“Congress is filled with a bunch of losers, but not exactly in the way you’re thinking,” Nathan Gonzales writes.
“In the wake of the elections, it’s easy to second-guess losing candidates and their campaigns, and to discount their chances of ever winning a seat in Congress. But at least 27 incoming House members have electoral losses on their records — more than 40 percent of the new class — and many of them lost contests for the same seat they will represent in the 114th Congress.”
A new JMC Analytics and Polling survey in Louisiana’s 6th congressional district finds Rep. Garret Graves (R) with a hefty lead over challenger and former Gov. Edwin Edwards (D), 61% to 35%.
“That lines up fairly well with the results of the Nov. 4 primary, where Graves finished second but split the vote with three other significant Republican candidates. About 65 percent of voters in the primary voted for Republicans, while 35 percent voted for Democrats.”
[speech_bubble type=”std” subtype=”a” icon=”pwdome.jpg” name=””]It’s been 31 years since Edwards bragged, “The only way I can lose this election is if I’m caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy.” [/speech_bubble]
New on the Sarah Palin Channel: The former Republican vice presidential candidate says President Obama is “giving the middle finger” to voters.
[speech_bubble type=”std” subtype=”a” icon=”pwdome.jpg” name=””]The video is mostly incomprehensible but I’d encourage you to watch. It’s especially amusing since Palin once called me an “idiot.” [/speech_bubble]
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First Read: “One of the emerging pieces of conventional wisdom is how Hillary Clinton — because she’s white, because she’s a woman — could outperform Obama among some key demographic groups. But what’s striking in our NBC/WSJ poll is how SIMILAR the two are; perhaps she will over perform with some older white voters but right now, there isn’t a lot of evidence of that.”
“That’s the trouble with having some of these new, young punks around here. They ought to listen to us old geezers.”
— Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), quoted by the Washington Post, noting “it only takes a couple” of comments for an unflattering narrative to build about the Republican response to President Obama’s executive actions.
[speech_bubble type=”std” subtype=”a” icon=”pwdome.jpg” name=””]Get off my lawn! [/speech_bubble]
The New York Times looks at the acrimonious relationship between White House staff and those who work for Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), especially chief of staff David Krone.
“Administration and congressional officials have argued that the transgressions of Mr. Krone — publicly challenging the president, betraying the Oval Office code of silence and acting more like a senator than a staff member to one — have damaged Democratic unity at a time when the party can least afford it, as its numbers in Congress dwindle and the president sorely needs discipline in his ranks to advance what is left of his agenda. It all exploded this month when Mr. Krone, 48, astonished even some veteran Capitol Hill staff members by speaking on the record in a highly critical way about private conversations with Mr. Obama.”
[speech_bubble type=”std” subtype=”a” icon=”pwdome.jpg” name=””]It’s particularly interesting to learn that Krone listens in on private phone conversations Reid has with Obama. [/speech_bubble]
President Obama “would veto any legislation hatched by Republicans to undo his immigration executive action granting relief to millions,” a senior administration official tells Roll Call.
“The official left no doubt that the White House is prepared for a shutdown standoff if Republicans attach a rider to the upcoming spending bill needed to keep the government open past Dec. 11.”
Also interesting: “If there was one moment that sealed the timing, the official said, it was when Speaker John A. Boehner was asked by a reporter after the election if he could commit to bringing up an immigration bill in the next Congress, and the Ohio Republican refused to do so. The president wasn’t willing to wait to give the newly elected Republican Congress a chance to act with no commitment or expectation that they would.”
“The White House’s briefing to Democrats on immigration Thursday erupted instead into a confrontation over the Senate’s classified torture report,” Senate sources told the Huffington Post.
Senate Intelligence Chair Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) “waited for the immigration discussion to end and then pulled out a prepared speech that she read for five or six minutes, making the case for the release of the damning portrayal of America’s post-9/11 torture program…. Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), who served as intelligence committee chair before Feinstein, was furious after the meeting, and accused the administration of deliberately stalling the report.”
[speech_bubble type=”std” subtype=”a” icon=”pwdome.jpg” name=””]This may be one area where the White House will be glad when Republicans take control of the Senate in January. [/speech_bubble]
“House Republicans filed a long-threatened lawsuit Friday against the Obama administration over unilateral actions on the health care law that they say are abuses of the president’s executive authority,” the New York Times reports.
“The lawsuit — filed against the secretaries of the Health and Human Services and Treasury Departments — focuses on two crucial aspects of the way the administration has put the Affordable Care Act into effect.”
First Read notes it’s almost impossible to imagine what GOP-passed legislation might look like. Republicans couldn’t even agree on a political strategy to combat the president’s ‘constitutional overstep’ – the thing that unites them. How will they find common ground on an issue as complex, messy and demographically fraught as immigration reform?”
“There’s a danger here for the GOP if they get too focused on the process and ignore the policy challenge facing them. If they focus too much on tactics, it will quickly frustrate the public which clearly has less patience for gridlock than everyone in Washington realizes. Republicans would be in a very different place on this issue right now and on their criticism of the president’s action if they had ANY bill – even one that might not get presidential support — to show the public. But they don’t have ANY bill… not a singular one that is border security first. Nothing.”
