Republicans privately plot John Boehner-run House

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Politico:

House Republicans have held a series of private discussions to plot their first moves if they win the majority in November — with plans to use spending bills and subpoenas to rein in President Barack Obama and satiate their own ravenous base.

Republicans recognize they won’t be able to do any broad governing even if they take back the House; they’d hold just one chamber of Congress, or at most one branch of government, if they also win the Senate. So officials familiar with the early discussions say they’ve centered on undoing key parts of the Obama agenda and repositioning Republicans as the party of fiscal responsibility heading into 2012 — a mantle the GOP surrendered during the big-spending George W. Bush years.

The plans presently under discussion include defunding some parts of the new health care law and delaying implementation of others, withholding some of the unspent stimulus funds and using the oversight power of Republican-led committees to investigate the Obama administration.

“The goal, obviously, would be to make it a one-term presidency,” said a GOP lobbyist briefed on the talks.

Republicans caution that the discussions are preliminary and that their plans will be calibrated based on the actual margins after the elections. They realize they could easily fall short of winning back the majority — and many privately predict a fierce struggle for power and direction if that happens.

Even assuming Republicans win, the plans they are sketching out now won’t fully satisfy many conservative activists. Republican leaders are talking privately of avoiding a full-throated assault on Obama and making their mark on spending (cut it) and taxes (cut them, too) to set the stage for 2012.

The truth is, when you strip away the unrealistic (repealing any significant parts of health care) and the recycled (extend the Bush tax cuts), there are few authentically original or viable ideas getting knocked around, even in private chats. This is the impression would-be Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has left in public, too, by promising new policy prescriptions twice, only to unveil familiar plans. This is unlikely to change until Republicans reconcile the worldview of members like Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) — make sweeping changes, even if they are unpopular — with the play-it-safe attitude of many others.

So far, the Contract With America, this is not.

House Republican Whip Eric Cantor, who would move up to House majority leader if Republicans take the House, said in an interview that voters “want more of a balanced approach” to governing and that the GOP would “learn from the mistakes that were made when we were in the majority and learn from the mistakes the current majority has made.”
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I hope this is the case, but as things stand now the only guy who seems to have truly inherited the mantle of Newt Gingrich-Paul Ryan-is stil seen as a troublemaker by some in the Boehner camp.