MitchMcConnell’semptypromise:We’llforceObamato

Mitch McConnell’s empty promise: We’ll force Obama to rein in government or else risk a shutdown

posted at 3:21 pm on August 20, 2014 by Allahpundit

• Share on Facebook 1
• 1 SHARES

Does anyone actually believe this?

I guess Kentucky Republicans who don’t pay attention to politics but who’ll end up deciding this year’s Senate race anyway do. God bless democracy.

“We’re going to pass spending bills, and they’re going to have a lot of restrictions on the activities of the bureaucracy,” McConnell said in an interview aboard his campaign bus traveling through Western Kentucky coal country. “That’s something he won’t like, but that will be done. I guarantee it.”…

McConnell risks overreaching if he follows through with his pledge to attach policy riders to spending bills. If Obama refuses to accept such measures, a government shutdown could ensue. Republicans bore much of the blame for last year’s government shutdown, which was prompted by conservative tactics McConnell opposed, and their fortunes rebounded only when the administration bungled the rollout of Obamacare.

But asked about the potential that his approach could spark another shutdown, McConnell said it would be up to the president to decide whether to veto spending bills that would keep the government open.

Obama “needs to be challenged, and the best way to do that is through the funding process,” McConnell said. “He would have to make a decision on a given bill, whether there’s more in it that he likes than dislikes.”

To repeat: Does anyone actually believe this? McConnell was one of the sharpest Republican critics of the “defund” strategy that produced a government shutdown last fall. Watch the clip below if you need your memory refreshed. He’s fond of saying about it, “There’s no education in the second kick of a mule,” i.e. the GOP paid a political price for the 1995 shutdown and then foolishly paid the same price again in 2013 (although the backlash was blunted by public outrage at the Healthcare.gov meltdown that was happening simultaneously). Quote: “I think we have fully now acquainted our new members with what a losing strategy that is.” He hates shutdowns almost as much as the people in the GOP’s donor class who bankroll him do.

And yet here he is, soothing conservatives who are leery of reelecting him by vowing to take the fight to Obama this time and make him cause a shutdown if he refuses to agree to Republican demands. And he wants you to believe he’s going to do this while prominent Republicans, including his pal Rand Paul, are declaring their candidacies in 2016. It’s the purest nonsense. To believe it, you need to believe that somehow, if Obama vetoes the sort of bill McConnell’s describing here, that the GOP will win the ensuing media war over who “really” caused the shutdown. Which party, do you suppose, will the press hold responsible? Whom did they hold responsible in 1995, when Republicans controlled both houses of Congress and went head to head with a Democratic president? The party that loves government, the bigger the better, or the one that doesn’t?

McConnell has a history of empty rhetoric about brinksmanship with Obama too. Remember this?

The Senate’s top Republican signaled Tuesday that he will seek to extract concessions from Democrats in exchange for lifting the nation’s debt limit in 2014, potentially foreshadowing a grueling fiscal fight during an election year.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said that he “can’t imagine” that the debt ceiling increase will be a “clean” one — meaning that it will have no conditions attached to it. McConnell, a key negotiator on deals ending the debt ceiling standoff in 2011 and this year during the government shutdown, noted that past significant legislative agreements have been attached to such increases. He was skeptical that the House or the Senate would have an appetite to hand President Barack Obama a clean debt limit hike.

Two months later he voted for cloture on — ta da — a clean debt-ceiling hike, even though Harry Reid had more than enough votes without him to break a filibuster by Ted Cruz. And so we already know what’ll happen next year: McConnell and Boehner will pass a spending bill with some riders attached, Obama will veto it, a shutdown deadline will loom, and eventually McConnell will agree to a clean bill while promising to fight another day. How many times do you need to see this movie to know the plot?

It will, perhaps, not surprise you to learn that Kentucky Democrats are having a field day with the excerpt above, claiming that McConnell’s already cooking up new shutdowns for America. They know which side is helped by shutdown politics. And so does Mitch the Knife, which, again, is why this is an empty threat.

• Share on Facebook 1
• 1 SHARES

Tags: defund, grimes, Kentucky, majority, Mitch McConnell, obama, Senate, shutdown, Tea Party

Related Posts:

Source from: hotair

KochslookingforalittlerevengeinNevada?

Kochs looking for a little revenge in Nevada?

posted at 3:21 pm on August 19, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

• Share on Facebook 1
• 1 SHARES

Well, who could blame them? After Harry Reid used the Senate floor for weeks to demagogue the owners of Koch Industries for their legal and instructive engagement in the political process, he had to be expecting a little pushback. The Kochs don’t do anything small, however, and Politico’s Ken Vogel and Burgess Everett report that they are laying the foundation for a two-year effort to send the Senate Majority Leader into a much-deserved political oblivion:

Harry Reid’s reelection is more than two years off, but the Koch brothers’ political machine is already methodically laying the groundwork that will be used to try to take him out.

