NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll: “By 63% to 35%, Republicans believe that the United States is a country where anyone can succeed, regardless of background. Democrats, by a 69% to 29% margin, disagree saying the widening income gap undermines that idea. Independents side with Democrats, 62% to 34%.”
Obama Gets Dragged Back Into Iraq
First Read: “The man who won the presidency in 2008 because he opposed the Iraq war and then ended it now finds himself facing this dilemma: Once you’re back in, how do you get out? That very dilemma, according our reporting, was precisely why President Obama until yesterday hadn’t committed U.S. force against the militant Sunni group ISIS, even as many in the intel community and on his own national security staff were urging him to act sooner. The fear: You get in even incrementally, and it’s hard to get out. Because how do you STOP helping if the initial help doesn’t work? But Obama’s main calculus changed yesterday when he announced the authorization of force — because ISIS is on the march against the Kurds in Erbil. And if you lose the Kurds, you lose Iraq.”
The New York Times reports the United States began airstrikes in Iraq.
Large Number Think Watergate Was Just Politics
A new CNN poll finds that 51% of Americans believe the Watergate scandal that led to President Richard Nixon’s resignation was a serious matter, while 46% think it’s the typical politics in which both political parties engage.
Clearly more people need to read Washington Journal by Elizabeth Drew, a fantastic book.
Why an Improving Economy Isn’t Helping Obama
Amy Walter: “While economists use data points to make assessments of the economy’s health (unemployment rate, GDP growth, etc.), voters are more likely to use their perceptions of the president to determine if things are getting better or not. Those perceptions are driven as much by partisanship as anything else. The more Washington engages in partisan fire-fights on issues ranging from Obamacare to immigration, the more hardened those partisan perceptions become, which is why even an improving economy isn’t lifting Obama’s approval ratings.”
Councilman Who Quit in Klingon Runs for Senate
“The Indian Trail councilman who wrote his resignation letter in Klingon wants to beam up to Capitol Hill. David Waddell is running as a write-in candidate for U.S. Senate,” the Charlotte Observer reports.
Said Waddell: “Having campaign signs in Klingon is probably a bad idea. But maybe I’ll make up one or two and put one in the mayor’s yard.”
GOP Takeover Looking More Likely
James Carville: “Democrats, myself included, tend to respect and value expertise, and find that people who have established a record of accuracy and developed a model that’s proven to be beneficial over time should be people accorded great deference when they opine on a topic that they have demonstrated past mastery over.”
“You don’t hear complaints about skewered polls, global cooling, tax cuts paying for themselves, people riding dinosaurs and other silly crap like that from Democrats. So that is why it’s disturbing news that David Wasserman, from The Cook Political Report, who is a smart person’s idea of what a smart person sounds like, recently changed his House rating’s model toward favoring Republicans. 538.com’s Nate Silver’s recent commentary that Republicans have a 60 percent chance of a Senate takeover is similarly disconcerting. The reasons are plentiful and valid; the obvious ones are that we’re in the sixth year of the presidential term, there’s a tepid presidential approval rating, we’re seeing high wrong-track numbers, and we’re facing an unfavorable map. In the past these numbers have proven to have a great deal of validity.”
Is McConnell’s Wife Trying to Kill the Coal Industry?
Yahoo News reports that while Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) “presents himself as a defender of Kentucky coal mining, a member of his own family who serves as a key campaign surrogate is taking a role in funding one of the most aggressive anti-coal campaigns in the country.”
“McConnell’s wife, former Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao, sits on the board of directors of Bloomberg Philanthropies, which has plunged $50 million into the Sierra Club’s ‘Beyond Coal’ initiative, an advocacy effort with the expressed goal of killing the coal industry.”
Obama Approval Starting to Resemble Bush
Stu Rothenberg highlights President Obama’s approval rate in the latest WSJ/NBC News poll is 40%, with 54% disapproving of his performance.
“Since Bush’s late July 2006 job ratings stood at 39% approve/56% disapprove, the new Obama numbers bear an even more uncomfortably close resemblance to Bush’s.”
Voters Tuning Out Midterm Elections
The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll “shows an angry electorate that blames Washington for much of its pain. And with their blood boiling and Election Day only three months away, voters look ready to do… maybe not too much.”
