Simple Math: 48 House Dems Represented Districts that voted for John McCain

[Clio the Leo]

There is always the question of leadership.

Do the math .... in the 111th Congress, 48 Democratic House members represented districts who voted for John McCain in 2008.

You all remember, it took 217 votes to pass anything in the House. There were (at most) 257 Dems in the majority. Subtract from that number the "McCain 48" and that leaves 209 meaning on any given piece of legislation, the President had to convince Reps from 8 McCain districts to vote FOR HIS legislation.

So, you see, the PROBLEM, is NOT that Barack Obama was unable to convince members of his own party to vote for a progressive agenda in Congress. The problem was that he was unable, at the HEIGHT of his popularity, to convince voters in 48 congressional districts to vote FOR HIM.

It is, of course, your prerogative if you want to BLAME him for that.

[Dr Fate]

1. What part of "We did not/do not/will not have the votes" does the left not understand?

When we had both houses- we told the base "We dont have the votes."

They refused to believe us.

Well guess what, thanks to that far left attitude, that excuse is now FOR REAL.

I hope they are happy.

The problem is that the base always waits until we are done counting votes, then they shout "Fight for the votes." They do not understand pragmatism- we COUNT the votes, then fight for whatever it is that we counted, not the other way around.

[dsc]

2. there were some from those districts that did vote for the major bills though

both Perello and greyson came from such districts.

[saracat]

3. Harry Mitchell voted for HCR and he went down in flames for it.

He supported major legislation and was the only congressperson to tefuse his pay raise.He aldso sponsored the legilation for a congressional pay cut. The DCCC paid him back with a lack of support.He defaeted JD Hayworth and lost to a crappy HCR!

[quakerboy]

4. My understanding is that

We didn't really have a huge problem getting things passed in the house. It was the senate that caused the real problems


Of course, the same could be applied to the senate. There were 56 senators representing states that Obama won, which wasn't enough to hit the magic 60.


Or you could blame it on the senate rules.


Or something else. Each of us has our own take on it, I suppose.

[craigmatic]

5. The problem was the senate not the house. Everything passed the house.