https://hotair.com/headlines/archives/2013/01/17/how-obama-can-break-house-republicans/feed/HotAir is the leading conservative blog for breaking news and commentary covering the Biden administration, politics, media, culture, and current elections.en-usTue, 09 Jun 2026 13:10:13 -0400<![CDATA[It’s easy to look at the final fiscal-cliff vote, which 150-odd Republicans opposed, and assume that only the moderates came around. In fact, the reason Boehner was able to bring it up for a vote at all—in violation of the Hastert Rule—was that the pragmatic conservatives were with him too. That’s not just literally true, in that Boehner gave his troops the option of effectively killing the compromise, and he appeared to get few takers. It’s also true more figuratively, in that Boehner apparently wasn’t worried about pragmatic conservatives turning on him when he stood for re-election as Speaker two days later. &#8220;[I]n the end, most of our members wanted this to pass, but they didn&#8217;t want to vote for it,&#8221; he later told The Wall Street Journal. And the reason they wanted it to pass is that the public would have beat the party senseless for rejecting a deal, having largely accepted Obama’s case that taxes should rise on the wealthy.]]>Thu, 17 Jan 2013 17:45:30 -0500<![CDATA[Allahpundit]]>https://hotair.com/headlines/2013/01/17/how-obama-can-break-house-republicans-n99335