Word: republicanisms
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...State legislatures may have to act to give state commissioners power to enforce the new rules, a process that could be complicated by political squabbling - not to mention the many Republican state legislators who have already said they plan to challenge the constitutionality of federal health reform. But even if states adopted the new federal rules, most state insurance departments would need to bulk up staff at a time when many are experiencing layoffs because of already strapped state budgets. "We would certainly argue that we're cut to the bone right now," says Kevin McCarty, head of Florida...
...Certainly, Congress is as polarized now as it has ever been. With the retirements last year of longtime Republicans John Warner of Virginia, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Mississippi's Trent Lott, there's hardly a Republican left who is willing to reach out across the aisle. The punishment for such comity is tea-party declarations of being a traitor: witness Lindsey Graham's second censure this week by a South Carolina County Republican Party for his bipartisan work on climate change. On the Democratic side, the death of Massachusetts' Ted Kennedy, the retirement of John Breaux of Louisiana...
...most that Republicans can hope for is to regain control of the House and pick up a net gain of five seats in the Senate. But in order to achieve this, Republicans must unify their fractured party, and given the spate of conservative primary challenges, from Mark Rubio in Florida to Rand Paul in Kentucky, this will be no easy task. The tea-party movement is also making life difficult for new recruits like Griffith, who after switching parties now faces a tough primary. And the GOP is plagued by cash woes. After spending heavily in the Virginia...
...talk of polarization in Washington, a bad 2010 cycle could actually hasten the return of the center, says Stu Rothenberg, editor of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report, which tracks congressional races. Senate Republican victories in Illinois, North Dakota and Delaware could usher in three new GOP moderates. And the enormous Democratic classes of 2006 and 2008 will be up for re-election in 2012 and 2014. "If 2010 is a bad year, they're going to look at that," Rothenberg says, "and they're going to go, 'This is not the image of the Democratic Party I want...
Meanwhile, even if negotiators reach a START agreement, it will still require ratification in the U.S. Senate. And in a recent letter, 40 Republican Senators and independent Joe Lieberman suggested that they would not support the agreement unless Obama pledged to allocate money to "modernize" America's nuclear arsenal - that is to say, refurbish old warheads and potentially build new ones. That decision, in turn, hinges on the findings of Obama's "Nuclear Posture Review," in which the President will decide the nuclear forces he feels the U.S. needs to maintain in order to remain secure...