WI Democrats kept the House in 2010

What if the Democrats kept the House in the 2010 midterm elections, though they did still suffer significant losses? Say the Democrats didn't lose 63 seats like IOTL but they did lose 32 seats so the tally is 224 Democrats, 211 Republicans. What PoD would be needed to get this(after January 20, 2009 so Obama is still President)? What would be the impact of this? How would the 2012 election be altered(the PoD that led to the Democrats keeping the House might be as, if not more important than the Democrats keeping the House)? How would the Obama presidency be altered? What effects would this have on US politics going forward? What if?
 
Presumably an appropriate POD might be something along the lines of Obama focusing less on universal healthcare and more on economic recovery?
 
Presumably an appropriate POD might be something along the lines of Obama focusing less on universal healthcare and more on economic recovery?

That could work, yes. Though maybe one keeping Obamacare would be better. I think this is the most plausible PoD though.
 
October 27, 2010: Osama bin Laden is killed in Pakistan by United States Navy SEALs.

(It might not do the trick by itself, but couldn't hurt!)
 
A good start might be not having the Dems lose the special election for Kennedy's seat. So they still have a supermajority in the Senate so can get more done before 2010. Also having Bin Laden killed right before the elections doesn't hurt either.
 
Would the Democrats be able to keep the House into the present day? Presuming Obama wins a second term(likely but butterflies might change it) then what could he accomplish with a Democrat Congress? Immigration reform looks likely, maybe an infrastructure bill too and more stimulus. How would this alter the Obama presidency? Even keeping the House in 2012 and losing it in 2014 would have big implications.
 
Would the Democrats be able to keep the House into the present day? Presuming Obama wins a second term(likely but butterflies might change it) then what could he accomplish with a Democrat Congress? Immigration reform looks likely, maybe an infrastructure bill too and more stimulus. How would this alter the Obama presidency? Even keeping the House in 2012 and losing it in 2014 would have big implications.

I think the economy would improve by 2014 thanks to a bigger stimulus, so the Democrats would have losses, but sustainable losses.
 
I think the economy would improve by 2014 thanks to a bigger stimulus, so the Democrats would have losses, but sustainable losses.

Perhaps but there'd still be struggling wages, ISIS and Ebola and Obamacare would be unpopular. If anything 2014 would be an even bigger Republican wave as the initiatives passed by the Democrat Congress(immigration reform for one) would rile up the Republican base and midterm voters even more.
 
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IMHO, there are a few things the Dems could have done to keep the House in 2010:

1) pass bigger stimulus in 2009: as Many liberal economists, especially Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz, were urging Obama to go bigger than he did in 2009. After all, in constant dollars, Obama's stimulus may have been smaller than FDR's New Deal public works programs and Reagan's 1981 tax cuts. The Obama Administration was concerned about the deficit, but in reality, do the voters really care about the deficit? It's an abstract number to most of them. I think voters really care about unemployment and inflation, which are matters that effect them directly. And to go back to 2 names I brought up earlier, FDR and Reagan both used deficit spending to stimulate their economic recoveries, and neither of them were hurt politically, and in fact, just the opposite. Both of them were re-elected by historic margins. A bigger stimulus likely means a much stronger recovery by the time the 2010 midterms occur, thus giving the Democrats a much stronger platform to run on.

2) Keep public option portion of Obamacare: I think this is crucial. Both Obama and Pelosi caved in way too quickly on this issue. The public backlash against Obamacare was (and is) the private insurance mandate (a conservative idea). Keeping the public option in demonstrates to the voters that they are not tools of the insurance companies. Furthermore, they should have done a much better job of communicating to the public that the insurance mandate was in fact initially a conservative idea designed to keep private insurance, rather than the government, the main provider of health insurance. I could go a step further and suggest that the Democrats should have from the beginning pushed for Medicare for all and let the Republicans negotiate down from that, but I'm probably being a little bit unrealistic there.

