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“All that really matters is what my district wants. And my district is overwhelmingly in favor of my position.”
— Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), quoted by the Washington Post. on why he supports a bill defunding Obamacare even if it leads to a government shutdown.
“The threat of a government shutdown intensified Tuesday as House Republican leaders moved toward stripping funding from President Obama’s landmark health-care initiative and setting up a stalemate with the Democratic Senate,” the Washington Post says.
House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) “had hoped to keep the government open past Sept. 30 with relatively little fuss. But roughly 40 conservatives revolted. After a strategy session Tuesday, Boehner and his leadership team were being pushed into a more confrontational strategy that would fund the government into the new fiscal year only if Democrats agreed to undermine Obama’s signature legislative achievement.”
First Read: “As rough a stretch as President Obama and his team have had over the last couple of weeks (something we chronicled extensively yesterday), they have one thing going for them right now: House Republicans are in disarray, increasing the likelihood that the federal government could shut down.”
Coming soon: Unintimidated: A Governor’s Story and a Nation’s Challenge by Scott Walker and Marc Thiessen.
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Politico: “It’s like he never left. Bill Clinton is more than a decade removed from the White House, but if you were to look at the cellphone bills of some House Democrats, you wouldn’t know it. For a select group of Capitol Hill lawmakers — call them the Bill Clinton Caucus — the former president is a familiar voice on the other end of the line.”
“Sometimes Clinton is on the hunt for intel on competitive congressional races in districts he’ll be traveling to. At other times, he wants to know about pending bills or to see what kind of messaging his party will be using. Or the former president might just be calling to check in and shoot the breeze.”
Ezra Klein: “Here’s the Republican Party’s problem, in two sentences: It would be a disaster for the party to shut down the government over Obamacare. But it’s good for every individual Republican politician to support shutting down the government over Obamacare.”
President Obama’s first two defense secretaries questioned his Syria strategy and said they would have told him not to seek Congress’ approval for a strike on President Bashar Assad’s forces, the Air Force Times reports.
“Speaking at a forum in Dallas, Robert Gates and Leon Panetta disagreed on whether the United States should ultimately carry out a military strike in retaliation for a chemical attack that the U.S. says killed 1,400 people. But both men said Obama shouldn’t have asked Congress to approve a strike, and both were skeptical and sometimes sarcastic about the current Russia-backed negotiations to have Syria turn over its chemical weapons.”
“A struggling President Obama is calling for help from members of his first-term A-Team, who have left the White House for other jobs,” The Hill reports.
“With his poll numbers falling and his second-term floundering so far, Obama has sought help from the former aides who helped catapult him to the presidency.”
A new Quinnipiac poll in Virginia finds Terry McAuliffe (D) leading Ken Cuccinelli (R) in the race for governor among likely voters, 44% to 41%, with Libertarian Robert Sarvis picking up 7% of the vote.
Said pollster Peter Brown: “McAuliffe is less disliked than Cuccinelli. Voters are not wild about either man, and that may be one reason why Sarvis is running so well. History tells us that third-party candidates tend to experience shrinking support as Election Day nears. If Sarvis does get 7% of the actual vote, that would reflect not just his strength but the weakness of the major party candidates.”
After weeks of pondering which office to seek, Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis (D) will announce on Oct. 3 whether she’s running for governor, the Fort Worth Star Telegram reports.
Austin American Statesman: “Right now, it looks more than likely that Sen. Leticia Van de Putte (D) will join a Davis ticket as a candidate for lieutenant governor. Beyond that it is not at all clear what if any Democrats might fill out a statewide ticket. Democrats last won statewide office in in Texas in 2004.”
Leadership sources tell Robert Costa the House “will soon vote on a continuing resolution that simultaneously funds the federal government and defunds Obamacare… This means the conservatives who have been urging Boehner to back a defunding effort as part of the CR have won a victory, at least in terms of getting the leadership to go along with their strategy.”
“Here’s how my sources expect the gambit to unfold: The House passes a ‘defund CR,’ throws it to the Senate, and waits to see what Senator Ted Cruz and his allies can do. Maybe they can get it through, maybe they can’t. Boehner and Cantor will be supportive, and conservative activists will rally.”
