Nate Cohn: “Republican hopes for attracting more Hispanic voters suffered another setback on Friday when the House passed a bill to effectively end President Obama’s program to defer deportations of undocumented children. Yet the vote is unlikely to deal a severe blow to the party’s chances in November’s midterm elections. Hispanic voters may be flexing their growing political muscles in presidential elections, but they have far less sway over the composition of the House or the Senate, particularly in 2014.”
Quote of the Day
“Barack Obama has been a disaster. I guess that’s what we get for electing someone with no experience. He was only two years into his first big job when he started campaigning for the next one. Sound familiar?”
— Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), quoted by Politico, campaigning against challenger Allison Lundergran Grimes.
Republicans Slightly Favored to Take Senate
Nate Silver: “The problem for Democrats is that this year’s Senate races aren’t being fought in neutral territory… It therefore shouldn’t be surprising that we continue to see Republicans as slightly more likely than not to win a net of six seats this November and control of the Senate. A lot of it is simply reversion to the mean.2 This may not be a “wave” election as 2010 was, but Republicans don’t need a wave to take over the Senate.”
“Summing the probabilities of each race yields an estimate of 51 seats for Republicans. That makes them very slight favorites — perhaps somewhere in the neighborhood of 60-40 — to take control of the Senate, but also doesn’t leave them much room for error.”
“However, I also want to advance a cautionary note. It’s still early, and we should not rule out the possibility that one party could win most or all of the competitive races.”
The Upshot says Republicans have a 53% chance of winning control.
Dead Heat in Wisconsin
A new Human Events/Gravis Marketing poll in Wisconsin finds Gov. Scott Walker (R) and challenger Mary Burke (D) deadlocked in the race for governor, 47% to 47%, with 6% still unsure.
An Interview on Air Force One
The Economist interviewed President Obama on Air Force One on topics ranging from foreign affairs to regulation of business.
“Because the interview took place on board a plane with three people hunched round a microphone, the sound quality is less than perfect.”
Six States in Six Days
First Read notes there are primary contests taking place in six states over the next six days.
“On Tuesday, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, and Washington hold their primaries… On Thursday — a rare day for elections — Tennessee holds its primaries… And then on Saturday, Hawaii has primaries featuring the top Democratic intra-party fights this cycle.”
The Case for Censuring President Obama
John Fund: “There is another option, short of impeachment, for sanctioning the President’s unconstitutional conduct in office. The House of Representatives can and should in coming months prepare and debate a unicameral resolution identifying and condemning President Obama’s usurpations of legislative power and his repeated refusal to faithfully execute the laws.”
“The Congressional Research Service has identified a number of historical precedents in which the Senate or the House has adopted a resolution of censure or disapproval of a president or other executive or judicial officers.”
2016 Presidential Hopefuls Flood Iowa
Des Moines Register: “It’s like the holiday shopping season: The presidential vetting season seems to keep coming earlier and earlier. Seven potential GOP presidential types will pop in for an Iowa audition during an 11-day span that began Saturday and stretches to next Tuesday.”
Big Money Moves Into Judicial Races
Bloomberg Businessweek: “Spending on judicial races has been ticking up along with overall election spending for the past decade, but the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling, which lifted restrictions on political spending by groups unaffiliated with individual campaigns, has driven money into races once run on shoestring budgets.”
“For donors, smaller races offer distinct advantages over presidential or congressional elections. It’s relatively inexpensive to influence the outcome, and voters tend to have less-fixed opinions of municipal or state officials. Judges are particularly attractive targets, because they have authority to rule on ideological issues such as abortion or to set precedents on business regulations.”
Will the GOP Base Finally Win in 2016?
Lloyd Green: “With few exceptions, the Republican establishment prevails over its base. Yet, 2016 may be different, as the GOP becomes ever more evangelical, Southern, blue collar, and alienated. True, the road and rules to the convention favor the Republican machinery, but even so, the rank and file must buy in if the plans of the party’s elite are to work as imagined.”
Conflicting Polls in Hawaii
A new Hawaii News Now/Star Advertiser Hawaii poll shows Colleeen Hanabusa (D) leading Sen. Brian Schatz (D) by eight points in their Democratic primary race, 50% to 42%.
A Civil Beat poll last week found Schatz with an eight point lead.
