman who worked with any and all to find effective compromises to reach national solutions. The nation was so politically polarized that the Republican Indiana voters ousted one of their most senior senators because he was effective at developing national solutions. See {626717} and {302706} for other Mourdock outrageous comments. While this rhetoric won in the Primary, it lost him the general election in a state where Republicans had a strong majority and should have had the seat.

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.

American Congressional politics had reached the point where whenever a member of Congress voted on a controversial issue, there would be enough lobbyists, corporation, money and single issue voters to run a candidate against the member of Congress in the primaries. So even if a politician voted with the majority of his/her constituency in a controversial issue, an irate minority with money could possible defeat the member in the primary election. Even if the member won the primary, he/she would still have to raise more money to contest it and then the member might be so wounded by a bitter negative primary that he/she would be vulnerable in the general election.

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.