Todd Purdum: “You hear a lot about openness and transparency — and the disinfecting power of sunlight – -as keys to effective government. But let’s summon at least two cheers for the occasional usefulness of the backroom deal.”
Democrats Have Public Opinion On Their Side
A new Pew Research poll finds that when it comes to the reaching an agreement to avoid the fiscal cliff, 55% say President Obama is making a serious effort to work with Republicans. But just 32% say Republican leaders are making a serious effort to work with Obama on a deficit deal.
Also interesting: Obama’s first post-reelection job approval rating has risen to 55%, up five points since July and 11 points since the start of the year. His job rating is markedly higher than President George W. Bush’s first job measure (48%) after he won reelection in 2004.
In contrast, just 25% approve of the way Republican leaders in Congress are doing
their jobs, while 40% approve of Democratic leaders’ job performance.
Quote of the Day
“As I’ve said many times before, victory and defeat is temporary.
Depending on what happens, and where we go, all of us, we may obviously
meet again.”
— Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA), in a speech the Boston Globe describes as laying the groundwork for his eventual return to the U.S. Senate after being defeated for re-election.
Majority Supports Same-Sex Marriage
First Read: “For the first time ever in the NBC/WSJ poll, a majority of respondents
— 51% — support same-sex marriage. That percentage in support is up
from 30% in 2004, 41% in 2009 and 49% in March 2012, demonstrating how
quickly public opinion on this issue has changed in just eight years.”
Biden Waits on the Sidelines
Vice President Joe Biden “walked the halls of Congress and hosted top-level talks at Blair House during the last fiscal showdown. This time, he’s roaming the aisles of Costco,” Politico notes.
“It’s a stark shift in responsibilities for the vice president, who has been asked to hold off — for now — on leveraging his Capitol Hill connections and to leave the negotiating to his boss.”
“Biden’s new role is a product of President Barack Obama’s decision to streamline fiscal cliff negotiations between himself and House Speaker John Boehner, the two sides’ clear sticking points and Obama’s increased post-election political clout.”
Fiscal Cliff Talks Prove Vexing for Official Washington
Associated Press: “Republicans still aren’t budging on Obama’s demands for higher tax rates on upper bracket earners, despite the president’s convincing election victory and opinion polls showing support for the idea.”
“Democrats in turn are now resisting steps, such as raising the eligibility age for Medicare, that they were willing to consider just a year and a half ago, when Obama’s chief Republican adversary, House Speaker John Boehner, was in a better tactical position.”
Groups Vow to Push Anti-Union Drive in Other States
Conservative groups “that supported Michigan’s new ‘right to work’ law — winning a stunning victory over unions, even in the heart of American labor — vowed to replicate that success elsewhere,” the Washington Post reports.
“National unions, caught flat-footed in the Wolverine State, pledged
to offer fierce opposition wherever the idea crops up next. They
consider the laws a direct attack on their finances and political clout
at a time when labor influence is already greatly diminished.”
Wonk Wire: Do “right-to-work” laws make sense?
How Republicans Engineered a Big Blow to Unions
“From outside Michigan Republican circles, it appeared that the Republican drive to weaken unions came out of the blue – proposed, passed and signed in a mere six days.”
But Reuters reports the transformation had been in the making since March 2011 when two state senators “first seriously considered legislation to ban mandatory collection of union dues as a condition of employment in Michigan… The upstarts were flirting with the once unthinkable, limiting union rights in a state that is the home of the heavily unionized U.S. auto industry and the birthplace of the nation’s richest union, the United Auto Workers. For many Americans, Michigan is the state that defines organized labor.”
“But in a convergence of methodical planning and patient alliance building — the ‘systematic approach’ — the reformers were on a roll, one that establishment Michigan Republicans came to embrace and promised to bankroll. Republicans executed a plan — the timing, the language of the bills, the media strategy, and perhaps most importantly, the behind-the-scenes lobbying of top Republicans” including Gov. Rick Snyder (R).
Film’s Portrayal of Torture Reopens Debate
Zero Dark Thirty, the new movie about the hunt for Osama bin Laden, offers an “unflinching portrayal of the Central Intelligence Agency’s brutal interrogation of Al Qaeda prisoners hews close to the official record” including a “gruesome sampling of methods like the near-drowning of waterboarding,” the New York Times reports.
