While the state of the Democratic Party in 2020 may make some Republicans cringe, it could pay off in the long run for Republicans according to Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL).
During an appearance on Huntsville, AL radio’s WVNN on Thursday, Rogers speculated that if former President Barack Obama were one of the candidates in the 2020 Democratic presidential field, he would not win the party nomination for not being “socialist enough.”
“I hear it everywhere I go in my district – people do see them as the face of the future Democrat Party, and they see these presidential debates, and they see how far left they’re going with their rhetoric,” Rogers said on “The Jeff Poor Show.” “I just spoke to a civic group in Alex City today at lunch, and I told them – and I really mean this – Barack Obama could not win the nomination in this year’s Democrat field. He is not socialist enough to win. That’s how far left they’ve moved. So yeah, when I hear Omar and AOC and Tlaib all talking, I want them to keep it up because it is turning off Americans from coast to coast.”
Rogers was still optimistic about Republicans chances of picking up the House in 2020 and warned not to read too much into the recent wave of Republican retirements.
“It doesn’t have any effect on it,” he added. “One of the things that drives me nuts about the national news media is they spin these things to support a narrative they’re promoting. The fact that is we’re not having a larger retirement than we usually have. If you take the last three-and-a-half years and you compare it to the previous three-and-a-half years, it’s the same percentage. Every August recess, we have a lot of people announce they’re retiring in part because they get back home in August and realize ‘I like being home. I don’t want to do this anymore.’ It’s a tough way of life. There’s a lot of time away from your family. A lot of time spent fundraising. Social media has made it just a nightmare to have to be in these jobs because people just beat the crap out of you constantly, cable news. A lot of folks just don’t want to do this for a long time.”
“But this is nothing out of the ordinary,” he continued. “One of the things I would urge your audience to look at in the future because I’ve been doing this 17 years now, and I’ve seen this pattern: Every August, especially right at the end of August you get a lot of people announce they’re retiring because they’ve been home for a month and they like being out of Washington and back home. And then after every Christmas break, we have a wave of announcements for the same reason – people are back home with their family. They realize they like the private life and they want to go back to it. So there is nothing unusual about what’s happening right now.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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