I think the Republican strategy in doing this so quickly is that they don’t want what Wisconsin had, dragging on for so many days. This is a blitzkrieg, and Republicans hope it’s going to be over and done with tomorrow.“Inside Michigan Politics” editor Bill Ballenger • Discussing the Republican strategy behind passing the “right to work” law in Michigan — which looks like it may get passed on Tuesday, in a fight over unions similar to the one that took place in Wisconsin nearly two years ago. Republican Gov. Rick Snyder may or may not sign the bill into law, though Democrats are not convinced he will side with them. While citizens could band together fight the law at the polls in 2014, if the law were to pass, it would go into effect at least until then.
DeMint has been a destructive force, threatening to primary colleagues, resisting all deals and offering very little in the way of attainable legislation. He has contributed more than any current senator to the dysfunction of that body. He has worsened relations between the House and Senate, as he did in the budget fights in recent years, by meddling and pressuring his home state representative. His departure leaves other senators who seemed impressed with his brand of politics free to find their way to a more constructive position in the body.The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin • Discussing why Jim DeMint’s departure from the Senate is a good thing for Congress … though it could prove much worse down the road, due to the influence he’ll yield as head of the Heritage Foundation. Rubin suggests he hurts the Heritage brand. “By embracing him, Heritage, to a greater extent than ever before, becomes a political instrument in service of extremism, not a well-respected think tank and source of scholarship,” she writes. “Every individual who works there should take pause and consider whether the reputation of that institution is elevated or diminished by this move. And I would say the same, frankly, if any other non-scholarly pol took that spot.”
The Republican Study Committee, a caucus of Republicans in the House of Representatives, has told staffer Derek Khanna that he will be out of a job when Congress re-convenes in January. The incoming chairman of the RSC, Steve Scalise (R-LA) was approached by several Republican members of Congress who were upset about a memo Khanna wrote advocating reform of copyright law. They asked that Khanna not be retained, and Scalise agreed to their request.
The release and subsequent retraction of Khanna’s memo has made waves in tech policy circles. The document argues that the copyright regime has become too favorable to the interests of copyright holders and does not adequately serve the public interest. It advocates several key reforms, including reducing copyright terms and limiting the draconian “statutory damages” that can reach as high as $150,000 per infringing work.
Mind you, tech scholars and the public thought this idea was great. But content groups? They said no, and now this dude is out of a job. Ouch.
I care more about my country than I do about a 20-year-old pledge…I care a lot more about it than I do Grover Norquist.Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss, breaking ranks with the militant anti-tax wing of his party. 41 senators have signed Norquist’s pledge—which is essentially a promise to never, ever vote for any revenue or tax increase—but while the document used to be Republican orthodoxy, its influence is showing signs of crumbling. Chambliss’ colleagues Lindsey Graham, John McCain, and Tom Coburn have all recently called for Republicans to abandon the pledge, as has former governor Jeb Bush. While Norquist is a very powerful figure in DC, he isn’t an elected official. He derives power solely from Republicans’ decision to grant him power, and if their subservience to his demands goes away, so does the bulk of his political influence. source
A defining characteristic of this election cycle was Super PACs and the hundreds of millions of dollars outside groups were spending to influence races. Now that it’s all over, we wanted to see which outside groups spent their money on succssful races and which did not. The result was our interactive Not-So-Super PACs: 2012’s Winners and Losers.
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It’s a bit confusing at first, but the interactive version of this chart (behind the link) is awesome. The thickness of the lines indicate how much money was given, and the success rate of the various PACS is in ascending order on the X-axis. The take-home message? Democrats spent a lot less on super PACS this cycle, yet enjoyed a much, much higher success rate at the ballot box.
