A new USA Today poll finds that 46% of Americans think President Obama should hold off and allow the new Republican majorities in the House and Senate to act on immigration reform while 42% say Obama should act now.
Obama has pledged to act by the end of the year.
A new Gravis Marketing poll in Louisiana finds Bill Cassidy (R) leading Sen. Mary Landrieu (D) by 21 points in their U.S. Senate runoff, 59% to 38%.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that she has no plans to relinquish her leadership position until Democrats retake control of the House, the Washington Post reports.
Said Pelosi: “I could have walked away, but we built something and then we want to take it to the next step. I thought I’d be long gone by now. I thought we’d win the third term in the majority [in 2010] and I would have completed some of the work. I’m not here because I want to have the accoutrement of being leader. I’m here because we have a mission to accomplish for the American people.”
Roll Call: “In a shock to her caucus, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi selected Rep. Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico as chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for the 2016 cycle.”
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Gerald Seib: “Republicans, of course, have taken control of the Senate after eight years of Democratic rule, and lawmakers from both parties are nursing serious grievances over how the other side behaved during that stretch.”
“Democrats endured a blizzard of Republican filibusters, shattering previous records and helping gum up the works. That’s the burden new Majority Leader Mitch McConnell carries when he says, as he did the day after the election, ‘This gridlock and dysfunction can be ended.'”
“Republicans chafed under the iron-fisted rule of Democratic leader Harry Reid , who regularly limited debate, blocked amendments and prevented votes. That’s the burden Mr. Reid now faces when he says, as he did last week, ‘This is not get-even time.'”
“With the health insurance marketplace now open for a second year, President Obama will be depending more than ever on the insurance companies that five years ago he accused of padding profits and canceling coverage for the sick,” the New York Times reports.
“Those same insurers have long viewed government as an unreliable business partner that imposed taxes, fees and countless regulations and had the power to cut payment rates and cap profit margins.”
“But since the Affordable Care Act was enacted in 2010, the relationship between the Obama administration and insurers has evolved into a powerful, mutually beneficial partnership that has been a boon to the nation’s largest private health plans and led to a profitable surge in their Medicaid enrollment.”
The Atlantic: “For all of the Republican handwringing over President Obama’s use—or overuse—of executive authority, there is one exclusive presidential power he has barely wielded at all: the veto.”
“Obama has rejected just two bills passed by Congress in his nearly six years in office. That’s the fewest of any president since James Garfield, who didn’t veto a single bill, but lasted only six months in the White House before his assassination in 1881. And when you look at presidents who have served as long as Obama has, you’d have to go back to James Monroe, the nation’s fifth president, to find a chief executive who has formally clashed with Congress so rarely. Monroe vetoed just one bill in his two terms, according to records kept by the Senate.”
“That’s about to change for Obama in January, when Republicans control both the House and the Senate.”
Gallup: “As the Affordable Care Act’s second open enrollment period begins, 37% of Americans say they approve of the law, one percentage point below the previous low in January. Fifty-six percent disapprove, the high in disapproval by one point.”
“Repeal is highly unlikely, given Obama’s veto power, but the law’s new low in approval — and new high in disapproval (56%) — could potentially have an impact on its future. The president himself has acknowledged he will consider modifications to the law, which could include repealing the tax on medical devices.”
Wonk Wire: Who still lacks health insurance?
“I think that, for the moment, it will take money to win the election to get people there who believe in taking the money out.”
— House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), quoted by Politico.
New York Times: “Today, Mr. Obama needs a foreign policy accomplishment more than ever, and he sees time running out on his hope of changing the calculus in a Middle East where Americans are, against his instincts, back on the ground. But the forces arrayed against a deal are formidable — not just Mr. Khamenei and the country’s hard-liners, but newly empowered Republicans, some of his fellow Democrats, and many of the United States’ closest allies.”
“Yet even if a deal is struck it will be the beginning of an argument, rather than the end of one. For many of the president’s adversaries, the details of whatever deal he emerges with — how much warning the West would have if Iran raced for a bomb, for example — are almost beside the point.”
“The coalition of voters that twice elected President Obama to the White House might not be there for the Democratic nominee in 2016, party strategists are warning,” The Hill reports.
“Following their disastrous showing at the polls this month, many Democrats have consoled themselves with talk of how the groups that fueled Obama’s resounding victories — namely minorities and young people — will make up a bigger slice of the electorate in two years’ time. But some fear the party is placing far too much trust in demographics, while ignoring the unique circumstances that led to Obama’s rise.”
“This idea of poking Republicans with a stick in the eye is not a good idea.”
— Mitt Romney, in a CBS News interview, on President Obama challenging Republicans after the midterm elections.
“Republicans and outside groups used anonymous Twitter accounts to share internal polling data ahead of the midterm elections, CNN has learned, a practice that raises questions about whether they violated campaign finance laws that prohibit coordination.”
“The Twitter accounts were hidden in plain sight. The profiles were publicly available but meaningless without knowledge of how to find them and decode the information, according to a source with knowledge of the activities.”
“The practice is the latest effort in the quest by political operatives to exploit the murky world of campaign finance laws at a time when limits on spending in politics are eroding and regulators are being defanged.”
“Less than two weeks after winning a fourth term,” California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) “plans to collect more money for his reelection committee Monday at a Sacramento reception with lobbyists and their clients,” the Los Angeles Times reports.
“The event is unusual. Typically, candidates who continue to raise money after being elected do so to retire campaign debt. But Brown, who coasted to reelection, appears to have none to repay. As of Oct. 18, the governor still had nearly $21 million in his reelection account, according to the committee’s most recent finance statement.”
“I privately talk to senators, and they’re just baffled. All the things that people were seriously upset with the administration about, it seems the president is doubling down on them.”
— Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), quoted by the Washington Post, on a newly-combative President Obama.
“Less than two weeks after Republicans won control of Congress, acrimony over immigration is dampening hopes for cooperation on more ambitious initiatives, with President Obama and GOP lawmakers bracing not for compromise but for combat,” the Washington Post reports.
“Obama has been promising to cut the nation’s corporate tax rate, the highest in the world, for nearly three years. And with a rash of companies moving abroad to escape U.S. taxes, many Republicans see action on that issue as critical to both the economy and their political fortunes in 2016, when more than 20 GOP senators will be up for reelection.”
“However, lawmakers say that instead of engaging with Republicans, Obama has provoked them on a range of issues, most explosively his threat to unilaterally halt deportations of millions of undocumented immigrants. And instead of starting work on tax legislation that would be politically and substantively challenging under the best circumstances, Republicans are threatening another bitter partisan showdown that risks shutting down the government.”
“The next two years may be when Joe gets his last, best chance to help run the show,” David Hawking writes.
“Joseph R. Biden Jr. is preparing to celebrate his 72nd birthday next week and has been sending really mixed signals about where he’d like to take his career in 2016. But regardless of whether he decides to launch his third uphill campaign for president, the 47th vice president of the United States is positioned by the force of his experience, personality and circumstance to be among the indispensable players of the 114th Congress.”
“In the days since the U.S. midterm elections, President Obama has begun grooming his legacy in ways that place him on a collision course not just with Republicans in Congress, but with his own Democratic Party,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“All of it appears designed to demonstrate his continued relevancy on the heels of an election that solidified his status as a politically weakened lame duck.”
Politico: Obama turns to McConnell to secure legacy
A new Magellan Strategies poll in Louisiana finds Bill Cassidy (R) crushing Sen. Mary Landrieu (D) in their runoff race for U.S. Senate, 57% to 41%.
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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