Just dropped · Trial Balloon · Ep. 189
Navigating the Nonsense
“That’s exactly why the establishment Republicans supported Romney and McCain, because they didn’t emphasize these positions, and they were going to run on one issue, which was limited government and lower taxes. All of which are good things, and I support them, but I think what they showed is that they’re insufficient.”
— Rick Santorum, quoted by CNN, saying that ignoring social issues caused the last two GOP defeats in presidential elections.
Sen. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) became the latest Democratic senator to embrace gay marriage, the Washington Post reports.
Said Johnson: “After lengthy consideration, my views have evolved sufficiently to support marriage equality legislation. This position doesn’t require any religious denomination to alter any of its tenets; it simply forbids government from discrimination regarding who can marry whom.”
A new paper from MIT professor Charles Stewart finds that African Americans waited an average of 23 minutes to vote in the last presidential election, Hispanics waited 19 minutes and whites waited just 12 minutes.
“While there are other individual-level demographic difference present in the responses, none stands out as much as race. For instance, the average wait time among those with household incomes less than $30,000 was 12 minutes, compared to 14 minutes for those in households with incomes greater than $100,000. Strong Democrats waited an average of 16 minutes, compared to an average of 11 minutes for strong Republicans. Respondents who reported they had an interest in news and public affairs ‘most of the time’ waited an average of 13.2 minutes, compared to 12.8 minutes among those who had ‘hardly any’ interest.”
The new website for the National Republican Congressional Committee “has earned a lot of attention in the past week for its bold new attempt to win the internet and elections by imitating BuzzFeed. On the website today, you can find items like, ’13 Animals That Are Really Bummed on ObamaCare’s Third Birthday’ or a video of President Obama whiffing 20 free throws. There’s more substantive fare too, like a polling memo on the Keystone XL pipeline,” Salon reports.
“One thing you won’t find on the front page, however, is the word ‘Republican,’ except for at the very bottom in a disclaimer box that reads, ‘Paid for by the National Republican Congressional Committee.'”
The Week: “For liberals indulging in schadenfreude, the post-election fracturing of the Republican Party and the conservative movement has been enormously satisfying. But it’s not the most important story in Washington. In fact, the most pressing truth — the one that really threatens to derail President Obama’s second term — is the quieter, wonkier friction within the Democratic Party.”
If Sens. Pat Toomey (R-PA) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) “can’t come to a deal on expanded background checks sometime in the next few days, President Obama’s proposed gun legislation seems likely to be headed toward a filibuster led by some of its most conservative members,” the Washington Post reports.
“Politically speaking, such a move could have short-term benefits for Republicans but also creates real risks for further damage to the party’s already tarnished brand in the long(er) term… What’s good politics for Republicans in South Dakota or Nebraska or Mississippi is not necessarily a good thing for the GOP’s attempts to rebrand itself. Remember that expanded background checks have the support of roughly nine in ten Americans – a sort of no-brainer issue that typically guarantees congressional action of some sort.”
BuzzFeed: “in the past six years, members of the New York State Senate have been
about three times more likely than average Americans to run afoul of the
law. And majority leaders have been over ten times more likely.”
Roll Call: “Already short one officer, the Federal Election Commission will soon have a dubious distinction: As of April 30, all five of its remaining commissioners will be serving expired terms.”
“In theory, composed of three Republicans and three Democrats, the FEC has been deadlocked for so long that, some argue, the agency could hardly grind to more of a halt. But the FEC’s growing backlog of work, protracted stalemates and failure to enforce or even explain the rules is taking a toll. At a minimum, political players are increasingly confused about how to reconcile already-complicated election laws with the Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling to deregulate political spending.”
“Right now I’m grateful to live in a city, in a state and a country where I strongly support my mayor, and my governor, and my president, and my senators, and my representative. If at some point that weren’t true and I thought I could make a meaningful and measurably greater impact, you know, I’d have to ask and answer that question.”
— Chelsea Clinton, quoted by NBC News, on whether she would run for political office.
