Want gridlock? Vote Republican.

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The other day, I wrote, citing Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana (a truly representative Republican), that a Republican victory next week, winning the House and possibly (if not likely) also the Senate, would mean not just more obstructionism from The Party of Hell No, which we've gotten ever since Obama entered the Oval Office, but partisan games, ridiculous hearings, and futile investigations, opposition to any and all compromise with Obama and the Democrats, dragging the federal government into a state of paralysis at a time when the American people desperately need their elected leaders to act responsibly and constructively.

And it wouldn't be because the Republicans are generally anti-government but because they want Obama and the Democrats to fail, including their mainstream and broadly popular attempts to help the American people to fail, and, without anything to stand for on their own, other than tax cuts for the wealthy and the same old failed policies that have gotten the country into mess after mess, disaster after disaster, to score political points at the expense of the common good.

Well, Pence was not alone in articulating the Republican plan. We have confirmation from another leading member of the House version of The Party of Hell No:

Voters should expect "good old-fashioned gridlock" in Washington if Republicans win control of one or both chambers of Congress, one GOP lawmaker said.

Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah), a vice chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee, told students at Utah State University on Friday that a GOP-held House might not be able to accomplish too much as long as President Obama's in the White House.

I understand that anti-incumbent sentiment is high and I understand that both parties are currently held in low regard, however unfairly in the case of the party in power. But choices must still be made and ballots must still be cast. America is a democracy, after all, more or less, and the American people will get what they vote for, for better and for worse.

And if they vote Republican next Tuesday, what they'll get is bitter partisanship, pointless politicking, and, as Republican themselves proudly admit, gridlock and paralysis in Washington.

In other words, what they'll get is even worse, much worse, than what is there now -- and what is there now, let's be clear (as we look through the haze of Republican lies), has achieved a great deal, including pulling the economy back from the brink of collapse, expanding access to health care for millions, regulating the excesses and abuses of Wall Street, and restoring America's standing around the world.

Food for thought, one hopes, as voters contemplate the future.