After caving to the Obama administration as well as the Democrats in Congress and the media by bringing a “clean” DHS funding bill up for a vote, we here at RedState admitted the fact that Speaker [mc_name name=’Rep. John Boehner (R-OH)’ chamber=’house’ mcid=’B000589′ ] now essentially owes his job to the Democrats. Now, the Democrats themselves are willing to go on record as wanting to empower Boehner, because they know he’ll be willing to compromise on many important issues that will be coming up for the debate. Here’s what The Hill noted Sunday:

But [the Democrats] see Boehner as a willing compromiser on must-pass legislation like funding the government and raising the debt ceiling – once the Speaker can convince his troops that the partisan route endorsed by his conservative wing has been denied.
By banding together in veto-sustaining majorities against conservative proposals demanded by Boehner’s right flank, Democrats hope to both sink those GOP measures and grease the skids for more moderate compromises.

“[The Republicans] have a majority party that’s deeply divided,” [mc_name name=’Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD)’ chamber=’house’ mcid=’H000874′ ] (D-Md.), the Democratic whip, said Thursday from his office in the Capitol.

“And … what we’ve learned is if we stick together – and we have been sticking together, we’ve been very unified – that it can empower Speaker Boehner at some point in time to say, ‘Look, I tried every which way I can think of to accomplish the objectives that our caucus wants to do. But if I can’t accomplish those, I will not allow the government to shut down, the debt limit to be not extended, or other things that are harmful to the country,’” Hoyer said.

As it stands now, the Democrats have 188 members in the House. That’s 30 votes short of a majority needed to pass legislation. They know that they can get Boehner his allies to agree to several items of their agenda because they’re such willing compromisers. The Democrats, of course, will be as inflexible as ever, but when the Republicans are willing to give away the farm on everything to avoid being called evil racist obstructionists, why even contemplate giving anything away?

If the 188 Democrats can get just 30 of the 74 Republicans who voted for the DHS funding bill, they’ll have 218 votes–a majority, in other words. With [mc_name name=’Rep. John Boehner (R-OH)’ chamber=’house’ mcid=’B000589′ ]’s stewardship of the House and subsequent abandoning of the Hastert rule, it’s increasingly likely that they’ll be able to do so.

In other words, as I said earlier this month, [mc_name name=’Rep. John Boehner (R-OH)’ chamber=’house’ mcid=’B000589′ ] must go.