[suilusargaino]

Newt Gingrich had some interesting perspective on NPR this week on what this means in terms of actual legislative action in the House. He sees a couple of dynamics at play:

First, there will be a very large number of GOP freshmen in the House - people that have no experience in the process of governing nationally. This will be an idealistic, fiercely partisan group who may think they are there to fight the establishment, period. That means they'll assume they have a mandate from their constituents to go to war with incumbents on both sides of the aisle and simply not play by any existing rules. They will certainly not be open to engaging the Obama White House on any substantive negotiations over legislative agenda.

If that logic carries the day, the GOP will be a broken machine for the next two years, served up on a platter for big election losses in 2012.

Second, he assumes that the GOP leadership in the House (and maybe the Senate if momentum carries that far) will take to heart the lessons learned from the government shutdown standoff between Clinton and Congress in the 90's. Clinton won that standoff by appearing more reasonable and allowing GOP leadership-Gingrich in particular--to come off as extreme and petty. Likewise, GOP leadership post-election will only gather long-term strength and momentum among moderates by meeting the Obama adminstration half way on key issues. But in the hyper-partisan tone of the day, see point #1. The GOP freshmen will not likely go along with compromise. They'll be playing the short game.

Thus is the conundrum of the GOP in 2011. Do they go in strident and in attack mode or do they set aside the rhetoric, go in conciliatory and negotiate? The calculations of acceptable collateral damage are likely filling whiteboards in conference rooms all around DC already.


Nate Silver: G.O.P. Favored to Win 50-Plus House Seats in latest poll model
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes...s-house-seats/ Republican chances of taking over the House are now up to 80 percent, according to the FiveThirtyEight forecast model; they had been 75 percent two days ago.


In an average simulation, the model projected that the Republicans will control 230 seats when the new Congress convenes in January; that would reflect a 51-seat gain from their current standing and would be close to the 54-seat gain that they achieved in 1994. This is the first time we have published a forecast putting the Republican over-under line at a number higher than 50 seats.


As we remind our readers with each update, there is considerable uncertainty in the forecast. Democrats have a 20 percent chance of holding the House — but Republicans have a 30 percent chance of winning at least 60 seats, a 12 percent chance of winning at least 70 seats, and a 3 percent chance of winning 80 or more seats. We would advise against interpreting our forecast as a prediction that Republicans will win some particular number of seats. Instead, it should be thought of as being equivalent to a point spread.


The individual districts to show the largest improvement in the chances for Republican control are as follows: the Oregon 5th (to 66 percent from 38 percent), the Mississippi 4th (to 65 percent from 48 percent), the Texas 23rd (to 55 percent from 40 percent), the New York 22nd (to 12 percent from 4 percent), the Colorado 3rd (to 61 percent from 53 percent), and the New York 20th (to 42 percent from 34 percent).

[Manteiv]

Say what you will about Newt Gingrich, stupid he isn't. Looks like he hasn't forgotten the past, either. However, I'm willing to bet that some, if not most, of those idealistic new members will be corralled by the carrot or the stick and that Mr. Gingrich will be weilding both.

[WoCTrt0X]

I think that 50 seats may be conservative (no pun intended), Chairman Tafoya. Some "experts" are predictiing around 100 seats.

I'll be conservative (no pun intended, again) and say 45 seats.

[Kghikeds]

And do you agree with Gingrich's assessment that the GOP freshmen will assume that they were voted in to be unyielding hardliners and oppose anything that has bipartisan support and thus likely be unable to do anything productive?