These next two are most likely ASB, but I'm going to throw them out there anyway:

3) a huge oil glut in Obama's first term: this is important because I think both the Reagan and Clinton economic booms were fueled largely (but not entirely) by the cheap gas prices of the 80s and 90s. We are having a bit of an oil glut now, and I do remember there being a plunge in oil prices early on in Obama's first term, but it didn't last long. But I think a long and significant plunge in oil prices would have definitely politically benefited the economy, and the Democrats, considerably. But, I do think this is likely ASB as there really is not much the President can do to directly effect oil prices, especially in the 2 years between Obama's inauguration and the 2010 midterms. But if by some miracle this did happen, then the Democrats probably fair much better in 2010 (especially if this occurs along with the other 2 events I mentioned).

4) catching Bin Laden shortly before, rather than after the midterms: again, probably ASB as I don't know all the details and events leading up to Bin Laden's capture and whether anything could have been done to speed up the process. Plus, if Bin Laden is caught around the time of the mid-terms, there are definitely going to be screams from the opposition that this was staged as an "October Surprise." And admittedly, the timing would seem a little suspicious (or at least portrayed as such). So this part is a bit iffy.

So there you go. If the above 4 events happen prior to the mid-terms (and I do once again acknowledge that the last 2 events are likely beyond the control of Obama or the U.S. government in general), then the Dems likely hold on to the House in 2010, and possibly increase their control (not a strong possibility as the only time I think this has happened before is 1934).
 
IMHO, there are a few things the Dems could have done to keep the House in 2010:

1) pass bigger stimulus in 2009: as Many liberal economists, especially Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz, were urging Obama to go bigger than he did in 2009. After all, in constant dollars, Obama's stimulus may have been smaller than FDR's New Deal public works programs and Reagan's 1981 tax cuts. The Obama Administration was concerned about the deficit, but in reality, do the voters really care about the deficit? It's an abstract number to most of them. I think voters really care about unemployment and inflation, which are matters that effect them directly. And to go back to 2 names I brought up earlier, FDR and Reagan both used deficit spending to stimulate their economic recoveries, and neither of them were hurt politically, and in fact, just the opposite. Both of them were re-elected by historic margins. A bigger stimulus likely means a much stronger recovery by the time the 2010 midterms occur, thus giving the Democrats a much stronger platform to run on.

2) Keep public option portion of Obamacare: I think this is crucial. Both Obama and Pelosi caved in way too quickly on this issue. The public backlash against Obamacare was (and is) the private insurance mandate (a conservative idea). Keeping the public option in demonstrates to the voters that they are not tools of the insurance companies. Furthermore, they should have done a much better job of communicating to the public that the insurance mandate was in fact initially a conservative idea designed to keep private insurance, rather than the government, the main provider of health insurance. I could go a step further and suggest that the Democrats should have from the beginning pushed for Medicare for all and let the Republicans negotiate down from that, but I'm probably being a little bit unrealistic there.

These next two are most likely ASB, but I'm going to throw them out there anyway:

3) a huge oil glut in Obama's first term: this is important because I think both the Reagan and Clinton economic booms were fueled largely (but not entirely) by the cheap gas prices of the 80s and 90s. We are having a bit of an oil glut now, and I do remember there being a plunge in oil prices early on in Obama's first term, but it didn't last long. But I think a long and significant plunge in oil prices would have definitely politically benefited the economy, and the Democrats, considerably. But, I do think this is likely ASB as there really is not much the President can do to directly effect oil prices, especially in the 2 years between Obama's inauguration and the 2010 midterms. But if by some miracle this did happen, then the Democrats probably fair much better in 2010 (especially if this occurs along with the other 2 events I mentioned).

4) catching Bin Laden shortly before, rather than after the midterms: again, probably ASB as I don't know all the details and events leading up to Bin Laden's capture and whether anything could have been done to speed up the process. Plus, if Bin Laden is caught around the time of the mid-terms, there are definitely going to be screams from the opposition that this was staged as an "October Surprise." And admittedly, the timing would seem a little suspicious (or at least portrayed as such). So this part is a bit iffy.

So there you go. If the above 4 events happen prior to the mid-terms (and I do once again acknowledge that the last 2 events are likely beyond the control of Obama or the U.S. government in general), then the Dems likely hold on to the House in 2010, and possibly increase their control (not a strong possibility as the only time I think this has happened before is 1934).

