How will we govern ourselves after the election is over?
[B]BETTER BELIEVE, MY VOTE GOES TO OBAMA!!! APPLE PIE AND FLAGS FLYING FOR MAMA
Will the election settle anything?[/B]
[B]E.J. Dionne[/B]
[B]Published 9:23 p.m., Sunday, September 23, 2012[/B]
The most important issue in the 2012 campaign barely gets discussed: How will we govern ourselves after the election is over?
Elections are supposed to decide things.
President [URL="http://www.sfgate.com/barack-obama/"]Obama's[/URL] time in office, however, has given rise to a new approach. Republicans decided to do all they could to make the president unsuccessful. Their not-so-subliminal message has been: We will make the country ungovernable unless you hand us every bit of legislative, executive and judicial power so we can do what we want.
Judging by the current polls, this approach hasn't worked. [URL="http://www.sfgate.com/?controllerName=search&action=search&channel=opinion&search=1&inlineLink=1&query=%22Mitt+Romney%22"]Mitt Romney[/URL] is suffering not only from his own mistakes but also because a fundamentally moderate country has come to realize that today's GOP is far more extreme than Republicans were in the past.
Yet can one election turn the country around and make Washington work again?
Let's start by saying that if the election takes an abrupt turn and Romney wins, he would probably get a [URL="http://www.sfgate.com/?controllerName=search&action=search&channel=opinion&search=1&inlineLink=1&query=%22Republican+House%22"]Republican House[/URL] and Senate.
But what if the conventional wisdom is right in foreseeing an Obama win coupled with continued, narrow Democratic control of the Senate and a House Republican majority depleted but still in charge? Will Republicans give up on obstruction? This depends partly on a debate already going on inside the [URL="http://www.sfgate.com/?controllerName=search&action=search&channel=opinion&search=1&inlineLink=1&query=%22Republican+Party%22"]Republican Party[/URL].
The right-wing contention is simple: Romney was a lousy candidate. If this side wins, the GOP will stick with obstruction.
But Romney's 47 percent remarks finally unshackled the more moderate conservatives. Some are talking about a [URL="http://www.sfgate.com/?controllerName=search&action=search&channel=opinion&search=1&inlineLink=1&query=%22Republican+organization%22"]Republican organization[/URL] to pull the party closer to the center.
If Obama wants to do more than survive, he has to fight a bigger and broader campaign that targets not only Romney but also a GOP congressional apparatus. Republicans who want to bring their party to a more sensible place have as much of an interest as do down-ballot [URL="http://www.sfgate.com/?controllerName=search&action=search&channel=opinion&search=1&inlineLink=1&query=%22Democrats%22"]Democrats[/URL] in the president choosing this course.
[I]© 2012, Washington Post Writers Group[/I]
Read more: [URL]http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/Will-the-election-settle-anything-3888245.php#ixzz27MTfSUOa[/URL]
