Political Wire

Early Obama Decisions Still Costing Democrats

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Charlie Cook: “In mid-summer 2009, polls universally showed that Americans wanted the president, along with the overwhelmingly Democratic Congress, to focus on the economy and job creation. Instead, in its infinite wisdom, Congress chose to focus almost exclusively and obsessively on health care reform. Although this was a worthy objective, the effort would likely have been better spent in a time when people weren’t so worried about their economic well-being. This horrific choice, to focus on the Affordable Care Act rather than the economy, besides costing Democrats their House majority—not to mention platoons of Democratic governors and state legislators who would have been handy in drawing the congressional redistricting maps the next year—created scar tissue that remains to this day.”

“Americans resent the policy choices that Obama and congressional Democrats made early on… Choices have consequences, and elections have consequences. The decisions of 2009 and 2010 just keep on having consequences for Democrats.”

Clintons Don’t Come Cheap

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“Bill and Hillary Clinton were the most sought after surrogates in the Democratic Party this year. He campaigned for more than 47 candidates. She for more than 26. Supporters estimate that, together, the Clintons headlined 75 rallies and fundraisers — and logged roughly 50,000 miles jetting from state to state,” BuzzFeed reports.

“When the Clintons travel, they fly private. This year, their airfare cost candidates at least $699,000, available state and federal campaign finance reports show.”

A Republican Country

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The Fix: “While the GOP is likely to control 54 percent of all Senate seats and 56 percent (or so) of the House come January, it also will now control more than two-thirds of state legislative chambers across the country — as in nearly seven in 10. And given Republicans also won at least 31 governorships, they are basically in control of the state government in 25 states. That could soon hit 26 if they win the still-undetermined governor’s race in Alaska.”

“The Democrats, meanwhile, control just six states, with a seventh likely to come when the Vermont legislature picks Gov. Peter Shumlin (D) as the winner of last week’s closer-than-expected election, in which neither candidate attained the necessary 50 percent.”

Wonk Wire: Who bankrolled the new Senate majority?

The South is Now Solidly Republican

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“With the walloping Republicans gave Democrats in the midterm elections, the GOP stands one Louisiana Senate runoff away from completely controlling Southern politics from the Carolinas to Texas. Only a handful of Democrats hold statewide office in the rest of the Old Confederacy,” the AP reports.

Democrats May Have Targeted the Wrong Voters

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The Daily Beast has learned that “in the crucial swing states of Iowa, North Carolina, and Colorado, the DSCC made a decision in September to put an increased emphasis on persuasion, talking undecided voters into supporting Democratic candidates rather than turning out its base voters. In other words, instead of going after the type of people who reliably vote Democrat but don’t reliably show up on Election Day, they focused on voters who were somewhat more likely to vote but hadn’t firmly made up their minds”

“These undecided, persuadable voters were identified via a computer model that ranked and ordered voters as targets of persuasion not just through volunteer contact but through direct-mail paid media as well. The problem was that, at least in Iowa, this model was imperfect… Initial data indicate that more than 60 percent of voters in this group who actually turned out on Election Day supported Republican candidates.”

Lowest Midterm Election Turnout Since World War II

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Morning Line: “Final numbers are still being tallied, but at this point it looks pretty clear that turnout in these midterms was the lowest overall in 70 years. Turnout of the voting-eligible population was just 36.4 percent, according to the projection from the United States Elections Project, run by Dr. Michael McDonald at the University of Florida. That’s down from the 41 percent that turned out in 2010. You have to go all the way back to 1942 for lower numbers when turnout in that midterm was just 33.9 percent. They had a pretty good excuse back then — many adult-age Americans were preoccupied with fighting in a world war.”

Wonk Wire: The impact of voter ID laws on election turnout

Obama Feels Liberated by Loss of Democratic Senate

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“The morning after Democrats’ thrashing in the midterm elections, President Barack Obama unexpectedly dropped by his senior staff’s daily meeting to buck up his exhausted and defeated team,” the AP reports.

“Rather than bemoan his party’s loss of control in the Senate, Obama made an impassioned case for what he saw as the opportunities ahead and argued that his team still ran the most powerful institution in the world. He would echo those sentiments hours later in a post-election news conference, displaying a sunny outlook that ran counter to the electorate’s gloomy mood.”

“White House officials say Obama’s optimism reflects a president who feels liberated by even the limited prospects for striking deals with a Republican Congress and relieved about shedding the narrow Democratic majority that would have guaranteed Washington stayed locked in a stalemate.”

Huffington Post: Big review planned by Democrats in the wake of losses

O’Malley Had Staff in 7 States

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Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley’s (D) political action committee “dispatched and paid for a total of 32 staffers to aid candidates and state parties in Iowa, New Hampshire and other battleground states during the mid-term elections,” the Washington Post reports.