The efforts in recent months have been largely subterranean, but they are unmistakable. A handful of nonprofit groups in the vast political network helmed by allies of the conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch have established or expanded permanent ground operations in Reid’s backyard. Focused on wooing key demographics like Latinos and veterans, they’ve also paid for ads assailing the Senate Democratic leader. …

As Reid last week ambled from an SUV to a side entrance of an MGM Grand here for a speech to the supportive United Steelworkers International Convention, he told POLITICO he wasn’t worried about the Koch forces’ buildup in his backyard. “I’ve always been targeted. … That’s not news,” he said, playfully dismissing a question about whether there was a personal element to the Koch effort. “I don’t see that they have any reason to come after me. Why would they?”

But a few minutes later, after taking the stage to Bob Marley’s “Get Up, Stand Up,” Reid confided to 2,500 cheering union members that, in fact, he is trying to personally antagonize the Kochs.

“Ladies and gentlemen, when I was walking in here today, somebody grabbed me from one of the Washington publications and said ‘the Koch brothers say they’re here organizing in Nevada,’” Reid regaled the crowd. “I said ‘why would they be worried about me? What have I done to bother them?’”

After allowing a brief, dramatic pause, he answered his own question boastfully: “Only everything I can, right?”

Reid’s bravado aside, he has bigger fish to fry at the moment. His biggest struggle is staying Majority Leader in the Senate for the next two years, and that’s looking less and less likely as the midterm campaigns heat up. He blew up the Montana race, which is unwinnable now, and the South Dakota race as well. He bragged to a Reno newspaper that the Democrats are in good position to retain control of the upper chamber, unless …

In the face of a challenging electoral landscape for his party in this year’s midterms, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid predicted this week they’ll hold onto their tenuous majority in the Senate barring some unforeseen incident.

“We’ll keep the majority unless something unexpected happens,”the Nevada Democrat told the Reno Gazette-Journal ahead of a local party confab Sunday.

Mr. Reid’s party currently holds a five-seat majority in the upper chamber, but open seats in Montana, South Dakota and West Virginia appear likely to flip to the GOP at this point. That means Republicans essentially need to unseat at least three incumbent Democrats in a handful of winnable races in states like North Carolina, Alaska, Arkansas and Louisiana, while retaining GOP-held seats in competitive races in Kentucky and Georgia, to re-take control of the chamber.

That’s for public consumption. Privately, Reid is seething over a White House that isn’t lifting a finger to help him on the election or much of anything else, the New York Times reports:

To Democrats in Congress who have worked with Mr. Obama, the indifference conveyed to Mr. Reid, one of the president’s most indispensable supporters, was frustratingly familiar. In one sense, Mr. Obama’s response was a reminder of what made him such an appealing figure in the first place: his almost innate aversion to the partisan squabbles that have left Americans so jaded and disgruntled with their political system. But nearly six years into his term, with his popularity at the lowest of his presidency, Mr. Obama appears remarkably distant from his own party on Capitol Hill, with his long neglect of would-be allies catching up to him.

In interviews, nearly two dozen Democratic lawmakers and senior congressional aides suggested that Mr. Obama’s approach has left him with few loyalists to effectively manage the issues erupting abroad and at home and could imperil his efforts to leave a legacy in his final stretch in office.

Grumbling by lawmakers about a president is nothing unusual. But what is striking now is the way prominent Democrats’ views of Mr. Obama’s shortcomings are spilling out into public, and how resigned many seem that the relationship will never improve. In private meetings, Mr. Reid’s chief of staff, David Krone, has voiced regular dismay to lawmakers and top aides about White House operations and competency across a range of issues, according to several Democrats on Capitol Hill.

So yes, Reid has to be a little nervous about what’s coming, especially since it’s mostly self-inflicted. Don’t be surprised if Reid looks for an opening to retire rather than run again in 2016.

Update: I wrote North Dakota when I meant South Dakota. I’ve fixed it above, and thanks to the commenters who flagged the error.

• Share on Facebook 1
• 1 SHARES

Tags: 2016, Harry Reid, Koch Brothers, Kochsteria, midterms, Senate

Related Posts:

Source from: hotair

Obamatodonors:We’regoingtohaveSupreme

Obama to donors: We’re going to have Supreme Court appointments within the next two years, you know

posted at 5:21 pm on August 12, 2014 by Allahpundit

• Share on Facebook 1
• 1 SHARES

Only two possibilities, my friends. One: He’s talking out of his ass here, trying to scare the shinola out of well-heeled liberals in order to make them reach for their wallets before the midterms. (See also “impeachment.”) Two: The fix is in.

