I read this on AoSHQ yesterday:
The Republican Party is the weaker of the two political parties. It's not the case that we have more voters while the Democrats have the powerful opinion-shaping institutions -- no, the Democrats actually have both.
Republicans reach near parity on number of voters when you add in the ten to fifteen percent of the public which calls itself "independent" but tends to favor the Republicans when they actually vote. But you can't count on those voters, because they will (and do, in the case of Obama) often vote Democratic.
So it's not principle that distinguishes Bush and Obama regarding impeachment, but political reality.
And, as Buchanan says, impeachment is a political act.
I don't favor this impeachment talk because when Obama is on the ballot, Democrats win (their less-likely voters don't care about other politicians, but they are personally invested in Obama, his actual person), and when Obama is not on the ballot, Republicans win.
Speaking of impeachment effectively puts Obama on the ballot in November.
I don't wish him to be on the ballot.
If people want to impeach him after November, fine. But ratcheting up the talk of impeachment seems, to me, to invite an election which is higher in turnout among Obama's zealots. (It's a strange sort of zealotry that compels them to vote like their government checks depended on it every four years but then skip the midterms in between, but that's the strange situation we're in.)
This more or less sums up the way that I have to look at it.
Now, that said:
1) I know that the Republican establishment is virtually indistinguishable from the Democrats especially when it comes to a) cronyism, b) illegal immigration and c) hating conservatives and,
2) I also know that they are largely gutless and feckless and,
3) I know that giving them the Senate will mean absolutely zero even if they were mildly inclined to grow a spine (which they are clearly not).
So...
Why bother?
Because we do have a chance at winning the Senate and if we do we have slightly better odds of being able to keep the judiciary from going full on socialist/communist than if it remains in Democrat hands then I say we should try. This is especially important with regard to a SCOTUS nomination. Yes, BO will nominate total leftists to replace total leftists. But I would rather gamble on the GOP being able to hold the line against another Kagan or wise Latina with the hope that maybe we will end up with a leftist version of Anthony Kennedy who will occasionally do the right thing and vote with the constructionists.
And another thing...the Senate (and the House, too, for that matter) will not be remade in one election cycle. It will take many of them to fix the mess we are in. We are making slow and incremental progress in repairing the Senate (Cruz, Lee and sometimes Paul and Johnson come to mind). It took a very long time to get to this point and even if we are totally screwed via the deficit/debt (and we are) it is still the right thing to try and fix things no matter how pointless and futile things seem to be. And they are pretty much horrid.
Plus, the only way to make Democrats suffer is to put them out of power and keep them out of power. And these clods deserve to suffer. I hate the establishment GOP but I hate the Democrats (all of them right down to the local dog catcher...this 4th of July when our little town's parade meandered down main street and the Democrat float went by I shouted, "Hey, thanks for screwing over my healthcare you jerks!" and gave them the finger...everyone around me cheered) more...much more.
So...
I vote for keeping our powder dry and starting impeachment proceedings after the election. It seems like the better move from a strategic point of view. Your mileage may differ.
