It seems that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democrats agree that cooling off on so-called impeachment proceedings of the president is a good idea. Not because impeachment makes zero sense, but only it will affect their political hides.
The thought process is that such ongoing discussions hurt efforts to win back the Senate majority.
Even though such presidential candidates as Sen. Cory Booker, Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren might not agree, the consensus is to cool it.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has received little encouragement to proceed on the impeachment front. Aside from the above presidential candidates, who are merely pandering to the far left in the primaries, caution is the operative word.
For most Democratic senators, the call for impeachment rarely comes up in caucus-wide meetings. They understand focusing on impeachment, which would be highly unlikely, is a detriment to actual issues voters will look for in their selection of presidential candidates.
Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) is on the side of extreme caution. The ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee recently said, “I don’t think we should go there now.” She added, “I was here for the Clinton impeachment, and after it was over, I wished it never had happened. I think we ought to be very, very cautious with that kind of thing.”
It is assumed that Trump welcomes such proceedings. The reality of it being a success is close to zero considering the Republicans hold the majority in the Senate. Such a move by Democrats would obviously tear the country apart and relegate any other pressing national issues to the back burner during the election.
Most pragmatic Democrats see the low odds for success and worry about abject disaster if their focus is impeachment. If those moderate senators and congressional lawmakers allow the far-left to lead this fight, the realization that November 2020 could be a blowout for Democrats running is a stark reality.
Therein may lie the reason for Trump’s supposed enthusiasm for the process to move forward. The reality is Democrats already face an uphill fight in winning back the Senate. Republicans hold a 53-47 majority.
As it stands presently, Democrats are forced to defend a very weakened Sen. Doug Jones in heavily Republican Alabama. Their brightest chances for success are seats in Maine and Colorado, where Trump lost to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Thinking Democrats realize it would require a two-thirds majority, or 67 votes, to convict the president in the Senate. That is almost certainly not going to happen. And, despite media claims, few House Democrats are pushing to begin impeachment.
The actual proponents of impeachment are dubious about it at best. They include presidential hopefuls, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), a socialist, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), another White House hopeful and Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) who will say anything to attract the far-left vote.
Other Democratic presidential hopefuls, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), agree with Pelosi and Schumer that more investigating needs to be done. That translates to their fear that Trump would quickly turn the tables on them.
Watch this space tp see if saner heads prevail. If they don’t, it will most certainly mean re-election for Trump, an increase of the Republican majority in the Senate and their re-taking of the House. Count on it.
Will Democrats be stupid enough to try for impeachment? There are many pushing for it, but we’ll have to wait and see.