“O’Malley, who is weighing a 2016 White House bid, gathered with many of the campaign workers at a lunch in Baltimore on Friday, but it is unclear how many will remain employed by his political operation.”

Low Approval No Longer a Barrier to Re-Election

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“Last’s week election saw a slew of unpopular politicians get elected or reelected despite approval ratings in the mid- or even low-40s. It’s in part a product of voter disgust with both parties and a race-to-the-bottom political climate, in which both sides nuke their rival early and often and public opinion of Congress and institutions is extremely low,” Politico reports.

“While there have been politicians in the past who have been reelected with weak approval ratings, the spate of tight races with people with a net negative favorable ratings was unusual this cycle. Instead of punishing the candidate who goes negative first, voters have become inured to the idea that both of them will. And approval ratings are no longer a reliable indicator of electability.”

Cuomo Had Secret Pact with Republicans

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Fred Dicker: “The state’s most powerful Republican secretly worked for months to help Democratic Gov. Cuomo win re-election — in exchange for Cuomo’s promise not to aid Senate Democrats in their Long Island races, a top New York GOP leader has charged.”

“Former state Republican Party Executive Director Michael Lawler — who managed Rob Astorino’s ill-fated gubernatorial run against Cuomo — told The Post that he learned of the alleged bombshell deal between Senate GOP leader Dean Skelos and Cuomo just days ago, after suspecting for months that it existed.”

How to Run Against the Koch Brothers?

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“One clear lesson emerged from last week’s midterms: running against big money in politics is hard to do,” the Washington Post reports.

“Democrats and their allies made the topic one of their central lines of attack this year, featuring the billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch in nearly 100 different political spots that ran in states from Alaska to Florida. But the issue failed to gain traction, and most of those Democrats lost. The difficulty they encountered in transforming the public’s disgust with rich donors into political action speaks to how hard it is move voters who view both parties as captives of wealthy patrons.”

Obama Blames Himself for Midterm Losses

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“Just days after his party was routed in the midterm elections, President Obama said that he and his White House team had not succeeded in effectively selling the benefits of his policies to the American people, calling it a ‘failure of politics’ that he must change in the final two years of his presidency,” the New York Times reports.

Said Obama: “It’s not enough just to build a better mousetrap. People don’t automatically come beating to your door. We’ve got to sell it. We’ve got to reach out to the other side and, where possible, persuade.”

Democrats Have a Male Voter Problem

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Daily Beast: “After spending the last few years talking about ‘war on women’ issues like abortion laws, equal pay, and contraception, and with commentators lampooning Republican efforts to appeal to female voters, it was expected that the 2014 midterm elections would come down to the ‘gender gap,’ the difference between how men and women vote in the election.”

“Well, the pundits were right: the political “gender gap” would decide the fate of candidates in the 2014 midterms. But the decisive point wasn’t that Republicans have a female voter problem. It was that Democrats have a male voter problem.”

Forecast is More Gridlock

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“What can actually get done over the next two years? Even if you didn’t get your hopes up, you should still lower them… the reality is that the case for a productive two years collapses as soon as you dig into the details,” Politico reports.

“McConnell’s aides are frustrated at the lack of movement they see from Obama after the election-night wipeout. They say he’s still stuck in the same battle lines with the GOP that make deals on tax reform and infrastructure less likely. White House officials say the president will keep making the same case he’s already made for his tax reform and infrastructure ideas, and believe Republicans will eventually have to give ground on a minimum wage hike now that voters in four states approved increases Tuesday.”

“Even trade, perhaps the best bet of all for common ground, won’t be as easy as both sides say it is. That’s because so many Senate Democrats are opposed to it that Obama would have to lean on some of them for their votes — something he hasn’t done yet.”

Bungled Obamacare Rollout Led to Midterm Defeats

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Michael Barone says “the fiasco of the rollout of healthcare.gov” was a key contributor to the Democratic defeat in the 2014 midterm elections.

“The Obama administration had 42 months between the passage of Obamacare and the Oct. 1 rollout. In the 42 months between the attack on Pearl Harbor and victory In Europe, the United States deployed a 16 million-man military around the world, produced thousands of ships, tanks and airplanes, and advanced in Europe and the Pacific to produce the “absolute victory” FDR promised over Hitler. In 42 months the Obama administration couldn’t build a functioning website.”

“Voters noticed. By late November, the big Democratic lead in the generic vote had disappeared, never to reappear. Republican politicians and primary voters noticed, too. The pool of House hardliners shrank from about 40 to perhaps a dozen. No more government shutdowns, thank you very much.”

Brown Recycled His Concession Speech

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Defeated New Hampshire Senate candidate Scott Brown (R) “may have changed states between 2012 and 2014, but he didn’t change his concession speech all that much… Brown’s roughly six-minute speech on Tuesday night was not entirely identical to his more than 14-minute concession in 2012. ABC News watched both concessions and found some uncanny similarities.”

Taegan Goddard

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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