Senator Dick Durbin: First Posted: 9/18/11 10:40 AM ET Updated: 9/18/11 12:55 PM ET
GOP candidates “bow and genuflect” to the Tea Party, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“As I listen to the Republican presidential nominee candidates come forward and spot their ideas and bow and genuflect to the Tea Party and their agenda, I remember the Tea Party is not very popular in America,” Durbin told host Candy Crowley, when she asked about President Barack Obama’s prospects for reelection.
“What they brought us to in Washington twice already is a confrontation that has virtually threatened to close down our government and our economy,” Durbin continued, referring to the brinkmanship over the government spending deal in April and the fight over the debt ceiling this summer. “I don’t think people like that style of politics.”
Crowley also asked Durbin about Democratic strategist James Carville’s recommendation that Obama should “panic,” in response to the Democratic losses in the New York and Nevada special elections last week, and fire his economic team.
“For God’s sake, why are we still looking at the same political and economic advisers that got us into this mess? It’s not working,” Carville wrote in a CNN op-ed.
Durbin, however, rejected the idea that Obama needs to shake up his staff.
“I don’t think so,” Durbin told Crowley. “I think his team has put together a positive, good plan.”