I'm John Matchler. I welcome my good colleague of many years, Sadius Macotter,

who writes at American greatness, former member of Congress and my partisan advisor, that is partisan

in that how partisans behave, not that we are partisan especially, though we do have a party.

Right now, we're looking at the parties approaching the midterm of a president who is

living through his second term, understood as lame at some point. However, all of these things

have happened before and there are precedents that are useful. That is a very good day to you

approaching the midterm.

The general rule, and I cited to see if it's consistent with your experience,

the general rule is that the party out of power at the White House,

the first vote after the presidential contest, that would be now, goes to the opposition party.

That is, if a Democrat is in the White House as, say, 2009, Barack Obama's first term,

the Republicans would, according to this rule, win the House of Representatives in the following

vote in 2010, which is what happened. So that's a general rule. Do you find that holds up no matter

what, or are there concerns right now that make that in doubt? Good day to you. Good day to you, John. Well, I think what

you're saying is that the party out of power has an advantage heading into the midterms,

because what they can do is message. They can offer promises. They can offer words. They don't

have to back it up with deeds, because everybody knows the party in the minority does not

have the power to shape the national agenda and implement.

That goes to the party in power, especially when the president is of the same party as the majority,

which is the situation we have now.

So that makes it incumbent upon the Republican Party.

As the majority, their strength becomes their weakness as well.

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