If Obama Wins, DC Gridlock Will Get Worse

If you're tired of the last few years of DC gridlock, brace for more if President Obama wins re-election, writes Ramesh Ponnuru at Bloomberg. Republicans probably will still control Congress, and they're bound to react to a Romney loss by shifting more to the right, argues Ponnuru. Neither side will be able to claim a mandate, meaning that the real choice for voters in November is "one between Romney and a unified Republican government, or Obama and four more years that look a lot like the last two."

Expect to hear this argument a lot in the coming months, writes Ed Kilgore at the Washington Monthly, who dismisses it as more GOP "political hostage-taking." It boils down to Republicans saying, "Give us total power to begin implementing our agenda and start dismantling this silly, expensive New Deal/Great Society system and this European-style progressive tax code, or nothing at all happens." Remember, though, that at least one big thing will happen if Obama wins: His health care reform will survive. Besides, gridlock is OK if "one of the two major parties will accept nothing short of total power." Read Kilgore's full column here, and Ponnuru's here. (More President Obama stories.)