Skip to main content

If you were a Democratic strategist, would you rather win the House or Senate? I understand the differences between the two in terms of...

There is no one answer to this question that is clearly correct.  I can think of at least three answers that are equally valid.


First, you can argue that it does not matter which house of Congress the Democrats win if they are only going to win one house.  (And we don’t know who is going to be the president.)  If the Democrats only control one house and the presidency, they will not be able to push their agenda through Congress without Republican help anyway.   Therefore, it will not matter which house they control.  If the Democrats lose the presidency, they only need to control one house in order to obstruct whatever Trump tries to do while in office.  Either way, it does not matter which house they control.


Second, you can argue that it is better for them to control the House than the Senate.  The main reason for this is that a minority party in the Senate can obstruct anything it wants to under the current rules of the chamber.  As long as the Democrats stay united and have more than 40 senators, they can filibuster anything that the Republicans try to do.  In other words, they do not need to control the Senate in order to block the Republicans there.  In that case, they might as well control the House where the majority party has so much more power than it does in the Senate.


Finally, you can argue that the Democrats should prefer to control the Senate.  This is contingent on them being willing and able to change the rules governing the filibuster.  Some observers speculate that whichever party wins the Senate this election will try to do away with the filibuster because it has become such a powerful obstructive tool that nothing can get done in the Senate any longer.  If this happens, the Democrats would clearly want to control the Senate.  If they controlled the Senate and the filibuster no longer existed they could confirm any nominees put forward by a Clinton administration.  If they did not control the Senate and there was no filibuster, they would be unable to block any nominees that Trump named.  In this no-filibuster scenario, control of the Senate would be vitally important and Democrats would much prefer to control that chamber rather than the House.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

etymology - Origin of the greeting "Sweet dreams".

Does anybody know the etymology of the phrase "sweet dreams"? I tried googling but did not find anything satisfying. Is this a relatively new phrase of the modern world or has this been in use for some time? I think it's the latter one. Answer The OED has the interjection as "a farewell to someone going to bed" from the 20th century: 1908 Sears Roebuck Catal. 198/1 Tenor Solos..Good Bye, Sweet Dreams, Good Bye. But it goes back until at least the 19th and possibly 18th centuries. John Wolcot, writing under the pseudonym of Peter Pindar, used it in his poem "Orson and Ellen; A Legendary Tale" published in 1801: Also from 1801 in The infernal Quixote (Page 287) by Charles Lucas: In the March 1776 of The Universal Magazine was published "The Serenade. A Pastoral Tale. From the German of Gesner" , where the shepherd Daphnis watches over his beloved as she sleeps and sings: The same tale appears in 1776's as Idyl XI, " Daphnis ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

What are the similarities between the relationships of the characters in The Outsiders and Romeo and Juliet?

At first glance, it might appear as if the characters in  The Outsiders  by S. E. Hinton and  Romeo and Juliet  by William Shakespeare do not have much in common; however, when one isolates the core of the conflicts, it becomes clear that the relationships in both stories are rooted in rivalry and secrecy.  In both  The Outsiders  and  Romeo and Juliet , an overarching theme is rivalry. While   socioeconomic status separates the greasers from the Socs in The Outsiders , last names separates the Montagues from the Capulets, who appear to be relatively equal in terms of socioeconomic status. Due to these rivalries, there are instances of deadly interactions in both stories. In  The Outsiders , Johnny kills Bob (whether his actions were justified or not is debatable). In  Romeo and Juliet , Romeo kills Tybalt and Paris, and Tybalt kills Mercutio. These deaths have profound effects on the main characters. In Ponyboy's case, the Johnny's death and other events in the novel inspire h...
Post a Comment
Read more