John Boehner, GOP Will Fail

Republicans crowing from the rooftops about the mandate they got on Election Day can cork it and come back down to Earth to face the music, writes Markos Moulitsas Zuniga in the Christian Science Monitor—because John Boehner and Co. are doomed. Tuesday wasn't an embrace of a GOP agenda, he writes. In fact, exit polls showed that voters viewed Dems more favorably than the GOP; but, feeling vengeful, they largely voted for Republicans anyway. Some 35% of voters blamed Wall Street for the economy; yet 56% went GOP in "a con of masterful proportions—embrace Wall Street and its money, yet still win the votes of the financial industry’s biggest critics," writes Moulitsas, who runs the Daily Kos.

The Democrats were killed by a base that sat home Tuesday—a base that won't be sitting on its hands in 2012. But those who voted GOP aren't even in sync with the GOP agenda: "Of the 47% of voters who want the health care law as is or even expanded, 44% of them voted Republican," Moulitsas writes. "Now, this GOP-led House will make sure that nothing of note passes, and try to gum up the works further. With power comes responsibility, and John Boehner will be under pressure to walk the line between the ideological purity his tea party base demands, and the pragmatism of governing. When he fails (and he will)," Democrats will pounce. (More John Boehner stories.)