[speech_bubble type=”std” subtype=”a” icon=”pwdome.jpg” name=””]John Boehner has proven himself unable to control his caucus so the onus will be on Mitch McConnell, an extremely skilled legislator, to take the lead for Republicans. [/speech_bubble]
Speaker John Boehner said that President Obama was “damaging the presidency itself” by using his executive authority to prevent the deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants, the New York Times reports.
Said Boehner: “With this action, the president has chosen to deliberately sabotage any chance of enacting bipartisan reforms that he claims to seek. And as I told him yesterday, he’s damaging the presidency itself.”
“Mr. Obama, in his address to the nation Thursday night, all but dared congressional Republicans to act — either by passing their own immigration legislation to trump his executive action or by challenging him in a way that could be politically disastrous for the Republican brand… In the lead-up to his announcement and in the hours after, Republicans struggled to balance fighting what they view as an abuse of presidential power while still offering a carefully moderated response that does not damage the party’s standing with Latino voters, the nation’s fastest-growing minority, or imperil its governing agenda next year, when it controls both chambers.”
[speech_bubble type=”std” subtype=”a” icon=”pwdome.jpg” name=””]And with that, the House now heads off on recess until December 1. [/speech_bubble]
Incoming Nevada Speaker Ira Hansen (R) told the Las Vegas Review Journal that his comments made as a newspaper columnist and talk radio host almost 20 years ago — including referring to blacks as “simple minded darkies” — were “taken out of context,” and were meant to be “purposely provocative in various political, cultural and religious views.”
Jeff Zeleny: “President Obama’s executive order on immigration won’t ever become the law of the land, it can be reversed with the stroke of a pen by the 45th president. But how likely is it that he — or she — would actually do that? There will be pressure on every 2016 candidate to take a stand on whether they would repeal it and erase the protections afforded to up to 5 million people. Republicans know they are boxed in a bit of a corner. Taking something away from such a large swath of people — even while trying to improve their appeal to Hispanic voters — may be an impossible challenge. Will there be any GOP hopeful who says the president’s order should stand? It would be risky, but likely more realistic.”
[speech_bubble type=”std” subtype=”a” icon=”pwdome.jpg” name=””]Many think the immigration issue forced Republicans so far right in 2012 they could never recover. Romney ended up with just 27% of the Hispanic vote.[/speech_bubble]
Ezra Klein: “Republicans aren’t just the opposition party anymore. They are, arguably, the governing party — they will soon control the House, the Senate, the Supreme Court, most state legislatures, and more governorships. And the governing party needs to solve — or at least propose solutions — to the nation’s problems. And that means the Republican policy on immigration needs to be something more than opposing Obama’s immigration policies. It needs to be something more than vague noises about border security.”
[speech_bubble type=”std” subtype=”a” icon=”pwdome.jpg” name=””]With his action last night, Obama was able to simultaneously implement his party’s policy goals while dividing the opposition. That’s why Democrats have the advantage in this fight.[/speech_bubble]
National Journal: “Rep. George Miller’s Capitol Hill row house, the inspiration for the Amazon series Alpha House, has been the Washington dwelling of many Democratic lawmakers over the past three decades. Its current tenants, Sens. Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin, have lived with Miller for more than a combined 50 years (Schumer moved in back in 1982; Durbin a decade later).”
“But that arrangement is coming to an end. Asked if the gang was sticking together with Miller’s impending retirement, Durbin replied with an emphatic ‘nope.’ Asked to clarify, he said the house was being sold. He did not answer if he and Schumer would be house-hunting together or striking out on their own.”
“It’s brazen. He’s acting like a petulant child who is upset with the American people because they disagree with the worthiness of his public policies. He doesn’t want the American people in future elections determining the outcome of those elections. Rather, he wants to import millions of foreigners who he hopes will tip the balance of future election in the Democratic Party’s favor.”
— Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL), quoted by the Huntsville Times, on President Obama’s immigration measures.
Betsy Woodruff: “I spent the past few days asking Republican senators what they meant when they referred to amnesty in terms of immigration policy. The answers I got were intriguing. That’s because while Republican congressional leaders are always eager to discuss their opposition to this vague, amorphous concept, many of them are downright befuddled when asked to explain what that concept looks like in real life. Their responses ranged from straightforward to nonsensical.”
[speech_bubble type=”std” subtype=”a” icon=”pwdome.jpg” name=””]Amnesty wasn’t always such a loaded word. Ronald Reagan repeatedly stated that he favored amnesty for some undocumented immigrants.[/speech_bubble]
Former Sen Scott Brown (R), who lost his bid to unseat Sen. Jean Shaheen (D-NH), is rejoining Fox News as a contributor, the Boston Herald reports.
“Brown’s decision to rejoin the cable news station is no surprise. The former senator left his Fox News gig and his job with the Boston law firm Nixon Peabody to campaign in New Hampshire, so he does need a job… The gig also keeps him in the public eye and on the radar should he decide that his political career isn’t over.”
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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