Over/under on when Ginsburg calls it quits is summer 2015.

“What’s preventing us from getting things done right now is you’ve got a faction within the Republican Party that thinks solely in terms of their own ideological purposes and solely in terms of how do they hang on to power. And that’s a problem,” Mr. Obama said at the Tisbury, Mass., home of Roger H. Brown, president of the Berklee College of Music.

“And that’s why I need a Democratic Senate. Not to mention the fact that we’re going to have Supreme Court appointments.”

You can, if you like, take that as an early hint that Reid intends to nuke the rest of the filibuster if another Court vacancy opens up. Right now, the filibuster still exists for Supreme Court nominees, albeit not for lower-court nominations; in theory, if Ginsburg quit tomorrow, the GOP would need only 41 votes to block her successor — unless Reid suddenly changes the rules once again, that is. Even if, against all odds, Democrats retained control of the Senate, no one thinks they’ll be anywhere near 60 seats next year. And no one seriously believes that Mitch McConnell, as majority leader, would block an Obama nominee from an up-or-down vote on the Senate floor. Which is to say, the only reason having an absolute Democratic majority might matter to O is if Reid’s already planning to get rid of the filibuster for SCOTUS appointments too and let Dems confirm the nominee with 51 votes.

As for whether O has inside info on impending retirements, why would he? If Ginsburg or Breyer is inclined to go soon, they have every incentive to do it now so that Senate Democrats can rubber-stamp their successor. Whispering to O that they’re on their way out but not until Republicans control the Senate makes no sense. Meanwhile, if any of the conservatives on the Court are inclined to go soon, there’s no reason why the White House would be uniquely privy to that info; it would leak to tapped-in conservatives too and they’d leak it in turn to conservative media, which would blare it from the mountaintops for the same reason O dropped this tidbit to his donors last night, i.e. to get the base even more excited to vote in the midterms. Ginsburg, the most likely justice to retire, not only has resisted every time she’s been quizzed about it by reporters, she’s actually taken to saying things like, “So tell me who the president could have nominated this spring that you would rather see on the court than me?”

If you still have doubts, check out WaPo’s graphic on SCOTUS retirements. They tend not to happen right before major elections, probably because most justices don’t want the vacancy they’ve created to upend a race that has otherwise been, and should be, about major policy differences.

• Share on Facebook 1
• 1 SHARES

Tags: appointment, breyer, filibuster, ginsburg, majority, obama, Senate, Supreme Court, vacancy

Related Posts:

Source from: hotair

WaPo:MidtermslookingbetterandbetterforGOP

WaPo: Midterms looking better and better for GOP

posted at 12:01 pm on August 11, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

• Share on Facebook 1
• 1 SHARES

Plus ça change, plus c’est le même chose. Six-year midterms usually mean lost seats for the White House, and Democrats should know this better than anyone. They fattened themselves on George W. Bush’s unpopularity in 2006, winning big in an election that forced Bush to make significant changes in direction in both domestic and foreign policy. Now they have their own unpopular albatross in Barack Obama, and the winds of fortune are blowing right back in their faces — or so says the Washington Post:

The decision by Sen. John Walsh (D-Mont.) not to seek election in November in the wake of a plagiarism scandal is the latest piece of good news for Republicans as they strive to take control of the Senate in less than three months.

Walsh’s departure from the race came in the same week that two Republican senators — Pat Roberts in Kansas and Lamar Alexander in Tennessee — defeated tea party challengers in primary fights, ensuring that every GOP senator seeking reelection would be the party’s nominee.

These past seven days typified the fates of the two parties this election cycle. Democrats have been hit by retirements in tough states — Montana, West Virginia, South Dakota and, to a lesser extent, Iowa — and Republicans haven’t nominated the sort of extreme candidates who lack broader appeal in a general election.

Those realities — along with a national playing field in which a handful of incumbent Democrats are defending Republican-leaning seats in places where President Obama is deeply unpopular — have made a GOP takeover a better-than-50/50 proposition.

Walsh faced an uphill battle anyway, which underscores rather than negates the point. The Obama brand has hit a serious decline, and it won’t be the White House that pays the price for it. While Noah dismissed the national implications of the Hawaiian gubernatorial primary, I’m not quite convinced. The White House thought that Obama’s endorsement would have enough impact to bother to issue an endorsement to Neil Abercrombie; otherwise, they would have played it safe and sat out the primary. Very clearly, it did not have the impact that Obama’s team thought it would, and now it looks as though Obama is toxic in this cycle. It also calls into question why Obama bothered to weigh in on a primary fight in the first place, but there’s plenty of evidence of incompetence in his operations without including this particular data point.