“For all the displeasure with the country’s general direction – more than 70% say the country is on the wrong track, only 40% approve of the job President Barack Obama is doing and only 14% approve of Congress – there is less interest in this November’s voting than there was at this time in 2010. And that’s true across Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives and all age groups.”
Will Obama Face Midterm Backlash on Immigration?
Brendan Nyhan wonders why President Obama would risk taking executive action on immigration before the midterm elections.
“Of course, Mr. Obama faces short-term pressures to address the surge in migrant children being detained at the border, but news media reports suggest that the policy changes under consideration would be far broader, potentially providing legal status to many of the nation’s undocumented immigrants. Such a broad executive action could provoke a backlash in the midterm elections that might be avoided with a move just a few months later.”
“It’s easy to overstate the effects of policy on electoral outcomes, but there is a recent worst-case example: the passage of the Affordable Care Act. Research that I conducted with a group of political scientists found that the Republican landslide in 2010 was strengthened by health care reform.”
Trust in Government Hits New Low
A new CNN poll finds that just 13% of Americans say the government can be trusted to do what is right always or most of the time, with just over three-quarters saying only some of the time and one in 10 saying they never trust the government.
Said pollster Keating Holland: “The number who trust the government all or most of the time has sunk so low that it is hard to remember that there was ever a time when Americans routinely trusted the government.”
Alexander Wins Nomination Easily
Sen. Lamar Alexander’s (R-TN) “convincing win over his tea party challengers in Thursday’s Republican primary sets up another battle the two-term incumbent is expected to win,” the Tennessean reports.
“But even though the Tennessee Democratic Party remains undermanned compared with the state’s dominant Republicans, it at least will have a candidate this fall who’s not a national joke — something the party couldn’t say two years ago.”
Roll Call: “His victory means no Republican senators have lost a primary challenge, ending the tea party’s streak at two cycles. None of the remaining primaries feature a Republican senator.”
DesJarlais in a Nail-Biter
Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-TN) “was clinging to what appeared to be a narrow victory over challenger Jim Tracy (R), defeating the state senator by 35 votes,” the Tennessean reports.
“The results are unofficial. Tennessee does not have an automatic recount law, but a candidate can request one from state and party officials. There also could be uncounted absentee or provisional ballots.”
Nashville Public Radio reports Tracy had already declared victory before the last votes were tallied.
Democrats Seek Senate Candidate in Montana
“A number of Democrats expressed interest in seeking the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate to replace Sen. John Walsh, who ended his campaign Thursday,” the Billings Gazette reports.
“And a number of prominent Democrats ruled themselves out, including Gov. Steve Bullock, former Gov. Brian Schweitzer, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Denise Juneau and state Auditor Monica Lindeen.”
Walsh Drops Senate Bid
Sen. John Walsh (D-MT) said he is “pulling out of the Senate race because his campaign was distracted by the controversy over allegations that he plagiarized a U.S. Army War College research paper,” the Billings Gazette reports.
“The Montana Democratic Party now will choose a replacement… The party has to select a new Senate candidate at a nominating convention by Aug. 20. About 175 delegates, including statewide and federal elected officials, county party committee leaders and the party executive board members, will pick the nominee.”
National Journal reports Walsh’s wife Janet was “openly sobbing” as she thanked members of the campaign.
LePage Doesn’t See a Close Race
Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) told the Bangor Daily News that he doesn’t believe the polls that show him in a tight re-election race.
Said LePage (in the third person): “The governor does not agree… The governor says that he’s either going to be blown out by a landslide or he’s going to win by a landslide… The Maine people are either going to throw me out or take me in wholeheartedly, but I don’t think this is going to be close.”
The End of Greatness
Out this fall: The End of Greatness: Why America Can’t Have (and Doesn’t Want) Another Great President by Aaron David Miller.
The Enthusiasm Gap is Overrated
Neil Newhouse: “Two years ago, the same polls that now show the GOP with a marginal advantage on this measure, showed much of the same thing – that GOP voters were significantly more excited about voting in the November Presidential election.”
“And, what happened? The enthusiasm gap was taken to the woodshed by the Obama team’s GOTV efforts. In a nutshell, the Democrats turned out voters who were unenthusiastic, unexcited and not ‘energized’ to vote, rendering the enthusiasm gap meaningless.”
