Nate Cohn: “Voter ID laws might well be a cynical, anti-democratic attempt to disenfranchise voters to help Republicans, as Democrats claim. But that doesn’t mean that voter ID laws are an effective way to steal elections. They just don’t make a difference in anything but the closest contests, when anything and everything matters.”
Archives for November 2014
Did Obama Break the Democratic Party?
Politico: “Democrats are in worse shape than when President Barack Obama came into office — the number of seats they have in Congress, the number of governors, a party approval rating that’s fallen behind Republicans for the first time in recent history, enthusiasm, energy.”
“Interviews with leading party strategists turn to three main suggestions: Obama should be a much more frequent and strong voice on Democratic priorities, he should transform his West Wing political office from a midterm clearinghouse to an instrument for true party outreach, and he should reinvest his energy in the Democratic National Committee — including seeking a full-time chair who can begin the major clean-up and overhaul they need ahead of 2016.”
[speech_bubble type=”std” subtype=”a” icon=”pwdome.jpg” name=””]Of course, the same question was asked about George W. Bush and the Republican party after the 2006 midterm elections. [/speech_bubble]
McCaskill Book Delayed Until Next Summer
Sen. Claire McCaskill’s (D-MO) forthcoming book, tentatively titled Plenty Ladylike, was expected by the end of 2014 but has been delayed until July 2015, the Kansas City Star reports.
“The Missouri Democrat has promised the full story of her 2012 victory over Todd Akin, and the tome may include other insider score-settling as well.”
[speech_bubble type=”std” subtype=”a” icon=”pwdome.jpg” name=””]This book has been talked up for months but I question how interesting the McCaskill-Akin race will seem next summer. [/speech_bubble]
House Republicans Stick Mostly with White Men
“House Republicans have selected white men to chair all but one of their standing committees next year,” National Journal reports.
“The secretive Republican Steering Committee announced its recommendations late Tuesday after an all-day meeting to pick the heads of 17 committees, with all of those slots going to white men. Rep. Candice Miller, who was previously reappointed by Speaker John Boehner to lead the House Administration Committee, will remain the only woman to wield a gavel.”
Carter May Run Again in Georgia
Jason Carter (D) told the Atlanta Journal Constitution he could run again for Georgia governor.
Said Carter: “I’m not ruling it out. And I’ll certainly commit to having a role in this debate that we’ve started, and the future of politics in this state. And whether that puts me on the ballot again is a question that has to be answered later. I’m not going anywhere.”
[speech_bubble type=”std” subtype=”a” icon=”pwdome.jpg” name=””]Carter’s grandfather lost his first run for Georgia governor in 1966 and came back to win in 1970. Six years later he was elected President of the United States. [/speech_bubble]
Why Did Republicans Exceed Expectations?
David Wasserman: “The answer lies less in what Republicans did, and more in what Democratic voters didn’t do: show up to vote in so-called orphan states.”
“To ease my post-election withdrawal, I built a spreadsheet of results in all 435 districts to analyze what happened. What it illustrated: By winning just 52 percent of votes cast for the House, Republicans were able to win 57 percent of all House seats. Thanks in part to favorable redistricting after the 2010 Census, Republicans will likely have won five more seats than they did in 2010, even though Republican candidates won by less of an aggregate vote margin than they did four years ago.”
“The election of a historically large Republican majority coincided with the lowest turnout in a midterm election since 1942. But the 2014 race for the House played out in two very different sets of states. In the 24 states hosting high-profile, competitive Senate or gubernatorial races, raw votes cast in House races were down an average of 30.5 percent from 2012.2 But in the 26 states that weren’t, raw votes were down a much more severe 43.9 percent.”
[speech_bubble type=”std” subtype=”a” icon=”pwdome.jpg” name=””]This is exceptionally good analysis of what happened in the midterm elections.[/speech_bubble]
The Race for 2016 Campaign Talent Begins
National Journal: “Potential candidates insist it’s far too early to start talking about the 2016 election. But a slew of significant staff changes among top contenders show that the presidential gears are already turning—and fast. There has been turnover, poaching, back-stabbing, and departures among a half-dozen would-be candidates, including Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Chris Christie, and Hillary Clinton, all since the midterms ended two weeks ago.”
Who Is Jonathan Gruber?
Jon Stewart investigates on the Daily Show:
Conservatives Like Walker in 2016
John Podhoretz says Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) is an early frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination.
“I just spent a week among people who are: 550 conservative and Republican voters who traveled on National Review magazine’s semi-annual cruise. The cruisers are consumed with politics. And overwhelmingly — and I mean no one else was even close — their favorite for 2016 is the governor of Wisconsin.”
“These NR readers don’t precisely match the GOP electorate, but they’re a pretty significant leading indicator. They are, to a person, conservative, and they know a great deal about the ways that conservative ideas and Republican politics interact — and clash.”
Meanwhile, Walker told the AP it’s “pretty obvious” that running for president is something he has to consider: “I spend a lot of time not just talking with people but praying about, thinking about with my family as well whether or not eventually that might be a call to run for the presidency.”
GOP Doubles Down on ‘Stupidity’ Gaffe
“Republican lawmakers are doubling down on controversial comments from Obamacare consultant Jonathan Gruber amid an explosion of interest from conservative media,” The Hill reports.