The message has been received loudly and clearly by other Democrats, though. Politico’s Alex Isenstadt reports that Democratic candidates for Congress have begun to adopt a new strategy — run like a Republican:

It’s one thing for Democrats running in red parts of the country to sound like Republicans on the campaign trail. It’s another when Democrats running in purple or even blue territory try to do so.

Yet that’s what’s happening in race after race this season.

Faced with a treacherous political environment, many Democrats are trotting out campaign ads that call for balanced budgets, tax cuts and other more traditionally GOP positions. Some of them are running in congressional districts that just two years ago broke sharply for President Barack Obama.

The Republican-flavored ads provide an early glimpse of how Democrats will wage their 2014 campaign. Democrats, hampered by Obama’s rising unpopularity and the tendency for conservatives to turn out at higher levels than liberals in midterm years, face the reality that swing congressional districts favorable to them in 2012 will be far less so in 2014.

Again, plus ça change, etc etc etc. Republicans tried this same strategy in 2006 and in 2008, attempting to end-run the deep unpopularity of their incumbent President by co-opting the opposition message. The GOP learned (well, mostly) that a Fugazi strategy doesn’t really work in elections. When faced with a choice between real Democrats and fake Democrats, voters will choose the authentic version almost every time — and did in both cycles.

Expect the same result here. Authenticity counts in politics, or at least the appearance of authenticity. In midterms, though, the problem is even more basic. Voters have only one recourse to deal with an unpopular and failing President in a midterm election, and that’s to strip him of his allies on Capitol Hill — especially when his agenda is part of the problem. Democrats can pose as oppositionists, but it’s not going to fool enough voters to matter. They would be better off — slightly, anyway — to campaign in support of Obama and adopt his agenda and talking points. At the very least, that would not insult the intelligence of voters, who know very well that a vote for a Democrat is an endorsement for Obama and an enabling of his agenda, no matter how many pictures of coal miners Alison Grimes and her colleagues put on their campaign websites.

The Fugazi strategy is a loser, as Republicans discovered to their chagrin twice. Democrats probably know it too, so it may well be a measure of their desperation that they’re falling back on it now anyway.

Via Instapundit, there’s a message in this for Republicans, too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nN9xsFUsPqM

• Share on Facebook 1
• 1 SHARES

Tags: Barack Obama, Democrats, midterms, Senate

Related Posts:

Source from: hotair

WillaDemocraticcandidateforSenateinMontana

Will a Democratic candidate for Senate in Montana please stand up?; Update: Candidate found?

posted at 10:01 am on August 8, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

• Share on Facebook 1
• 1 SHARES

Theoretically, Senator John Walsh’s withdrawal from the 2014 election left the Democrats enough time to find another candidate to put on the ballot. They have until August 20th to nominate a candidate, so Montana Democrats don’t have to find a judge to allow a Torricelli Switch. With less than 90 days to go, however, no one seems to want the job, including the one man who would have given them the best opportunity to remain competitive:

Former Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer says he won’t run for U.S. Senate after Sen. John Walsh dropped his election campaign Thursday. …

Schweitzer announced that he wouldn’t run on Twitter and confirmed it to The Associated Press. He said in a Facebook post that he was flattered his name was considered, and that he’ll support whoever emerges as the candidate.

Earlier Thursday, Walsh said in a statement to supporters that he is leaving the race but will keep the seat he was appointed to until his term ends in January 2015.

This was Schweitzer’s second demurral. He had an opportunity to run for this seat long before Walsh got appointed to fill out the remainder of Max Baucus’ term and get a leg up on the midterms. Schweitzer passed at the time, as most presumed he wanted to run a populist campaign for President. Then came his “gaydar” comment about Eric Cantor and a few other impolitic bon mots, and now Schweitzer apparently just wants some obscurity for a while.

While Democrats in other parts of the country may breathe a sigh of relief for avoiding the burden of Schweitzer’s comments, their brethren in Montana have to lament losing their best shot at offering a competitive challenge to Steve Daines, who was favored to beat Walsh even before the plagiarism scandal. After Plan B collapsed, so did Plans C, D, and E, according to Rebecca Berg at the Washington Examiner:

The candidate will need to launch a campaign with only three months until Election Day, for a Senate seat most Democrats have given up on winning. “I think it’s accepted as a lost cause at this point,” said one Democratic strategist with ties to Montana.

These Democrats have said they won’t run, but at least some people in their party are floating the idea in one last effort to keep the Senate seat in play[.]

