“Many expect an activist Supreme Court will strike down part or all of health reform. If they strike down the mandate, the Supreme Court will be paving the way to a single-payer system, or back to the old broken health care system.”
— Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE), quoted by TPM.
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A new National Geographic survey finds that nearly 65% of Americans think President Obama would be better suited than Mitt Romney to handle an alien invasion.
Despite conventional wisdom that most or all of President Obama’s health care law will be overturned by the Supreme Court tomorrow, Tom Goldstein of SCOTUSblog disagrees:
“I believe the mandate will not be invalidated tomorrow. Far less important, I expect the principal opinion will be written by the Chief Justice; a majority of the Court will find it has jurisdiction; and the challenge to the Medicaid expansion will be rejected.”
“Most observers disagree. There are certainly good reasons to believe the Court will invalidate the mandate. Most important, at the oral argument, the questions of two critical Justices – Justice Kennedy and the Chief Justice – were on the whole critical of the mandate’s constitutionality. But in the end, based on the entire mix of information I have, I think the mandate will not be struck down tomorrow.”
A new NBC News-Wall Street Journal-Telemundo poll finds Hispanics overwhelmingly approve of President Obama’s recently announced immigration policy and give him a 40-point lead over Mitt Romney, 66% to 26%.
However, just 66% of Latinos put themselves in the “high-interest” category for the election. That’s much lower than the average of 80% found for all adults.
A new ABC News-Washington Post poll finds just 36% express a favorable opinion of the health care law under Supreme Court review, but just 39% like the health care system as it currently stands.
“That means that while the intended fix is unpopular, so is the status quo – leaving the public still in search of solutions.”
Jonathan Martin notes that populism — “with its rowdy zeal to brawl against economic elites on behalf of the working classes” — was for decades the Democratic party’s defining cause but it’s now largely been abandoned.
“The recent convergence of setbacks on the left has activists and historians alike pondering anew how the modern Democratic Party has severed its connection to its own history — a tradition that many liberals wrongly imagined was about to spring back to life in the Obama years… These days, it’s possible to count on one hand the number of unapologetic populists in the U.S. Senate and, besides Elizabeth Warren, there are few more on the horizon.”
“For the fighting left, it is a frustrating puzzle. If ever there was a moment for a good, old-fashioned class war, at first blush it seems now should be the time. Yet even after the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression, there are few politicians preaching, or practicing, the old-time religion.”
Sean Trende: “The real Supreme Court news on Tuesday wasn’t the Arizona immigration decision or even the summary reversal of the Supreme Court of Montana in the ‘Citizens United 2’ case. It was that the chief justice of the United States didn’t write any of these opinions.”
“This is critically important, because we can now deduce with a reasonably high degree of certainty that John Roberts is writing the lead health care opinion. If we are right about this, then the law is in even deeper trouble that most observers imagined.”
However, Ed Whelan reads the tea leaves and concludes “the Court will invalidate the individual mandate by a 5-4 vote.”
Businessweek: Anthony Kennedy, the Justice everyone is watching.
With a House vote scheduled tomorrow to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt over the “Fast and Furious” investigation, an investigation by Fortune magazine suggests that the ATF never intentionally allowed guns to fall in the hands of a Mexican cartel.
“Nobody disputes that suspected straw purchasers under surveillance by the ATF repeatedly bought guns that eventually fell into criminal hands. Issa and others charge that the ATF intentionally allowed guns to walk as an operational tactic. But five law-enforcement agents directly involved in Fast and Furious tell Fortune that the ATF had no such tactic. They insist they never purposefully allowed guns to be illegally trafficked. Just the opposite: They say they seized weapons whenever they could but were hamstrung by prosecutors and weak laws, which stymied them at every turn. Indeed, a six-month Fortune investigation reveals that the public case alleging that Voth and his colleagues walked guns is replete with distortions, errors, partial truths, and even some outright lies.”
While the national numbers from the latest NBC/WSJ poll show a stable presidential race, First Read notes Mitt Romney had a “rough month” in the swing states.
“Among the voters in our poll living in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin, Obama’s lead over Romney increases to 50%-42%. Also in these swing states, Romney’s favorability numbers have dropped: A month ago, Romney’s fav/unfav score stood at 34%/38% nationally and 36%-36% in these 12 swing states. But in this latest survey, his national fav/unfav score is 33%-39% (that 39% unfav is tied with his all-time high) and 30%-41% in the swing states.”
“What’s more, the poll shows that attitudes about Romney’s business background also are more unfavorable in these battlegrounds. Among swing-state respondents, 18% say what they’ve seen and heard about Romney’s business record gives them a more POSITIVE opinion about the Republican candidate, versus 33% who say it’s more NEGATIVE. That’s compared to the national 23%-to-28% margin on this question. The obvious conclusion here is that the negative TV ads pummeling Romney in the battleground states — like here and here and here — are having an impact.”
The Boston Globe previews Mitt Romney’s message after tomorrow’s Supreme Court ruling on President Obama’s health care plan:
“If the law is rejected, Romney plans to argue that Obama wasted both his time, and the time of the American people, by pursuing a policy that doesn’t pass constitutional muster. If the law is upheld, Romney would argue that opponents need to elect him so that he can overturn it himself.”
Jon Stewart turns his attention to “Fast and Furious” and Republican outrage over the botched ATF operation.
Best line: “They throw around the term Watergate so much at Fox, you’d think the guy running Fox had been a Nixon operative.”
“If they want to win an election, they need to be in their districts… A trip to Charlotte may be interesting, but why leave your districts?”
— DCCC chairman Steve Israel (D-NY), quoted by Reuters, telling lawmakers they should skip the Democratic national convention.
President Obama plans a two-day road trip through Pennsylvania and Ohio beginning July 5, the AP reports.
“It will be the president’s first bus tour of the 2012 campaign… The president will still headline campaign fundraisers through the fall, but the official said Obama’s schedule would start to include more of a mix of campaign rallies and other events focused on speaking directly to a wide swath of voters in the states Obama needs most in order to hold the White House.”
A Old Dominion University/Virginian-Pilot poll in Virginia finds President Obama leading Mitt Romney in the crucial battleground state, 49% to 42%.
A poll yesterday found Romney with a five point lead.
A new Quinnipiac poll finds President Obama with leads in the important battleground states of Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Florida: Obama 45%, Romney 41%
Ohio: Obama 47%, Romney 38%
Pennsylvania: Obama 45%, Romney 39%.
Said pollster Peter Brown: “If he can keep those leads in all three of these key swing states through election day he would be virtually assured of re-election.”
Rep. John Sullivan (R-OK) “became the first Oklahoma congressman ousted in 18 years Tuesday, as political newcomer Jim Bridenstine staged a Republican primary upset in the Tulsa-area district Sullivan has represented for a decade,” the Oklahoman reports.
He is the fourth incumbent to lose a primary challenge this year.
Politico calls Sullivan “an incumbent caught sleeping.”
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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