“But if Cruz and company can’t round up the votes, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid rejects the legislation, the House leadership will likely ask Republicans to turn their focus to the debt limit, avert a shutdown, and pass a revised CR — a stopgap spending bill that doesn’t defund Obamacare.”
The Fix: “There are several reasons to believe the plan… will bring House Republicans right back to where they are now — without a deal in sight — only with less time on the clock to reach one.”
New York Times: “For four years, President Obama counted on fellow Democrats to rally to his side in a series of epic battles with Republicans over the direction of the country. But now, deep in his fifth year in office, Mr. Obama finds himself frustrated by members of his own party weary of his leadership and increasingly willing to defy him.”
“In recent weeks, disgruntled Democrats, particularly liberals, have bolted from the White House on issues like National Security Agency surveillance policies, a planned military strike on Syria and the potential choice of Lawrence H. Summers to lead the Federal Reserve. In private, they often sound exasperated describing Mr. Obama’s operation; in public, they are sometimes only a little more restrained.”
Major Garrett:
“Taken together, Syria and Summers therefore represent–by history’s
decree in the case of military power, and by Obama’s own grandiose
vision of the Fed’s role in the economy–the most important second-term
presentations of power. And Senate Democrats were Obama’s undoing in
both cases.”
The New York Times looks at how political donors legally prohibited from giving to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) are aiding him through the Republican Governor’s Association instead.
“The association has, in turn, poured $1.7 million into Mr. Christie’s re-election effort… Mr. Christie’s close relationship with the association provides a playbook for how carefully choreographed independent spending campaigns can undermine the rules meant to curtail the political influence of government contractors; New Jersey’s pay-to-play law strictly limits the participation of state contractors in political giving.”
The conservative Republican Study Committee is preparing to unveil its bill to fully replace President Obama’s health care law, Roll Call reports.
“Though this will won’t be the first Obamacare repeal-and-replace proposal floated by individual GOP lawmakers in either chamber of Congress, the RSC bill has the potential to gain traction, given the conservative group’s size and influence.”
A new WNBC/Wall Street Journal poll in New York City finds Bill de Blasio (D) with a daunting lead over Joseph Lhota (R), 65% to 22%.
New York Times: “That 43-point gap would be intimidating for nearly any candidate. But Mr. Lhota must also win over an electorate in a city in which registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans by nearly six to one, and the low poll numbers could further depress his already lackluster fund-raising. ”
In a new television ad for his special election for the House in Massachusetts, openly-gay Carl Sciortino (D) “underlines his liberal credentials in a playful back and forth with his father, who doesn’t share his left-of-center views,” the Boston Globe reports.
It’s very effective.
Democracy Corps: “The Republican Party is descending into unchartered realms of unpopularity with the country, even as its deepening divisions leave it immobilized in the face of doomsday budget deadlines.[1] If you want to know why Speaker Boehner has appealed to Democrats for help, you need go no further than the three ascendant blocs of Evangelicals, Tea Party supporters, and moderates that we described in our first Republican Party Project report last month.”
“But you will understand the current war in the Republican Party better if you are able to see the the six underlying attitudinal dimensions that run through the consciousness of today’s Republican Party supporters. It is these dimensions that create the passionate factions at war against ‘Obamacare,” gay marriage, and immigration.”
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said that gun control legislation doesn’t have the votes to be approved by the Senate, The Hill reports.
Said Reid: “We’re going to move this up as quickly as we can but we’ve got to have the votes first. We don’t have the votes. I hope we get them but we don’t have them now.”
Wonk Wire: Why the security state can’t stop a lone gunman.
A new Public Policy Polling survey in New Hampshire finds Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) in a pretty strong position as long as Scott Brown doesn’t come across the border to challenge her.
Shaheen leads Charlie Bass (R), 51% to 41%, Jim Rubens (R), 50% to 33%, Karen Testerman (R), 50% to 31% and Dan Innis (R), 52% to 30%. The only Republican who really comes close to Shaheen is former Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA), who she leads just 48% to 44%.
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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