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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell yesterday sketched a Republican strategy for the next two years that focuses on obstructionism and ends in 2012 with the election of a Republican President. While campaigning, Republican candidates railed against the stimulus bill and promised to repeal Obama’s healthcare reform legislation. McConnell said his party probably cannot achieve the legislative shake-up it wants in the next two years because President Obama will use his veto powers to stop their agenda. McConnell promised that until the White House is again occupied by a Republican the GOP would increase investigations into Federal agencies, vote to deny funds for implementing healthcare legislation and freeze discretionary spending. Meanwhile, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs yesterday repeated that President Obama is willing to comprise with Republicans and discuss a one or two year extension of the Bush tax cuts for families with annual incomes of more than $250,000. After months of refusing to budge on this point President Obama announced his new, softer position during Wednesday’s post-election press conference. Between the Republican pledges to continue holding the national legislature hostage, and the President caving to right-wing talking points, Progressives are bracing for another two years of frustration and dead-ends. But in an article for the Huffington Post Karen Dolan writes that Progressives actually have good reason to see Tuesday as a victory.

GUEST: Karen Dolan, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and co-author of the IPS report Battered by the Storm: How the Safety Net Is Failing Americans and How to Fix It.

Read Karen Dolan’s article here: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/11/04-6