November 07, 2009
House Democrats narrowly clinched a landmark victory on a sweeping health care overhaul Saturday night, voting 220-215 to deliver President Obama a key win on his top domestic priority,
Roll Call reports.
The measure, which passed with only one Republican vote, represented six months of hard-fought compromises and deal-making among Democratic lawmakers.
Rep. Anh ''Joseph" Cao (R-LA) was the sole Republican to vote in favor of the legislation denying Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) the unanimous GOP vote he had sought against the bill.
"Hours before an expected vote on a sweeping health care bill, House Democrats believe they've secured the 218 votes they need to approve the bill, several party insiders said,"
Politico reports.
"Votes have a tendency to shift in the final hours before a
controversial vote, but party leaders were expressing more genuine
confidence as the sun set over the Capitol than they had exhibited all
week. Word started spreading around 5 p.m. that leaders had the votes
they needed to pass the $1.2 trillion bill."
"Civil disobedience has an honorable history, and when the urgency and moral clarity cross a certain threshold, then I think that civil disobedience is quite understandable, and it has a role to play. And I expect that it will increase, no question about it."
-- Al Gore, in an interview with
The Guardian.
Time notes that most discussions whether the news media is biased overlook the most significant bias out there.
"As anyone following health reform knows, centrism is a political position too. And you see moderate bias -- i.e., a preference for centrism -- whenever a news outlet assumes that the truth must be somewhere in the middle..."
"Often, moderate bias is just the result of caution, but the effect is to bolster centrist political positions -- not least by implying that they are not political positions at all but occupy a happy medium between the nutjobs. Meanwhile, conservatives see moderate bias as liberal, and liberals see it as conservative -- letting journalists conclude that it's not bias at all."
On this day in 1962, Richard Nixon gave his "
last press conference" after losing the California governor's race.
Said Nixon: "Gentlemen, think of what you're going to miss. You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore."
Just six years later he was elected president.
Read more...
In early summer, pollster David Petts showed Virginia gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds (D) how he could the win the general election.
The advice in the
memo obtained by
Politico: "Go negative on the Republican nominee, capitalize on his natural advantage with independents, and be wary of two fellow Democrats -- incumbent Gov. Tim Kaine and President Barack Obama."
Deeds "ultimately followed many of the recommendations laid out at the end of the 24-page strategy document" only to be crushed by Bob McDonnell (R) in "the worst blow-out in a gubernatorial election in nearly a half-century."
The House health care reform bill "has taken more twists and turns and has zig-zagged its way through more Democratic districts than the Mississippi River,"
The Hill reports.
"And after a month's worth of legislative wrangling and deal-making, the bill is approaching its final destination: a vote on final passage, expected sometime before the sun rises on Sunday. Pressing toward dawn on Saturday, the Rules committee passed a rule after nearly 12 hours that would set up a vote on the health care bill at 6 p.m."
"No Congress has ever come this close to the goal - first proposed by President Theodore Roosevelt - of providing universal health insurance."
House Democratic leaders "have broken through the abortion impasse holding up their sweeping health care overhaul, a development leadership aides said put Democrats on track to pass the measure on Saturday,"
Roll Call reports.
"The deal hands a major win to abortion-rights opponents by green-lighting an up-or-down vote on a proposal by Reps. Bart Stupak (D-MI) and Brad Ellsworth (D-IB) to bar plans that offer abortions from new health insurance exchanges. The ban would extend to a public insurance option that House Democrats have included in their package."
"The amendment will likely pass with support from Republicans, forcing the majority of Democrats, who support abortion rights, to swallow hard in voting for the package on final passage. Democrats on the House Rules Committee who favor abortion rights made their discomfort clear early Saturday morning as they debated allowing the amendment."
November 06, 2009
"The White House is strongly denying a story
claiming that White House officials privately threatened to retaliate against a Democratic strategist for appearing on Fox News -- a claim generating a big stir on the right as the latest example of the White House's victimization of the network," reports
Greg Sargent.
Said communications adviser Dan Pfeiffer: "While we have our disagreements with FOX, administration officials appear on the network and we have no issue with others who choose to do so."
Rothenberg Political Report: "Bill Owens' victory in New York's 23rd was the good news for Democrats this week and continued the party's winning streak in competitive House special elections. But the dynamic that helped Owens win -- including a divided Republican Party -- can't be ignored and aren't likely to be replicated again. For now, his reelection next year is a Pure Toss-Up."
Veteran's Day isn't until next week but this
video of a 10 year old girl talking about her father stationed in Iraq couldn't wait.
Read more...
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) said "that he expected the House to pass sweeping health care legislation on Saturday evening. But he acknowledged that Democrats were still trying to corral the necessary 218 votes, and that what he called Republican delaying tactics could push the vote back to Sunday or early next week," the
New York Times reports.
Said Hoyer: "We will be successful in the next two or three days."
Update: Democratic House leadership aides tell
First Read "there will, in fact, be a vote
tomorrow on health-reform legislation -- despite reports suggesting a
vote could be pushed back to Sunday or even next week... The aide, however, conceded the vote could slip later into tomorrow evening."
Update II:
Congress Daily says Democrats need 10 more votes.
"At least one Democratic political strategist has gotten a blunt warning from the White House to never appear on Fox News Channel, an outlet that presidential aides have depicted as not so much a news-gathering operation as a political opponent bent on damaging the Obama administration," the
Chicago Tribune reports.