Top Democratic operatives tell Time that Hillary Clinton will need to raise $100 million over the next 20 months if she hopes to clear the field of serious Democratic challengers.
Said one: “I would think you’d want an eye popping number to clear the field. I think the $100 million commitment would say to potential opponents ‘think before you jump to your death.””
Daily Beast: “America’s 23 million veterans are facing an unprecedented crisis as the backlog of disability claims at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has grown to nearly 1 million–more than double what it was when President Obama took office.”
“Given the breadth of the crisis, this widespread outrage isn’t surprising. But perhaps what is surprising is that for the first time, several prominent veteran advocates who’ve been staunch supporters of Obama are now joining the chorus of critics who say the president has badly mishandled the VA.”
Bloomberg reports on how Democratic activists “have come to Texas on a mission as large as the state’s 261,000 square miles: to capitalize on the surge in Hispanic population and turn the Lone Star State into a two-party competitive one instead of the place where the Republican nominee has carried every presidential election since 1976.”
As former Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) mulls a possible U.S. Senate bid from New Hampshire, Smart Politics notes that 25% of the 63 U.S. Senators in the Granite State’s history were born in one of its bordering three states including 18% from Massachusetts, while nearly 40% were educated in the Bay State.
First Read notes the early word on President Obama’s budget — to be released on Wednesday — is that it “has been rejected by both the right and left: Boehner opposes the president’s call for new revenues to go along with these entitlement cuts, while the left is furious about the proposed reforms to Social Security and Medicare. The question is whether this anger from the left gives Republicans a second look.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Meet the Press: “This is somewhat encouraging. His overall budget’s not going to make it, but he has sort of made a step forward in the entitlement reform process that would allow a guy like me to begin to talk about flattening the tax code and generating more revenue.”
Hedge fund executive Thomas Steyer is bombarding Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA) “with theatrical attacks from the skies and from the streets. He has poured $400,000 into the Massachusetts race so far, bankrolling planes with banners, trucks with video screens, and canvassers who plan to knock on 300,000 doors statewide,” the Boston Globe reports.
Steyer has seized on Lynch’s primary campaign against Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) “as a test case of his ability to elevate the issue of climate change in the political discourse.”
“Last month, he burst onto the scene with a sharply worded threat to Lynch, warning him that if he did not change his mind and oppose the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline ‘by high noon on Friday,’ he would launch an aggressive campaign to defeat him in the April 30 primary.”
USA Today:
“It’s a time-honored presidential tradition to reward political friends
and campaign contributors with plum ambassadorships to Caribbean
islands and glittering European capitals. The practice is getting fresh
attention as President Obama weighs second-term appointments for the
donors and fundraisers who help collect more than a $1 billion for his
re-election. In the 2012 campaign, 773 individuals and couples raised at
least $50,000 for Obama, who is expected to fill about 30 political
positions in his second term.”
President Obama “has begun his second term by consolidating his personal control of the White House, Democrats in
and outside the Administration say, reflecting a shift from his less centralized first term,” BuzzFeed reports.
“The shift has become clear in the new style of management under Obama’s new Chief of Staff, Denis McDonough, who — unlike his predecessors — acts more as Obama’s enforcer than as a principal in his own right.”
“Once, McDonough’s predecessors, notably Rahm Emanuel, made strategic choices and served as the key liaisons to Congress. Now, Obama sets the strategy and priorities and makes the calls to Capitol Hill himself; and the chief of staff’s role has been handed to a trusted ally who shares the president’s vision.”
Wall Street Journal: “Margaret Thatcher, the former British prime minister who became one of the most influential global leaders of the postwar period, died Monday, three decades after her championing of free-market economics and individual choice transformed Britain’s economy and her vigorous foreign policy played a key role in the end of the Cold War.”
The Week has a great round up of coverage.
First Read: “It’s rare for a foreign to leader to be beloved by some many in the
United States, but Thatcher was — especially among conservatives. If
Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan are the founding fathers of modern
conservatism, then Margaret Thatcher is its founding mother. Thatcher
also set the template for tough-as-nails female world leaders.”
Taegan Goddard
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.
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