Welcome to a new majority, presumptive Speaker Boehner. And have fun with this.
In a draft of a confidential memo to be distributed to all incoming House Republican lawmakers, Dick Armey, a former Republican majority leader who is chairman of the conservative group FreedomWorks, and Matt Kibbe, its president, told lawmakers that a repeal of the Democrats’ health care law was “nonnegotiable” and warned that they would face a severe backlash from voters if they did not succeed in reversing the law.
“Politically speaking, your only choice is to get on offense and start moving boldly ahead to repeal, replace and defund Obamacare in 2011, or risk rejection by the voters in 2012,” Mr. Armey and Mr. Kibbe wrote.
That's just not going to happen. Even presuming that that they could override a presidential veto (and they don't have the numbers for that), sustaining a two-year battle on one issue is a losing electoral proposition, and while the Bachmann-like lizard brains might not be able to fully comprehend that, "leadership" has to, since they're in charge of looking ahead to the next election. Caucus leaders might also be smart enough to realize that there's an inherent contradiction in their top priority of reducing the deficit and spending and repeal, that is, if they really do care about the deficit.
Boehner's not only got to fight off the onslaught of Michele Bachmann clones, hyped up on Dick Armey-style dumb bravado, but also Mitch McConnell, who has the luxury of throwing bombs around without having the majority to have to back them up. Boehner is definitely not signing onto the "one term for Obama" bandwagon. This GOP civil war is going to be a doozie.