Everything you suggest needs more than 'Obama should do more...'. The stimulus was the largest in American history. But it could only be as large as a Democratic congress would allow - and at the time, there were a lot of Democrats who won in 2006 from right-leaning districts/states that opposed a larger stimulus. With nearly universal Republican opposition, it wasn't like Obama could force through anything and everything he wanted.

On the public option, the fact is, it wasn't going to pass. It just wasn't. The Democrats needed 60 votes for reconciliation and one of those votes was Joe Lieberman. Lieberman was not, in a million years, ever going to support the public option. It wasn't about caving (the public option continued to be in play all the way to near the end of the debate) and rather working a system that barely had the votes to pass what they got. Remember, after Scott Brown's win in 2010, most felt healthcare reform was dead, anyway. There is zero chance the Dems get through the public option without dramatically changing the Senate prior to Obama becoming president (either they pick up more seats in 2008 or Lieberman loses to Ned Lamont in the 2006 general).
 
Everything you suggest needs more than 'Obama should do more...'. The stimulus was the largest in American history. But it could only be as large as a Democratic congress would allow - and at the time, there were a lot of Democrats who won in 2006 from right-leaning districts/states that opposed a larger stimulus. With nearly universal Republican opposition, it wasn't like Obama could force through anything and everything he wanted.

On the public option, the fact is, it wasn't going to pass. It just wasn't. The Democrats needed 60 votes for reconciliation and one of those votes was Joe Lieberman. Lieberman was not, in a million years, ever going to support the public option. It wasn't about caving (the public option continued to be in play all the way to near the end of the debate) and rather working a system that barely had the votes to pass what they got. Remember, after Scott Brown's win in 2010, most felt healthcare reform was dead, anyway. There is zero chance the Dems get through the public option without dramatically changing the Senate prior to Obama becoming president (either they pick up more seats in 2008 or Lieberman loses to Ned Lamont in the 2006 general).

You're right about my post focusing too much on Obama, when in fact it was congressional Democrats who deserve a large portion of the blame for the party's poor showing in 2010. However, I'm not so sure that they were unable to get a bigger stimulus. IIRC, when adjusted for inflation, Obama's stimulus was smaller than FDR's New Deal public works programs and Reagan's 1981 tax cut, and for that matter, smaller than GWB's tax cut in 2001. I think if they pushed hard enough, the Dems could definitely have gotten more than they did. I do agree that them gaining more Senate seats in 06 and 08, along with Lieberman losing, would have helped a great deal.

As for the public option, again, I recall the Dems taking this off the table some time before the final version of Obamacare was being voted on, but I can't verify that at the moment so I won't swear to it. I do think that the Dems came in with too wishy-washy an attitude. With the stimulus and with health care, I feel like they started out punting from their own end zone. With healthcare, I think they should have started out by advancing the idea of Medicare for all, and then let the Republicans negotiate down from there. Even more outrageously, the Dems let the Republicans demonize them over a policy that the Republicans themselves came up with-private health insurance mandates. This had been an idea floated around by conservative think tanks, proposed by various Republican candidates, and actually implemented by a Republican governor (Mitt Romney). There's no excuse for the Democrats allowing the Republicans to make them look like the bad guys for passing the Republicans' own policy. Their failure to effectively communicate this to the voters was a big factor in their mid-term loss.

As for points 3 and 4, again, I admit they're borderline, if not completely, ASB. There really is very little the President, or the US as a whole, can do much in the short term to effect oil prices. To get an 80s/90s level oil glut would require a much earlier POD (though would probably butterfly away the rise in oil prices that occurred near the end of Bush's second term).
 
It's not fair to compare tax cuts to stimulus spending. The problem with Obama's stimulus is that, from the start, he was working against a congress that didn't want to spend. Something similar happened with Clinton in 1993 and Clinton's stimulus was dramatically smaller than Obama's. Despite having a Democratic congress, though, the stimulus was shelved for a year and passed far smaller than Clinton's original proposal.

You've got to remember that this was at the beginning of the tea party. There were hundreds and hundreds of protests from these new groups and they were putting pressure on the narrative. Democrats in right-leaning seats buckled.

It was the same with healthcare.
 
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