Berg goes down the speculative list that emerged when Walsh suspended his campaign earlier this week. EMILY’s List President Stephanie Schriock declined yesterday, while former NARAL president Nancy Keenan hasn’t commented. Keenan just came back to Montana after 13 years in Washington, though, and even while Allahpundit is correct in that the anti-abortion impulse may not be as strong in Montana, neither is NARAL’s abortion-on-demand-at-any-point absolutism, either. Berg notes two names not on Politico’s list, former legislators Carol and Pat Williams, who are also married to each other — and both of whom declined to jump in. The only name left besides Keenan is John Bohlinger, who couldn’t get to 25% in the Democratic primary this year.

At some point, Democrats have to give strong consideration to conceding the seat to Daines. He’s going to win it anyway, and putting up a candidate without any name power in Montana will force them to spend money on the race to maintain their credibility. Why waste the resources, especially for either a Democrat who lost by 50 points in his own party’s primary or for an all-but-carpetbagging abortion absolutist in a red state? Just tossing anyone up against Daines would have a strong whiff of desperation that might infect the rest of their races in Montana — especially if the nominee has to jump belatedly into a campaign and falls flat on his/her face. Schweitzer was their best opportunity to maintain the façade of credibility, even with the “gaydar” comments. They should take a hint from his withdrawal and cut their losses.

CNN’s panel notes that there wasn’t a rush to get in the race after Walsh’s exit:

That should tell them something, too.

Update: Democrats may have a candidate after all, but their odds look longer than ever:

Montana state Rep. Franke Wilmer (D) is moving towards a bid for Sen. John Walsh’s (D-Mont.) seat less than a day after Walsh announced he’s dropping his campaign.

Wilmer, who lost a 2012 House primary, is a Montana State University professor and favorite of some progressive activists in the state. She’d face very long odds of defeating Rep. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), who has run a strong campaign and led Walsh by large margins in recent polling.

That’s putting it mildly. Montana is already a deep-red state, where Democrats who appeal statewide usually take a centrist line. A progressive academic is about as good of a fit there as in, oh, Texas. Putting that kind of a candidate on the ticket in Montana might allow the GOP to nationalize the race in a way that will hurt supposed centrists in Georgia, Kentucky, and elsewhere, too, especially if she gets significant press.

Democrats have to make a choice at their August 16th convention. “None of the above” might still be their best option.

• Share on Facebook 1
• 1 SHARES

Tags: Brian Schweitzer, Democrats, John Walsh, midterms, Montana, Senate, Steve Daines

Related Posts:

Source from: hotair

WillaDemocraticcandidateforSenateinMontana

Will a Democratic candidate for Senate in Montana please stand up?

posted at 10:01 am on August 8, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

• Share on Facebook 1
• 1 SHARES

Theoretically, Senator John Walsh’s withdrawal from the 2014 election left the Democrats enough time to find another candidate to put on the ballot. They have until August 20th to nominate a candidate, so Montana Democrats don’t have to find a judge to allow a Torricelli Switch. With less than 90 days to go, however, no one seems to want the job, including the one man who would have given them the best opportunity to remain competitive:

Former Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer says he won’t run for U.S. Senate after Sen. John Walsh dropped his election campaign Thursday. …

Schweitzer announced that he wouldn’t run on Twitter and confirmed it to The Associated Press. He said in a Facebook post that he was flattered his name was considered, and that he’ll support whoever emerges as the candidate.

Earlier Thursday, Walsh said in a statement to supporters that he is leaving the race but will keep the seat he was appointed to until his term ends in January 2015.

This was Schweitzer’s second demurral. He had an opportunity to run for this seat long before Walsh got appointed to fill out the remainder of Max Baucus’ term and get a leg up on the midterms. Schweitzer passed at the time, as most presumed he wanted to run a populist campaign for President. Then came his “gaydar” comment about Eric Cantor and a few other impolitic bon mots, and now Schweitzer apparently just wants some obscurity for a while.

While Democrats in other parts of the country may breathe a sigh of relief for avoiding the burden of Schweitzer’s comments, their brethren in Montana have to lament losing their best shot at offering a competitive challenge to Steve Daines, who was favored to beat Walsh even before the plagiarism scandal. After Plan B collapsed, so did Plans C, D, and E, according to Rebecca Berg at the Washington Examiner:

The candidate will need to launch a campaign with only three months until Election Day, for a Senate seat most Democrats have given up on winning. “I think it’s accepted as a lost cause at this point,” said one Democratic strategist with ties to Montana.

These Democrats have said they won’t run, but at least some people in their party are floating the idea in one last effort to keep the Senate seat in play[.]