Paul Lays 2016 Groundwork
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) “hasn’t said whether he will seek the 2016 GOP presidential nomination. But his aggressive groundwork seems to point to no other outcome,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“In recent weeks, the Kentucky Republican announced political hires in quick succession in Iowa, New Hampshire and Michigan– states key to winning his party’s nomination. Staffers mention a future campaign headquarters in Louisville and claim an email list of one million supporters, details most potential presidential hopefuls keep quiet. A super PAC launched by backers shortly before the 2012 election offers a repository for big donors.”
The Inside Story Behind Rick Perry’s Glasses
Michelle Cottle looks at why Texas Gov. Rick Perry suddenly started wearing glasses.
“I relay this extraordinarily comprehensive story because, first of all, I figure most everyone in Washington has wondered at some point about Perry’s glasses. But I also share it because, at least in my experience, it’s somewhat unusual for a (potential) presidential candidate to call up and lead a reporter so far into the medical weeds. That Perry did so speaks to a key aspect of his rehab mission: This is a guy seen as having mailed it in the last time he ran for president, stumbling and bumbling his way to disaster. This time around, whether it’s finding the time for an exacting ophthalmological discussion, making repeat visits to Iowa, or offering self-deprecating jokes about his 2012 belly flop, Perry wants everyone to know that he is ready–gung ho, even–for the nitpicking and hoop-jumping and all-around hard work that a serious White House campaign entails.”
Florida to Begin Redrawing Districts
“Florida legislative leaders said on Sunday they plan to call a special session on Thursday after a judge ordered them to redraw the state’s U.S. congressional maps and held open the possibility of delaying general elections in November,” Reuters reports.
Rethinking the GOP’s Demographic Time Bomb
Chris Cillizza: “It’s a widely accepted idea that Republicans are sitting on a demographic time bomb: The GOP is getting whiter and whiter in terms of the voters it attracts even as the country is growing increasingly diverse.”
“Marisa Abrajano, an associate professor of political science at the University of California at San Diego, doesn’t dispute that basic notion in a new study of the electorate. But she does suggest that the time bomb may well have a very long fuse — and that in the time before it explodes, Republicans could actually benefit electorally from a consolidation of the white vote.”
White House Shifts Media Strategy
Politico notes that in the past seven weeks, President Obama has taken questions an average of once a week.
“Obama himself has been feeling isolated, aware that he’s not breaking through to the public. Senior advisers say they have noticed their message gets lost when the president holds what has amounted to quarterly formal press conferences.”
“So the White House is going the other way, setting up the president for casual lunches with Americans who write him letters, late-night games of pool and surprise strolls around Washington. And it means more interaction with White House beat reporters, not just the kind of nontraditional outreach through celebrity magazines, sports radio and social networks that the administration used to great effect throughout his presidency.”
Did Texas Execute an Innocent Man?
“For more than 20 years, the prosecutor who convicted Cameron Todd Willingham of murdering his three young daughters has insisted that the authorities made no deals to secure the testimony of the jailhouse informer who told jurors that Willingham confessed the crime to him,” the Washington Post reports.
“Since Willingham was executed in 2004, officials have continued to defend the account of the informer, Johnny E. Webb, even as a series of scientific experts have discredited the forensic evidence that Willingham might have deliberately set the house fire in which his toddlers were killed.”
“But now new evidence has revived questions about Willingham’s guilt: In taped interviews, Webb, who has previously both recanted and affirmed his testimony, gives his first detailed account of how he lied on the witness stand in return for efforts by the former prosecutor, John H. Jackson, to reduce Webb’s prison sentence for robbery and to arrange thousands of dollars in support from a wealthy Corsicana rancher. Newly uncovered letters and court files show that Jackson worked diligently to intercede for Webb after his testimony and to coordinate with the rancher, Charles S. Pearce Jr., to keep the mercurial informer in line.”
40 Years Since Nixon Resigned
New York Times: “As the anniversary of his fall arrives this week, Watergate has faded into a few pages in a history book or a cliché to pull out in a news conference or a suffix to attach to some new scandal-gate. More than half of Americans were not alive when Nixon resigned and many others were too young to remember it. But a series of new books, documentaries, panel discussions and television programs has opened a re-examination of a dark and difficult period in American history.”
