A wave election for Bernie?
Ok I have been thinking about what a 2016 wave election for Bernie would mean in terms of the congress. Currently there are 247 republicans in the House to 193 Democrats. This would mean that we would have to pick up a net gain of 28 seats to regain the House. In 2010 the Republicans picked up a net gain of 63 seats.
On the Senate side. There are 34 seats up in 2016, of which 24 are held by Republicans. Democrats will need to gain 4 or 5 seats to take control. The Senate would go our way without a doubt and we would have some chance of retaking the House.
What would be the ramifications of this? There is no doubt that the republicans would try to block every last thing that Bernie tried to do, just as they have been successful at doing with Obama. The difference with Bernie is that he would not try to compromise with them but would take the battle right to them. Imagine if you were a republican congressman and in a district that could be a swing district and Bernie called you up and said, guess what? We are going to target your district and I am going to ask my millions of followers to help your opponent in the next election.
Or at the midterm election if he railed against the do nothing republican congress? The last Democratic President who did that was Harry Truman in 1948.
The Democratic Party regained control of both the House and Senate in this election.[2][3][4] For Democrats, this was their largest gain since 1932. This was the last election to date where a member of a political party other than the Democrats or Republicans had one or more seats in the chamber.
I also think of Lyndon Johnson, who if he hadn't allowed us to become enmeshed in the Vietnam mess, would now be considered one of our greatest Presidents. His war on poverty literally was a revolution that lifted millions of people out of economic slavery. Against all odds he got the Civil Rights act through congress.
You’ve got Lyndon Johnson all wrong: The real story of how a conservative Congress passed the...
Yes, LBJ was savvy and imposing. But he did not arm-twist his way to success — and neither could Barack Obama
SALON.COM|BY JULIAN ZELIZER
http://www.salon.com/2015/01/24/youve_got_lyndon_johnson_all_wrong_the_real_story_of_how_a_conservative_congress_passed_the_great_society/
