Reply #113: The Republicans are clearly not finished.

[BurtWorm]

The Bush base has remained firmly in place. They make up about 20% of the electorate. They will not budge. Roger Ailes will not allow them to budge and they hear Roger and they obey. The Bush base has only one principle: politically kill Democrats. We will always have them, just as we will always have the poor.

The enthusiasm of the last election, you may recall, didn't arise until after the primaries. Before the primaries, I admit, there was a restlessness on the Democratic side that drove millions of new voters to the polls. Some of those were Republicans who were not part of the unmovable 20% and, thus, not part of the base. But it wasn't until Obama was assured the nomination that it became clear he was going to get the full support of a united Democratic Party.

Before then, there was all sorts of talk from pundits and Democrats that the coalition was broken, that the primaries were so bitter, the Clinton people would sit on their hands in November. We know now that that did not happen. We don't really know how passage of this bill is going to affect either party's chances this November. We're all speculating.

But one thing seems clear to me: it's very difficult for people outside a district to predict how the voters in that district will vote, let alone how voters in all districts will vote. In order for your prophecy to come true however, this vote will make enough Democrats in enough districts decide not to vote for the Democrat in the race. How likely is that really? Are you not going to vote for your Democrat? No matter who your Democrat is or how your Democrat voted? (My Democrat is Charlie Rangel. He's going to win his primary if he has a challenger, and I'm going to vote for him in the general. Just to disclose my intentions. He's also without a doubt going to vote for this bill.)