{"id":17008,"date":"2011-01-04T06:00:15","date_gmt":"2011-01-04T12:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=17008"},"modified":"2011-01-04T06:01:43","modified_gmt":"2011-01-04T12:01:43","slug":"swell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=17008","title":{"rendered":"The Preseason is Over"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8230;and there are more Republicans in the stands than Democrats.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.upi.com\/Top_News\/US\/2011\/01\/03\/Poll-More-calling-themselves-Republicans\/UPI-14151294074806\/\">the largest number of Republicans in the nation since December 2004 and the lowest number of Democrats since November 2002.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&#8230;but will it last?<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>In each of the recent election cycles, the winning party gained in net  partisan identification during the course of the election year,  Rasmussen Reports said, noting that gains can be short-lived. After the  2004 election, the Republican partisan decline began in February 2005,  the pollster said, while the Democratic edge in 2006 began to slip as  soon as the party took control of Congress in January.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The Democrats took power in 2008 and squandered their short-lived majority for the sake of deforming health care while more pressing liberal issues and campaign promises were shelved. Their anti-Bush-fueled sweep of Congress and the White House delivered them without a policy mandate.<\/p>\n<p>They brought a baseball bat to a football game. They ignored reality, went with ideology, and America handed them their asses.<\/p>\n<p>The GOP should not be thusly confused. Their mandate is <em>clear<\/em> and may have even less time to prove they are worthy.<\/p>\n<div>\n<blockquote>\n<div><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ft.com\/cms\/s\/0\/25737876-176b-11e0-badd-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1A1jonzgD\">As  the memory of November\u2019s sweeping congressional victory<\/a> by Republicans  begins to dim and lawmakers face the task of governing, the biggest  question now is how far the new majority party in the House of  Representatives will go to fulfil its mandate.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<p>&#8230;they <em>are<\/em> looking to score early, albeit symbolically for now, and act on that mandate and <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.wsj.com\/washwire\/2011\/01\/03\/jan-12-is-the-date-for-health-law-repeal-vote\/\">set a vote to repeal Obamacare<\/a>&#8230;yet this month, and are also drawing a line in the sand as it relates to the federal debt ceiling. This might be messy folks, the Democrats will predict Armageddon if we don&#8217;t raise the limit on their credit card, but if not now, when?<a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.wsj.com\/washwire\/2011\/01\/03\/jan-12-is-the-date-for-health-law-repeal-vote\/\"><br \/>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, while those Americans that have work return to it today, the President suns himself.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.wsj.com\/washwire\/2011\/01\/03\/obamas-hit-the-beach-on-final-vacation-day\/\">If the final day of a vacation<\/a> defines how it will be remembered, the  Obamas will be packing memories of teal-colored water, soft breezes and  plenty of sunshine \u2014 at least until clouds rolled in and the wind picked  up in mid-afternoon. But that lead to a quick stop  at Island Snow  Shave Ice \u2014 an island (and Obama) favorite.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Maybe he can squeeze in a round of golf when he gets back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8230;and there are more Republicans in the stands than Democrats. the largest number of Republicans in the nation since December 2004 and the lowest number of Democrats since November 2002. &#8230;but will it last? In each of the recent election cycles, the winning party gained in net partisan identification during the course of the election [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":228,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign-12"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/228"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17008"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17008\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17025,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17008\/revisions\/17025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}