Republicans Act With Air, if Not a Vote, of Confidence
By JONATHAN WEISMAN, NYT
WASHINGTON — A year ago this month, Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin stood on the floor of the House and declared that the ideals of small government, privatized health care and rigorous spending discipline captured in the budget plan about to pass the House would and should be central to the 2012 election campaign.
“It is so rare in American politics to arrive at a moment in which the debate revolves around the fundamental nature of American democracy and the social contract, but that is exactly where we are today,” Mr. Ryan said. Months later, his selection as the Republicans’ vice-presidential nominee would place the House budget, which he had devised, at the center of the policy debate in the presidential race.
Then he and Mitt Romney lost — Mr. Ryan’s home state, every swing state but North Carolina, and 332 electoral votes. Democrats locked down control of the Senate, which they had once been expected to lose, and chipped away at the Republicans’ House majority, sending the Republican Party into a round of soul-searching that persists today — everywhere, it seems, but on Capitol Hill.
“He got a mandate to be president. We got a mandate to have a majority in the House,” Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio said in an interview Thursday, dismissing any suggestion that election results should dictate Republican accession to President Obama’s wishes.
(More here.)
WASHINGTON — A year ago this month, Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin stood on the floor of the House and declared that the ideals of small government, privatized health care and rigorous spending discipline captured in the budget plan about to pass the House would and should be central to the 2012 election campaign.
“It is so rare in American politics to arrive at a moment in which the debate revolves around the fundamental nature of American democracy and the social contract, but that is exactly where we are today,” Mr. Ryan said. Months later, his selection as the Republicans’ vice-presidential nominee would place the House budget, which he had devised, at the center of the policy debate in the presidential race.
Then he and Mitt Romney lost — Mr. Ryan’s home state, every swing state but North Carolina, and 332 electoral votes. Democrats locked down control of the Senate, which they had once been expected to lose, and chipped away at the Republicans’ House majority, sending the Republican Party into a round of soul-searching that persists today — everywhere, it seems, but on Capitol Hill.
“He got a mandate to be president. We got a mandate to have a majority in the House,” Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio said in an interview Thursday, dismissing any suggestion that election results should dictate Republican accession to President Obama’s wishes.
(More here.)
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