Trump meeting with Sen GOP goes about as well as you'd expect

[Fuzzy Bear]

The guys who were the biggest jerks were the guys who chose to use the process to "stand up to Trump".  Jeff Flake wins that prize. 

Why would a Republican Senator call Trump out publicly?  The only reason for that would be if you (A) needed to do so to be re-elected AND (B) never want to run for President as the candidate of your present party.  It's a bad move for the future, and there is a long track record of folks who have learned this the hard way.

The 1964 #NeverGoldwater crowd all faded away behind Richard Nixon, who actively campaigned for Goldwater in 1964.  Had Nelson Rockefeller endorsed Goldwater and lamely campaigned for him, he, and not Nixon, would have been the 1968 GOP nominee, but his failure to back Goldwater (he was neutral in 1964) cost him big.  The same can be said of George Romney and William Scranton.  John Connally's role as the head of Democrats for Nixon cost him any shot he had at the Presidency, whereas Jimmy Carter, who said he would vote for McGovern, but not campaign for him, was considered loyal enough to be the Democratic nominee in 1976.  Joe Lieberman killed his Presidential chances not by running as an Independent, but by endorsing McCain.  Had he not done so, Lieberman, and not Biden, may well have been the Democratic nominee for VP in 2008. 

To be President, you've got to support your Presidential nominee.  Period.  I cannot think of a single Governor or Senator whose career took off AFTER they dissed their party's Presidential nominee.  The exception would be someone like Jeanne Kirkpatrick, a Reagan Democrat, but she switched parties and it was credible.  Besides, Kirkpatrick wasn't an elected official.  To not support your party's nominee for President is to permanently pigeonhole yourself into where you're at, while giving your intraparty enemies a stick to beat you over the head with.  That's what Flake, and a few others, did at this meeting today.

[Fuzzy Bear]

To be President, you've got to support your Presidential nominee.  Period.  I cannot think of a single Governor or Senator whose career took off AFTER they dissed their party's Presidential nominee.

Plenty of members of Congress have no intention of ever running for president, and are only interested in holding onto their current jobs for as long as possible.  So I'm not sure why this calculation should be an issue for them.

I'll agree with that to an extent.  Not supporting your party's nominee is, however, something that will hinder a Congressman should he desire to become a committee chairman, or even a subcommittee chairman.  It would certainly preclude a chairman getting a seat on a major committed like Rules, Ways and Means, or Armed Services, where even subcommittee MEMBERS have more power than a big shot on, say, the House Administration committee.

This didn't matter prior to 1974, when both parties went by strict seniority.  Then, in the aftermath of the 1974 elections, the Democratic Caucus, led by Rep. Phil Burton (D-CA), voted three (3) senior committee chairmen out of their chairmanships.  Those three were Rep. Wright Patman (D-TX) chair of the Banking committee, Rep. W. R. Poage (D-TX), chair of the Agriculture committee, and Rep. F. Edward Hebert (D-LA), chair of the Armed Services committee.  Hebert did not support McGovern.  Poage did, but he was pretty silent about it, and had a super-conservative record, as did Hebert.  Patman was an old-time populist, but his record was conservative and hawkish, and there were rumors of senility.  It wasn't all about McGovern, but it was all about being a "national Democrat", and the GOP followed suit to where now, party regularity is requires.  Arlen Specters and Chris Shayses aren't just going to get chairmanships by keeping office and keeping breathing.

Now there's a difference here.  Trump is the presumptive nominee, but he's out of tune with the GOP caucus on a number of issues.  That's different than McGovern, who was more liberal than folks wanted, but he was the liberal nominee of the more liberal party.  Trump isn't quite a liberal, but he isn't a conservative as Republicans have defined the term.  Still, there's a risk in not supporting your party's nominee, even if it's Trump.  

[Fuzzy Bear]

Just a simple question: If the Trumpster can’t get along with congress right now, how would he get along as prez? And I’m talking about a GOP congress. Forget about Obama’s relation to the Republicans. At least he has the backing of fellow Dems, the Trumpster would be opposed by wide parts of the GOP and the Dems. Well, at least we could end up with more bipartisanship. Well well...

I would venture to suggest that Trump may cobble together coalitions on every issue.  I can see him cobbling together a coalition of Democrats and Republicans to "fix" Obamacare, even if it pretends to "repeal and replace" it.  The key would be to wrap it up in a label where Republicans could bask in the glory of being "problem solvers".  I believe that as time goes by, folks view Obamacare as the status quo, and even Republicans have benefitted from (and secretly approved of) some of the aspects of Obamacare that benefit them (e. g. letting your kids stay on your policy until age 26).

On foreign policy and trade, I can see Trump prevailing with coalitions of liberal Democrats and non-interventionist Republicans.  The same would be true of corporate bailouts.  (These, by the way, are issues on which Mike Pence sides with Trump.)  If Trump is elected, he would have a mandate to do these things, and members of both parties, often with different reasons, are willing to go along with each other on these issues.

Politics is not always logical.  This election is being fought on issues where the left (Sanders) and the right (Trump) converge.  If Trump is elected, I would predict an end to the kind of gridlock we have had, and a return to pragmatic coalition-building, either because of Trump, or in spite of him.  We'll see.  I do believe that the cycle of rigid partisanship we have had is coming to a close.  We won't have folks calling each other RINOs and DINOs much in the next 10 years.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Joe Lieberman killed his Presidential chances not by running as an Independent, but by endorsing McCain.  Had he not done so, Lieberman, and not Biden, may well have been the Democratic nominee for VP in 2008. 

This is nonsense. Lieberman was a borderline pariah in the Democratic Party after 2006 and was reluctantly tolerated because he had the balance of the majority in his grasp. He was never going to be on the ticket in 2008, especially for Obama, who was running as a dove (even if he ended up considerably more hawkish after taking office).

Lieberman was the new Henry Jackson; a liberal on everything but military policy.  He was a pro-labor Democrat and a social liberal on the issues that matter.  His problem was that he began to identify as an "Independent Democrat" after 2006; if he had just said "I'm a Democrat." and done what he needed to do without breaking ranks on Obama, he'd have won.

Lieberman is different in that had McCain picked him for his VP, McCain MIGHT have pulled it off.  But the GOP wouldn't have him, and McCain know it.   Over time, Lieberman may well have reconciled with the Democrats to the point where he could have been a leading contender for President.  He would have been the first Jewish nominee for President, and that would have been a big deal.  Had he played it differently after his 2006 re-election, Lieberman could have mended fences to where he had a career again.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Just a simple question: If the Trumpster can’t get along with congress right now, how would he get along as prez? And I’m talking about a GOP congress. Forget about Obama’s relation to the Republicans. At least he has the backing of fellow Dems, the Trumpster would be opposed by wide parts of the GOP and the Dems. Well, at least we could end up with more bipartisanship. Well well...

This is why I have been saying for months that it would be better for Trump to lose and the GOP learn its lessons and move on, than for Trump to win and tear the party apart as President.

They'll learn their lesson by nominating Cruz in 2020. Then we'll be talking about the lessons they learned to try and win back the White House in 2024...

That logic worked for the Democrats in 1972.  They learned their lesson and let Carter happen in 1976.  Then, they forgot that lesson and thought they could actually elect a more liberal Democrat, even if he dumped the incumbent to get the nomination.  It took them 12 years to recover from 1980.