By Sandy Wells
KABC News
One influential California politician says the Democrats lost the White House by discounting the working class.
“The Democrats made it abundantly clear that they no longer speak for the working man and woman in the country,” said Congressman Tom McClintock. “They’ve become the party of the liberal elite who run our campuses, the media and the tech and entertainment industry. They spent all their time sneering and ridiculing Middle America. But the Republicans have changed, too. I think that they are no longer the country club, big business party of the past. That was what was decided in the Republican primary. The royal families of the Republican Party don’t like it but, you know, that’s tough.”
McClintock said a “profound realignment is taking place” in national politics.
“Donald Trump sounded a call that reverberated across the country.”
Yet, there is some resistance promised by Democrats is the U.S. Senate, in which they are threatening the same obstructionist tactics used by Republicans to frustrate President Obama.
“We’ve heard from reactionary elements in the Democratic Party that made this vicious pledge to thwart the President’s mandate and destroy this presidency. They’ve vowed to use that 60-vote threshold to stop any meaningful reform. That’s not the purpose of that cloture vote. Cloture is supposed to preserve debate but it has degenerated over the last century into a mechanism that requires 60 votes just to start a debate.”
McClintock says cloture needs to be restored to its original purpose, which is that it takes two thirds to close debate.
“If one third of a deliberative body wants to continue a debate, that debate should continue. That’s the essence of deliberation. The reason that a minority exists is to try to convince a majority its (point) of view. That assumes, though, that it is a real debate. People are actually talking to each other. It assumes that debate is germane to the subject at hand and you’re not just reading from Dr. Seuss on the Senate floor. And it assumes that the debate is not being manifestly dilatory.”
McClintock was a guest on 790 KABC’s McIntyre in the Morning Show with Doug McIntyre and Terri-Rae Elmer.