DeLay: GOP Is Leaderless, Health Care Will Pass

The party-discipline master formerly known as "the Hammer" predicts health reform will pass and he says his own Republican Party has no leader, is mired in infighting, and can't take advantage of President Obama's stalled popularity. Politics Daily contributor Emily Miller spoke with DeLay on the sidewalk of a strip mall where he was practicing up for his gig on Dancing with the Stars. On that lack of GOP discipline: "Republicans are leaderless...so we're just fighting each other instead of Obama's radical policies. There's no political leader of the party taking control. So, Republicans are just attacking each other for being too far right or too far left. Even Rush and Hannity are doing it."

"The Democrats will do exactly what we always did, rewrite the bill over and over until they give all the members what they need to get to 218 votes. The Senate will do the same thing." It will, he predicts, be a straight party-line vote, and "maybe a few Republicans voting for it, but not many."

"This new bill is just providing political cover for the Democrats to vote for health care reform."

Shaking his head with frustration, he added, "The Republican Party doesn't have the organization or leadership to take advantage of this dire political situation that Obama is in now. We have these grassroots sprouting up, but not the party organization to use them."

"Republicans are leaderless,'' he went on, "so we're just fighting each other instead of Obama's radical policies. There's no political leader of the party taking control. So, Republicans are just attacking each other for being too far right or too far left. Even Rush and Hannity are doing it."

So who does DeLay see as the GOP's up-and-comers? "No one," he replied in exasperation. "It's all the same old guys who were in leadership with me, and those old guys aren't the leaders the party needs."