Berg goes down the speculative list that emerged when Walsh suspended his campaign earlier this week. EMILY’s List President Stephanie Schriock declined yesterday, while former NARAL president Nancy Keenan hasn’t commented. Keenan just came back to Montana after 13 years in Washington, though, and even while Allahpundit is correct in that the anti-abortion impulse may not be as strong in Montana, neither is NARAL’s abortion-on-demand-at-any-point absolutism, either. Berg notes two names not on Politico’s list, former legislators Carol and Pat Williams, who are also married to each other — and both of whom declined to jump in. The only name left besides Keenan is John Bohlinger, who couldn’t get to 25% in the Democratic primary this year.

At some point, Democrats have to give strong consideration to conceding the seat to Daines. He’s going to win it anyway, and putting up a candidate without any name power in Montana will force them to spend money on the race to maintain their credibility. Why waste the resources, especially for either a Democrat who lost by 50 points in his own party’s primary or for an all-but-carpetbagging abortion absolutist in a red state? Just tossing anyone up against Daines would have a strong whiff of desperation that might infect the rest of their races in Montana — especially if the nominee has to jump belatedly into a campaign and falls flat on his/her face. Schweitzer was their best opportunity to maintain the façade of credibility, even with the “gaydar” comments. They should take a hint from his withdrawal and cut their losses.

CNN’s panel notes that there wasn’t a rush to get in the race after Walsh’s exit:

That should tell them something, too.

• Share on Facebook 1
• 1 SHARES

Tags: Brian Schweitzer, Democrats, John Walsh, midterms, Montana, Senate, Steve Daines

Related Posts:

Source from: hotair

Openthread:Lastchancetoousta

Open thread: Last chance to oust a Republican senator this year

posted at 6:41 pm on August 7, 2014 by Allahpundit

• Share on Facebook 1
• 1 SHARES

Yes, I realize it’s Thursday, not Tuesday. What can I tell you? Tennessee goes its own way when scheduling primaries.

The bad news: Grassroots conservatives are staring at an ohfer this year in the Senate if Lamar Alexander beats Joe Carr tonight. The good news: Even though they haven’t unseated anyone, they’ve made lots of incumbents sweat. Dave Weigel posted a list today comparing the margins of victory in the primary for Senate Republicans targeted by righties with their margins of victory the last time they ran. Some, like Thad Cochran and Pat Roberts, were unopposed last time; others, like Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham, had token opposition. They all finished with a smaller share of the vote this year than they did previously. In fact…

If Alexander ends up short of 50% tonight, that'll be 3 senate GOP incumbents this year to earn less than 50% of the vote in primaries.

— Harry Enten (@ForecasterEnten) August 7, 2014

There are no more easy victories. Holding a seat nowadays means voting more conservative than you might like in the Senate and working hard on the trail to smother your challenger — and even then, as Mississippi proves, a runoff with lots of Democratic crossover votes might be necessary to rescue the incumbent. If Alexander wins tonight, take that as a comfort. The princes of the Senate no longer hold their seats as a matter of right.

Which brings us to Tennessee. What are the odds of Carr knocking off Alexander? Not great — the incumbent’s outspent the challenger five to one. Then again, Eric Cantor also outspent Dave Brat and got crushed thanks to an issue that’ll figure prominently in tonight’s race too, namely, immigration. Alexander was one of the 14 Republicans who voted for the Gang of Eight bill on comprehensive immigration reform last year. Carr’s been hammering him on that, as have Laura Ingraham (who campaigned for Brat against Cantor and campaigned recently for Carr) and the boss emeritus, who made the case against Alexander on Ingraham’s radio show earlier this week. There’s been almost no polling on the race so there’s no way to tell how close Carr is. The last one, taken more than a week ago, showed him within 12 points. According to Harry Enten of FiveThirtyEight, though, the tea leaves suggest that Alexander’s more ripe for an upset tonight that Pat Roberts was two days ago:

Republican incumbents also tend to do worse the more moderate they are, and Alexander is more moderate than Roberts. Per DW-Nominate’s first dimension, Alexander has the seventh most moderate record of any Republican senator in the 113th Congress. Although it’s on the more conservative end of defeated incumbents, Alexander’s score is within the range of other incumbent Republicans who have lost in primaries in the past decade…

Additionally, Republican incumbents tend to do worse when they’re seen as insiders, and Alexander is rated as more insider-y than Roberts. It was this measure on which Cantor looked most vulnerable. Per DW-Nominate’s second dimension, Alexander is ranked 12th among Republicans in the current Senate. Roberts comes in at 16th. Roberts’s score isn’t too far from Alexander’s, but it leaves Alexander in the more vulnerable position.

Finally, Republican incumbents have done better when they’re more firmly against immigration reform.