“Remarks that the ‘stupidity of the American voter’ and a ‘lack of transparency’ aided Obamacare’s passage have become a weeklong headache for the White House as GOP lawmakers use them to rally enthusiasm for further attacks on the healthcare law.”
Wonk Wire: Why Gruber’s comments were so stupid
Quote of the Day
“I was never going to run away from the president. It was not even in consideration. I support the president. I think the president has been right. I mean, look at the numbers, look at the job growth, sustained job growth—the greatest in American history. The. Greatest. In. American. History. Why didn’t people run on that?”
— Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy (D), quoted by the Daily Beast, on why he was one of the few Democrats who survived the 2014 midterm elections.
McConnell Seeks Super PAC to Keep GOP Majority
“Incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is exploring the creation of a super PAC dedicated to supporting Senate Republicans on the 2016 ballot,” sources tell the Washington Examiner.
“Senate Republicans were at a financial and advertising disadvantage for most of the 2014 cycle, as Senate Majority PAC, the super PAC of outgoing Majority Leader Harry Reid, carpet-bombed the airwaves in targeted states on behalf of Democratic candidates. McConnell wants an organization that can do the same for Republicans in 2016, a presidential year, when his barely-minted majority faces a tough Senate map, with incumbents up for re-election in states like Florida, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.”
Obama Agenda Threatens to Divide Democrats
“President Obama’s biggest problem over the next two years may not be coming from recalcitrant Republicans, but from members of his own party blanching at his activist agenda over the final two years of his presidency. While the midterm election results suggested widespread dissatisfaction with the president’s policies, Obama nonetheless is planning to press forward on several polarizing decisions in his final two years. It could help advance his legacy, but come at the expense of the Democratic Party’s long-term health,” National Journal reports.
“Three of the administration’s biggest agenda items—threatening a veto of bipartisan legislation authorizing construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, reaching a nuclear deal with Iran, and issuing an executive order legalizing millions of illegal immigrants—divide Democrats, and unite Republicans. If the president moves forward with all of them, it would aggravate fissures in an increasingly-divided Democratic Party.”
Politico: Liberal “hell no” caucus rises
Clinton Shadow Campaign Begins to Wind Down
“When staffers and supporters of Ready for Hillary gather Friday at a conference in Manhattan, the all-day event will mark the beginning of the end for the grass-roots super PAC that was an impressive branding exercise that, for better or worse, helped freeze the field of competition against Hillary Clinton for 2016,” Politico reports.
“The lower-dollar super PAC is set to begin its wind-down once Hillary Clinton declares her candidacy for president — something her allies insist she still may not do but that most expect her to.”
Romney with a Beard?
In a talk at Brigham Young University, Mitt Romney spoke about some of the lessons he learned from running for president.
Said Romney: “One of the best and the worst things about a campaign is that you get a lot of advice. Usually several times a day, someone in an audience would hand me a letter with their 100% sure-fire way for me to win the election. I was told to take bigger steps when I walk to show that I’m young and athletic. Another said I should stop shaving for a few days to look more sexy.”
Inside Mary Landrieu’s Final Keystone Push
The New York Times reports that “despite cajoling and browbeating her colleagues during a private lunch — which one attendee described as ‘civilized but pretty contentious’ — Ms. Landrieu, who has so often bulldozed her way to success, was not able to produce that elusive final vote.”
“At the lunch, Ms. Landrieu made an ‘impassioned plea’ that at moments verged on tears, according to a Democrat. Ms. Landrieu, according to the Democrat, focused part of her pitch on how the legislation would help her back home, though at one point she argued that Democrats should send the bill to Mr. Obama’s desk because it would help him politically by giving him something to veto.”
Bloomberg: “Landrieu had hoped the vote would prove to Louisiana voters that her clout and seniority still matters in Washington. Instead it showed the opposite: Her Democratic colleagues risked no political capital of their own to bail her out, and her Republican opponent, Representative Bill Cassidy, wasted no time rubbing it in.”
Senate Democrats Block Keystone XL Approval
“Senate Democrats narrowly defeated a bill 59 to 41 that would have approved the construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, rebuffing their Democratic colleague, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA), who had hoped to muscle the legislation through in advance of her uphill runoff election fight back home,” the New York Times reports.
“The battle over approving the pipeline, which will carry petroleum from the oil sands of Canada to the Gulf Coast of Texas, ultimately became a proxy war for the Louisiana Senate seat, where Ms. Landrieu and Republican Representative Bill Cassidy are locked in fight for votes in their oil-rich state ahead of the Dec. 6 runoff election.”
Roll Call: “Republican leaders plan to bring the pipeline legislation back up next year, when GOP reinforcements appear certain to bring it over the line and to President Obama’s desk.”
[speech_bubble type=”std” subtype=”a” icon=”pwdome.jpg” name=””]President Obama got the result he wanted. He doesn’t have to show his hand on Keystone XL until next year. [/speech_bubble]
What Will Obama Do If Keystone Passes?
“The White House played somewhat coy last week — blasting the congressional approval as an improper short-circuit of the review process currently underway at the U.S. State Department without explicitly saying that Mr. Obama would veto the bill,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The hedging on the Keystone issue leaves Mr. Obama’s options open. He could kick the Keystone bill back to Congress, where it’s very unlikely to clear the two-thirds vote threshold needed to override. Or he could sign it — or simply allow it to sit on his desk and become law without signing it, another option available to him — and take heat from progressives who have been loudly urging the him to ax the project.”
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