The strategist said the message was, "We better not see you on again."
"In urging Democratic consultants to spurn Fox, White House officials might be trying to isolate the network and make it appear more partisan. A boycott by Democratic strategists could also help drive the White House narrative that Fox is a fundamentally different creature than the other TV news networks."
If you look at the
age breakdown of polling data showing support for gay marriage, it's clear that younger people are much more supportive than older people. Even in states normally considered hostile to gay rights, there is still a significant age difference: For instance, 18-29 year-olds in Alabama, for example, are still more supportive of gay marriage than people 65 and older in Massachusetts.
Kim Strassel: "On Jan. 20, Barack Obama began a race against time. The White House knew its liberal agenda would prove unpopular in many parts of the country represented by Democrats. So long as the president looked strong, those Blue Dogs and freshmen and swing-state senators would stick. Show them any sign of weakness, however, and rattled Dems would begin to care more about their own re-elections than they did their president."
"Tuesday, the White House hit that tipping point."
House Democrats "are scrambling" to secure votes to pass President Obama's health care reform effort, "working to soothe last-minute concerns from rank-and-file Democrats ahead of a make-or-break vote," the
AP reports.
Voting is set for Saturday on the 10-year, $1.2 trillion legislation.
The
Washington Post says party leaders "were struggling" to "contain uprisings on the hot-button issues
of abortion and immigration that have left them little margin for error
as they attempt to push through a massive health-care reform bill this
weekend."
First Read: "The next 48 hours are going to be wild, but considering the country's
focus on the tragedy to Ft. Hood, the battle will take place mostly
behind the scenes and out of the media spotlight."
"U.S. unemployment rose by more than expected in October to hit its highest level in more than 26 years and employers cut more jobs than forecast, a sign the labor market continues to struggle as the economy emerges from its deep recession," the
Wall Street Journal reports.
"The unemployment rate, calculated using a survey of households as opposed to companies, rose by 0.4 percentage point to 10.2%, the Labor Department said Friday. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had forecast an increase to 9.9%."
Interestingly,
ABC News notes public opinion on the economy "has not moved" over the last year. But the question is "how long Obama's got until it goes up, or he goes down - possibly with his party in tow."
The perfect way to start your day:
Jon Stewart makes fun of Glenn Beck.
Read more...
"It is harvest season in Iowa. For Republicans who want to challenge President Barack Obama in 2012, though, it is time to start planting seeds,"
Bloomberg reports.
Tim Pawlenty, Mike Huckabee, and George Pataki all have planned visits before the end of the year. Sarah Palin is considering one as well.
"If it all seems early -- the next presidential election is three years away -- consider that Huckabee, who won his party's 2008 Iowa caucuses, had been to the state five times by this point in 2005."
Nate Silver notes polling firm Strategic Vision has been very quiet since the
controversy broke about their methodology and accusations that they
possibly faked results.
"Strategic Vision vehemently denied my interpretation of the evidence
and made public threats to sue me. But no lawyer has contacted me, and
in fact, Strategic Vision has not conducted any further public polling
since that time."
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) said "she will base a decision on whether to run for California governor next year largely on the solutions the announced candidates put forward to deal with the state's fiscal problems," the
AP reports.
Republicans have three candidates running for governor: Steve Poizner (R), Meg Whitman (R) and Tom Campbell (R).
Democrats have no announced candidate so far, though Attorney General Jerry Brown (D) has formed an exploratory committee.
November 05, 2009
New York Gov. David Paterson (D) isn't just
running television ads in an attempt to improve his popularity and run for re-election.
According to
WCBS-TV, he's "bringing on board campaign powerhouse Harold Ickes, who was former President Bill Clinton's Deputy Chief of Staff."
Politico notes that "lost amid the Republican euphoria surrounding Tuesday's elections is this inconvenient fact: The GOP just got its clock cleaned, again, in another high-stakes House special election."
"It shouldn't have come as a surprise, since Republicans have lost 20 of the past 29 House special elections, dating back to January 2003. And in perhaps the most worrisome aspect of the trend, the GOP lost its fifth consecutive competitive special election in Republican-friendly territory."
Here's a bit of a surprise: New York Gov. David Paterson (D), still suffering from
terrible job approval numbers, just released his first re-election advertisements.
Key line: "When you become governor, you learn you will make a lot of mistakes."
Ben Smith notes the ads are "aimed at improving his low poll numbers and signaling his determination to seek another term in office."
Read more...
Mark Blumenthal has a must-read look at the final polls from Tuesday's election.
"If what you care about most is predicting the winners, it is clear that the automated surveys provided a more accurate gauge of the outcome... But that said, consider that we count on polls to do much more than predict the outcome..."
"Automated polls have been maligned, unfairly in my view, as inherently 'unreliable.' Yet when it comes to predicting election outcomes they continue to prove, NY-23 aside, at least as reliable as surveys done by conventional means. In New Jersey this week, they were more accurate in predicting the winner. At the same time, however, it would be wrong to jump to the opposite conclusion and place inherently greater trust in all automated surveys, especially when used for purposes other than predicting election outcomes."
"All polls have their limitations. Rather than trying to divide them into two categories, 'reliable' and 'crap,' we might do better to try to understand their limitations and interpret the results we see accordingly."
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