Rajjpuut’s Predictions 2010
G.O.P. Dem Ind.
Governors 34 15 1
Senate 52 46 2
House of Reps 268 167 0
But Flynn let drive a single to the wonderment of all
And the much-despised Blakely tore the cover off the ball
And now the dust has lifted and they saw what had occurred
There was Blake SAFE! at second; and Flynn a-hugging third!
And from the gladdened MULTITUDE went up a joyous yell
It rumbled in the mountain tops, it rattled in the dell
It struck upon the hillside and rebounded on the flat
For Casey, MIGHTY CASEY, was advancing to the bat . . . .
Politics: The Art of the Possible
Rajjpuut memorized Ernest Lawrence Thayer’s marvelous poem Casey at the Bat, when he was eleven years old . . . there is something magical there (a proviso to the G.O.P. and presumably John Boehner as well) because, after all “MIGHTY CASEY” did strike out . . . If John Boehner “works with” President Obama he will succeed in repeating the debacle that Newt Gingrich encountered beginning in 1994. What happened there/then? The Republicans won 55 new house seats and also swept into controlling the senate . . . the G.O.P. owned both chambers of the Congress for the first time in several decades. The wily Bill Clinton facing-off against an optimistic Newt Gingrich who pledged to commanding the Republican horde into achieving their "Contract with America" . . . and Clinton . . . made Gingrich very, very sorry . . . and America much, much, much sorrier . . . .
History shows us that it was only after the 1994 midterm elections that Clinton was able to pass his two 1995 expansions of the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act (CRA ’77 which forced home lenders to make knowingly stupid home loans); and then the steroid expansion of that bill in 1998 which led to the financial debacle that began in August, 2007. To put things in perspective, in 1975, before CRA ’77 was passed just one in 404 home loans was granted at a questionable 3% down payment or less. After almost a decade of ACORN’s shenanigans mostly in Arkansas (it began as the Arkansas Community Organization for Reform Now in 1977 with the assignment from Cloward, Piven, and Wiley to ACORN creator Wade Rathke to shake things up in voter registration and housing) the national “questionable home loan rate” had doubled from 0.24% to 0.51 of home loans offered at 3% down or less. Clinton, himself beginning in 1993 had started “creating” law via regulatory edict upon CRA ’77 and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And then twice in 1995 with the Republicans guarding the switch Clinton expanded CRA ’77. When the dust had lifted in 1995, 14.1% of home loans were being offered at a highly questionable 3% down payment or less, many required zero down payment. (By 2005 34% of home loans were questionable and now ACORN was pushing for $400,000 homes not $150,000) How did this disaster happen?
How did Clinton like a Tae Kwan Do black belt use the power of the powerful House Republicans against them? It happened, just as the strike out of MIGHTY CASEY did, because “pride goeth before the fall.” Because when “politics is the art of the possible,” all is well; and when politics becomes "the art of the compromise for appearance-sake," all is surely wrong.
The Republicans, you see were committed by Gingrich to passing legislation in the House in accord with their Contract with America. Since they had the majority, they could and did and included among their achievements was incredible Welfare Reform, all well and good. However, Gingrich went beyond the possible into the dirty world of compromise with the Devil (Clinton) and got smacked around like a schoolboy. It happened more or less because Gingrich’s pride could NOT accept passing a bill or several versions of a bill only to see Clinton veto it repeatedly after the senate sent it to him. His pride demanded that he ENACT legislation . . . something NOT in his power. Enter the fuzzy world of COMPROMISE . . . .
Gingrich’s pride would NOT allow him to pass a bill and call it a success, he must see it enacted . . . and there Clinton had him because Clinton was NOT facing a veto-proof congress. So the Republicans would set out and eventually pass a great piece of legislation, Constitutional and smart and Clinton would veto it. They would adjust a few things tinker with it here and there and get a few more Democratic votes and pass it again and again Clinton would veto it. Presumably if Gingrich had been content to keep passing good bills and been content with the few crumbs of success Clinton allowed to become law, much good would have done; the Contract with America would have been achieved (passing all the bills; not unfortunately enacting all of them); and Clinton’s approval rating would have dropped into the teens . . . instead because of his pride and compromising with Clinton . . . the Dems got credit for passing “monumental reform” legislation; and the Dems repeatedly snuck in little pieces of poison (like three CRA ’77 expansions) and so Clinton was resurrected and re-elected. “But, but, but HOW?” You ask.
After several vetoes of several versions of a particular bill, finally, the minority Democrats in the House would create virtually a twin of the most popular version of the same bill Clinton had just vetoed (with some teensy-teeny nasty progressive surprises such as the CRA ’77 expansions earlier mentioned in them dropped into the small print) . . . rather than standing upon principle and defeating the bill in the house, Gingrich and the Republicans went along with Clinton’s charade, time after time after time after time and helped Clinton go from 36% approval to about 65% approval by 1998 before Monica Lewinsky did him in. Yes, the G.O.P. did fulfill their Contract with America, but because of the wily Clinton the nation was much the worse for it . . . . And that is the lesson John Boehner must take from history as goes about meeting the Pledge to America. NO compromise with the Devil, please, Mr. Speaker!
To Mr. Boehner, instead of saying “I wish you bluebirds in the spring,” Rajjpuut says, “I wish you gridlock for two years . . . a spine of steel to dull your tears . . . and most of all, when critics call, I wish you luck!”
http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/pledgetoamerica.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_from_America
Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut
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