October 13, 2016
TRADE, THE WoT AND INFRASTRUCTURE:
How Hillary Clinton Could End Washington's Gridlock (Josh Kraushaar, 10/11/16, National Journal)
Given her pragmatic instincts and productive working relationships with many top Senate Republicans, Clinton would have a rare opportunity to govern from the center following a general-election campaign in which she's been reaching out to moderate Republicans. Unlike President Obama, who inherited a Senate supermajority in 2009 and faced a once-in-a-lifetime window to pass through a wave of liberal legislation, Clinton would need to build up her political capital and work with an opposition party that would be trying to pick up the pieces in the aftermath of Donald Trump.Just consider: For the first time since 2008, an insurgent wave of primaries against moderate members of Congress never transpired. Clinton has warm relationships with many Senate Republicans, and has pledged to improve relationships with Congress on the campaign trail. To maintain power, Clinton would need to cater to the interests of her party's most conservative members in Congress. Republicans and Democrats even demonstrated a rare bit of bipartisanship to pass a short-term spending bill covering funding for the Zika virus and the Flint water crisis, averting a government shutdown.
Just as the entire point of the Obama Presidency was winning the office in and of itself, Hillary doesn't really have much of an agenda. What she does have the GOP is perfectly amenable to : finishing the lingering free trade agreements, passing some kind of infrastructure bill and moving on to the anti-Sa'ud phase of the WoT. Heck, they may even have confirmed the UR's Supreme Court pick before she gets there out of fear she'd choose him instead.
Posted by Orrin Judd at October 13, 2016 5:29 PM