Alexander’s grade on immigration from NumbersUSA was a C+, the same as Thad Cochran, who barely survived his primary. And Cochran, for all his faults, voted no on the Gang of Eight bill. If amnesty’s going to take anyone down this cycle, it’s Alexander. (Er, right, Lindsey Graham?)

Tennessee is split between the eastern and central time zones so the polls close at different times. Part of the state will finish voting at 7 p.m. ET and the rest will finish at 8. You can follow results at RCP, Politico, or Ace’s Decision Desk. Here’s one of Alexander’s recent ads, in which he insists — no joke — that he voted against amnesty last year. He’s been arguing lately that what we have is de facto amnesty right now, ergo, voting for a terrible comprehensive bill that would have given illegals probationary legalization with no guarantees of better border enforcement was somehow a vote against amnesty. That’s how honest this guy is.

• Share on Facebook 1
• 1 SHARES

Tags: GOP, Joe Carr, Lamar Alexander, republican, Senate, Tennessee

Related Posts:

Source from: hotair

NewtGingrich:Obama’supcomingexecutiveorderonamnesty

Newt Gingrich: Obama’s upcoming executive order on amnesty will start a civil war in his own party

posted at 8:41 pm on August 5, 2014 by Allahpundit

• Share on Facebook 1
• 1 SHARES

Via RCP, I want to believe it, I almost believe it — but I don’t really believe it. All the makings of a Democratic clusterfark are there. If O legalizes five million workers, plenty of blue-collar Democrats are bound to put two and two together and wonder what that means for their wages. And plenty of Democratic Senate incumbents in red states, like, oh, let’s say Mark Pryor, are going to panic, knowing what could happen if the backlash among conservatives is as ferocious as everyone expects. In fact, as Newt alludes to, both Pryor and North Carolina’s Kay Hagan have already come out against executive amnesty and Mary Landrieu and Mark Begich don’t seem so hot about the idea either. There’s certainly a chance that O will open the floodgates on amnesty and the Hagans and Begiches will end up drowning in November. A decent GOP election night of say, six pick-ups in the Senate might balloon to eight or nine.

But I think Democrats are willing to make that trade, even if the Hagans and Begiches aren’t. Obama, Reid, and Pelosi played the long game once before when they were staring down the barrel of a tough midterm, remember. They passed ObamaCare in 2010 despite poll after poll showing public anxiety about the law and they got swamped that November because of it. But even so, and for all their whining about gridlock and GOP obstructionism, I think they’d do it again. They lost the House but gained universal health care; I suspect they’re willing to lose the Senate next year in the name of cementing Latino voters’ loyalty to the Democratic Party in 2016 and beyond. I won’t believe there’s any grassroots blue-collar Democratic backlash brewing either until I see it with my own eyes. The party’s stuck with Obama through everything so far — a perpetually disappointing economic recovery, the Healthcare.gov disaster, and one unsolvable foreign-policy crisis after another. There’s a reason his job approval tends to go no lower than 42 percent or so, the occasional one-day or one-week dip below that number notwithstanding. The entire Democratic leadership in Congress will back him to the hilt on executive amnesty, a few scattered objections from Landrieu and Pryor et al. aside. And of course there’ll be accusations of racism and phony worries about impeachment articulated as necessary, just to remind easily-led liberals in the base that the GOP is evil and opposing Obama’s policies makes you an accomplice to that evil. Democratic voters will fall in line. There’s not going to be a civil war, although there might be a midterm rout. Good enough?

• Share on Facebook 1
• 1 SHARES

Tags: amnesty, daca, Democrats, executive, gingrich, midterms, obama, order, Senate

Related Posts:

Source from: hotair

Openthread:Sundaymorningtalkingheads

Open thread: Sunday morning talking heads

posted at 8:01 am on August 3, 2014 by Allahpundit

• Share on Facebook 1
• 1 SHARES

With the world in flames and Congress paralyzed over immigration, it’s only right this Sunday morning that we hear directly from the head of the U.S. government. Valerie Jarrett is the featured guest on “Face the Nation.”

If that doesn’t grab you, “Fox News Sunday” will have Marco Rubio and Steve King. I doubt they’ll be allowed to debate, but that would make for quite a convo about amnesty. I’m going to pass on all of that, though, and stick with “This Week,” where the director of the Centers for Disease Control will be on to talk ebola. The full line-up is at Politico.