If Republicans do not do better in the Hispanic community, in a few short years Republicans will no longer be the majority party in our state. If that happens, no Republican will ever again win the White House. New York and California are for the foreseeable future unalterably Democrat. If Texas turns bright blue, the Electoral College math is simple. We won’t be talking about Ohio, we won’t be talking about Florida or Virginia, because it won’t matter. If Texas is bright blue, you can’t get to two-seventy electoral votes. The Republican Party would cease to exist. We would become like the Whig Party.Republican Senator-Elect Ted Cruz • Discussing the GOP’s need for better outreach in Hispanic and Latino communities around the country, but particularly in his home state of Texas. The Lone Star State, and its 38 electoral college votes, remain central to the Republican Party’s presidential election strategy, and its loss could prove insurmountable for the GOP. While no one is suggesting such a flip will happen by 2016 (or even 2020), Cruz’s concerns follow similar comments made by one of former presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s own advisers last week. source
For 16 months, Democrats and Republicans behaved like a husband and wife in an ugly divorce proceeding, not speaking to each other except through invective.
Now they will see if their troubled marriage can be salvaged, for the sake of the children, which in this case is the U.S. economy. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office reiterated last week that jumping off the cliff would boost the jobless rate to 9 percent from the current 7.9 percent.
For Obama, who won four more years in office in Tuesday’s election, this is his moment to bring a “balanced approach” to healing the nation’s fiscal problems.
In the Democrat’s eyes, that means keeping lower tax rates for the poor and middle class, while forcing the rich to pay more income taxes. White House spokesman Jay Carney renewed the president’s vow to veto legislation that simply extends the tax cuts, which originated during the administration of President George W. Bush.
If Republicans were to agree to the higher tax rates on the wealthy, that would open the door to deals on a new round of spending cuts, including sensitive “entitlement” programs, such as the Medicare healthcare program for the elderly, some Democrats say privately.
Get these guys some couples’ therapy. Please.
The problem with the Republican leaders is that they’re cowards, not that they’re fundamentally mistaken. The real locus of the problem is the Republican activist base and the Republican donor base. They went apocalyptic over the past four years, and that was exploited by a lot of people in the conservative world. I won’t soon forget the lupine smile that played over the head of one major conservative institution when he told me that our donors think the apocalypse has arrived, that Republicans have been fleeced and exploited and lied to by a conservative entertainment complex.David Frum • Offering his particular dissection of the Republican dilemma, following a deeply unsuccessful general election season, on MSNBC yesterday. Frum also spoke with conspicuous disdain of the GOP’s current slate on policy, calliing their message “no longer relevant to middle-class America.” source
Wrote a thing.
Hat tip to this headline writer.
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This was an instruction packet that went out to 30,000+ people. Did no one proof-read it?Ace of Spades HQ contributor John Ekdahl • Discussing his experience as an attempted Republican poll watcher on Tuesday — and in the process noting the failings of the party’s “Project Orca,” which was designed to modernize the process of election “strike lists,” but ended up only frustrating supporters. Ekdahl says that he didn’t have a “poll watcher certificate” — something that wasn’t listed as being necessary in his instruction packet — and was turned away. And the problem was widespread, too, he found. “People had been kicked from poll watching for having no certificate. Others never received their pdf packets. Some were sent the wrong packets from a different area. Some received their packet, but their usernames and passwords didn’t work,” he explains. If this is the case, the party may have had some major organizational problems on Election Day.
The question of why poor people vote Republican is not simply an issue of income but primarily race and partly region and gender. Poor people may be more likely to vote Democrat; poor white people are not. In 2008 McCain won a slim majority (51%) of white Americans who earn less than $50,000 (this is just below the national median income which is not poor but the only figure available from exit polls that breaks down votes down by race and income), while Obama won a whopping majority of non-whites in the same category (86%). Asked in May which candidate would do more to advance their family’s economic interests middle-class white voters who say they are struggling to maintain their financial positions gave Romney a 26 point lead over Obama.
But that support is less pronounced among white women than white men and is not uniform across the country. In Mississippi 84% of whites who earn below $50,000 backed McCain: in Vermont 70% in the same category voted for Obama. Of the nine states that backed Obama in 2008 in three less affluent whites went for McCain, in five they backed Obama and one was a tie. In all of them non-whites voted Democrat.
The Guardian’s Gary Younge takes a closer look at what he believes to be the driving forces behind poor and working class Americans’ ballot decisions.
— Scott @ ShortFormBlog
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