“What has already divided the critics, journalists and activists who have watched early screenings is a more subtle issue: the suggestion that the calculated infliction of pain and fear, graphically shown in the first 45 minutes of the film, may have produced useful early clues in the quest to find the terrorist leader, who was killed in May 2011.”
Republicans Have Run Out of White Voters
GOP pollster Whit Ayres and the Hispanic Leadership Network’s Jennifer Korn released a strategy memo saying that Republicans risk becoming a “regional party” if they don’t increase support among Hispanic voters.
“Mitt Romney won a landslide among white voters, defeating Barack Obama by 59 to 39 percent. In the process he won every large segment of white voters, often by double-digit margins: white men, white women, white Catholics, white Protestants, white old people, white young people. Yet that was not enough to craft a national majority. Republicans have run out of persuadable white voters. For the fifth time in the past six presidential elections, Republicans lost the popular vote. Trying to win a national election by gaining a larger and larger share of a smaller and smaller portion of the electorate is a losing political proposition.”
Illegal Immigrant Sex Offender Worked for Senator
Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) employed as an unpaid intern in his Senate office an illegal immigrant who was a registered sex offender, now under arrest by immigration authorities, the AP reports.
The Homeland Security Department instructed federal agents not to arrest him until after Election Day.
Fed Extends Efforts to Jump Start Economy
The Federal Reserve “refashioned its bond-buying programs, extending its far-reaching effort to revitalize the jobs market and boost the economic recovery into 2013,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“In addition, the Fed shifted its communications strategy by specifying the levels of unemployment and inflation that might prompt it to begin raising short-term interest rates, which are now near zero.”
Wonk Wire has more details and reaction.
Judge Declares Mistrial in Cahill Corruption Case
The jury in the corruption trial of former Massachusetts Treasurer Timothy Cahill (I) declared themselves deadlocked, leading the judge to declare a mistrial in the case that was the first test of a 2009 law that criminalized what was once considered unethical conduct by public officials, the Boston Globe reports.
Christie Says He’s Not Too Fat to be President
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) told ABC News that even though he is “more than a little” overweight, it’s “ridiculous” to think that he is too heavy to be president of the United States.
Said Christie: “I’ve done this job pretty well. I think people watched me for the last number of weeks during Hurricane Sandy doing 18-hour days and getting back up the next day and still being just as effective in the job, so i don’t think that will be a problem.”
Large Majority Want Fiscal Cliff Compromise
A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds nearly two-thirds of Americans say they favor a balanced deal to reduce the deficit — consisting of both higher tax rates and cuts to key entitlement programs.
Key findings: 65% say congressional leaders should make compromises to deal with the budget deficit, even if that means Democrats would need to accept targeted spending cuts to Social Security and Medicare, and that Republicans would need to accept targeted increases in tax rates.
That includes 68% of Democrats, 66% of Republicans and 56% of political independents who support this position.
Tips for Surviving Crisis
Ron Fournier has an interesting review of Masters of Disaster by Chris Lehane and Mark Fabiani, two political strategists who helped Bill Clinton survive Whitewater, the Monica Lewinsky scandal, and impeachment.
He notes: “I covered the Clinton White House and frequently dealt with both Lehane and Fabiani. While we had our share of tussles, I benefited from their strategy to selectively leak information, at times damaging to Clinton. The tactic gave them some measure of control over the story (when it would break and what reporter would cover it) and, according to their book, generated for their client the single most important commodity in a crisis: trust.”
Disaster Awaits Republicans at Bottom of Fiscal Cliff
Noam Scheiber says President Obama should let Republicans takes us over the fiscal cliff.
“They will see that they have been completely repudiated by the public in a way that even the election didn’t impress on them. It will, in other words, be as close as you get in politics to a total victory for one side. It will highlight the perils of following one’s base too slavishly, a lesson that will come in handy not just on future fiscal policy fights (there will in all likelihood still be a debt ceiling to raise next year), but, one can imagine, also on an issue like immigration. Which is to say, it’s only by forcing the GOP off the cliff that Obama will find the space he needs to govern.”
Andrew Sullivan: “Unless his strategy permanently embitters them and prompts them to use the debt ceiling – once again – as a cudgel.”
Extra Bonus Quote of the Day
“The president and his allies have taken so many things off the table
the only thing left is the varnish.”
— Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), quoted by The Hill, on the fiscal cliff negotiations.