• Share on Facebook 1
• 1 SHARES

Tags: amnesty, bill, boehner, executive, Gaza, Hamas, house, immigration, Israel, obama, Senate, Sunday, talk shows

Related Posts:

Source from: hotair

Report:NewHousebillonbordercrisiswill

Report: New House bill on border crisis will limit Obama’s power to expand executive amnesty to new illegals; Update: Two separate bills

posted at 10:41 am on August 1, 2014 by Allahpundit

• Share on Facebook 1
• 1 SHARES

Still waiting for fuller details but Chad Pergram sees some sort of victory for tea partiers in the making. Initially, Boehner wanted to keep his own border bill separate from Ted Cruz’s and Marsha Blackburn’s bill limiting DACA, Obama’s 2012 amnesty for DREAMers. Only if House Republicans passed Boehner’s bill, the leadership insisted, would they get a vote on Cruz/Blackburn. But that was no real incentive: Either the House itself would have killed the Cruz/Blackburn bill or the Senate surely would have killed it. The only way to make DACA part of the ongoing negotiations in Congress was to add it to Boehner’s own bill, as part of the House’s formal offer to Harry Reid. I.e. “one bill, one vote.”

Mission accomplished?

New border proposal would alter Blackburn proposal to tighten up new language banning more DACA's from Obama.

— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) August 1, 2014

New GOP border proposal would block Obama from allowing more illegal immigrants already here special status.

— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) August 1, 2014

On border bill. Previous language was silent as to when DACA would be frozen. The new language freezes the program as of July 30, 2014.

— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) August 1, 2014

On the other hand:

Am told changes to border bill to coax the votes are literally a few sentences. 1 frustrated mbr says they're just "adding a few periods."

— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) August 1, 2014

Chad Pergram’s the only reporter with details on the bill that I’ve noticed but that’s newsy enough that it’s worth flagging now. I’ll update as more details are known. As for the timetable, Pergram says they’re going to at least pay lip service to formal procedure in passing this thing even though they’ll end up ignoring Boehner’s “three-day rule” for posting the text of a bill before it’s voted on. First comes a vote authorizing the House to take up a “same day rule,” then comes the posting of the bill’s text, then comes a meeting of the House Rules Committee followed by a vote of the House on the new rule, and then finally a vote on the bill itself sometime in the late afternoon or early evening. If all goes well, the GOP will have a new message for the August recess — they’ve now formally warned the president that he should go no further than he’s already gone in granting executive amnesty. If he goes ahead and issues a mega-amnesty for adult illegals in September anyway, it’ll look more like outright defiance of the will of one branch of Congress than Congress “refusing to act” or whatever. That might help, however marginally, in the messaging war that follows.

Here’s your thread, just in case you’re following along on C-SPAN today. Updates to follow. One other point in closing in case it’s ambiguous: Cruz/Blackburn wouldn’t *repeal* DACA, it would simply close it off to new applicants. That’s a concession to the politics here. The GOP’s willing, however grudgingly, to take on Obama’s executive action, but it fears the “anti-Latino” brand enough that it won’t expel kids who are currently in the program.

Update: Speaking of the messaging war, Becket Adams wonders why congressional Republicans don’t do something bold to stress the urgency of the border crisis and cancel their recess in August. If you want to show that you’re the party that’s more serious about illegal immigration, here’s your chance:

This form of protest, which was first suggested by Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren, would not only signal to the American public that House leadership gives “a damn” about the crisis, but it also would likely force the White House and the Senate to act on immigration reform (as failure to do so would invite terrible optics ahead of the November midterm elections). Obviously, getting the Obama administration to act on illegal immigration is more important than mere political posturing, the point of the protest being that it may produce a solution to the crisis.

True, it’s a bit “inside the beltway” to talk about so-called “optics” and midterms, but sticking around the city likely won’t hurt the House Republicans. So why not at least consider the idea? It seems like it could be an easy win, one that could hand a much-needed confidence boost to Republican leaders who have likely forgotten what victory feels like.

Update: At least one tea partier is satisfied.

Rep Michele Bachmann R-MN on re-worked GOP border bill: "I was a 'Hell no,' and now I can be for this bill today"

— Jamie Dupree (@jamiedupree) August 1, 2014

Update: Nope, I’m wrong. The Cruz/Blackburn bill is being split off after all.

Hse to do similar two-step as Thurs on border bills. Supplemental 1st. Then vote on new DACA. 2nd vote contingent upon passing supplemental

— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) August 1, 2014

Not sure what’s different today from last night. Maybe Pergram’s wrong and Boehner’s agreed to allow a vote on Cruz/Blackburn no matter what; yesterday, Cruz/Blackburn wouldn’t have come to the floor unless and until Boehner’s bill passed. Or maybe the House leadership is whipping votes for Cruz/Blackburn too, so that that bill will at least pass the House before it dies in the Senate.

• Share on Facebook 1
• 1 SHARES

Tags: boehner, border, crisis, cruz, daca, house, Kevin McCarthy, reid, scalise, Senate

Related Posts:

Source from: hotair