“November Gets Iffier”: The Worm Has Turned A Bit; The GOP Victory Parade Seems A Bit Premature
Just when much of the punditocracy was settling in for a few happy weeks of arguing over the extent of the Republican “wave” in November, while Mitch McConnell figuratively measured curtains for the Majority Leader’s offices, the worm has turned a bit, at least in the polling data, and the GOP victory parade seems a bit premature. WaPo’s Chris Cillizza sums up the confused state of prophecy:
Democrats are now (very slightly) favored to hold the Senate majority on Nov. 4, according to Election Lab, The Post’s statistical model of the 2014 midterm elections.
Election Lab puts Democrats’ chances of retaining their majority at 51 percent — a huge change from even a few months ago, when the model predicted that Republicans had a better than 80 percent chance of winning the six seats they need to take control…..
The movement toward Democrats in the Election Lab model isn’t unique. LEO, the New York Times’ Upshot model, gives Republicans a 51 percent chance of winning the Senate — but that is down significantly over the past few weeks.
Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight model now has Republican chances of winning the Senate at 55 percent, down from 64 percent 12 days ago.
Meanwhile, Princeton Election Consortium’s Sam Wang, the forecaster who focuses strictly on polling data, and refuses to tilt the data to reflect “fundamentals” like historical precedents, presidential approval ratings and the condition of the economy, has the probability of continued Democratic control of the Senate at 81%.
As Cillizza notes, though, the most prominent traditional forecasters–who do not use statistical models and tend to put a greater emphasis on factors like campaign spending and “momentum” and national trends–seem to be moving in the opposite direction:
What’s interesting about the election models is that they are moving in the opposite direction of political handicappers. In recent days, Stu Rothenberg and Charlie Cook, the two best-known, nonpartisan prognosticators in Washington, have each written that the possibility of large-scale Republicans gains is increasing, not decreasing
I don’t know if this disconnect between poll- and non-poll-based analysis will generate the level of ferocious debate we saw during the Great “Skewing” Battle of 2012. But it is interesting that despite the shifting winds, in the heart of conservative-land there’s not even a scintilla of doubt that Republicans are on their way to a historic win in November that will carry over into 2016, and presumably last foreover. Check out these lines from TV celebrity pundit S.E. Cupp in the New York Daily News:
It’s hard to imagine Democrats can course-correct in less than two years the failures they — and Hillary Clinton, in particular — have overseen for more than six.
In the lead-up to the 2014 midterms, Democrats have tried and failed to figure out successful campaign strategies. They tried to resurrect the “war on women,” but believe it or not, Democrats have a bigger problem with men than Republicans do with women.
According to GWU battleground polling, Republicans are only six points behind among women, whereas Democrats are 15 points behind among men, and 28 points behind among white men in particular. That’s a lot of ground to make up.
Raising the minimum wage turned out not to be the barnstormer Democrats hoped it would be either.
Another of their “big ideas” was to make tax inversion, where businesses move to foreign countries to avoid steep corporate taxes here, a turnout issue. Last week Politico called that effort a “massive dud.”
Without any cohesion — united only, it seems, by their desire to distance themselves from their standard-bearer — Democrats are having to run a spaghetti strategy: throw it on the wall and see what sticks.
Republicans won big in the 2010 midterms but weren’t able to swing back to the center in time for 2012. With all this momentum behind them, the pathway is clear. And not even Hillary Clinton should be able to stop them.
There’s a rather obvious and irreconcilable gap between those who look forward to elections by consulting at empirical data and those who view them as representing moral judgments on the truth or error of world views. Think I’ll stick to empirical data, but then I would, wouldn’t I? I’m a liberal, God help me.
By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Writer, Washington Monthly Political Animal, September 17, 2014
“Tell The Misses Not To Wait Up”: Florida Congressman Finds New Ways To Alienate Women
This election season, there are really only a handful of House Republican incumbents who are in real trouble. Freshman Rep. Steve Southerland (R), who narrowly won in his North Florida district in 2012, is one of them.
In a district in which registered Democrats outnumber Republicans, it seems Southerland would be smart to play it safe and try to avoid alienating key constituencies. And yet, the GOP congressman seems to have a knack for pushing women voters away.
For example, Southerland was recently caught misleading voters about his vote on the Violence Against Women Act. Making matters worse, voters recently learned the conservative lawmaker hosted a men-only fundraising event a few months ago. The invitation, obtained by BuzzFeed, encouraged attendees to “tell the misses not to wait up” because “the after dinner whiskey and cigars will be smooth & the issues to discuss are many.”
Southerland’s opponent, school administrator Gwen Graham (D), criticized the fundraiser, prompting the congressman to make matters just a little worse.
Asked to respond to the Democrats’ criticism that he’s anti-women, Southerland laughed and said: “I live with five women. That’s all I’m saying. I live with five women. Listen: Has Gwen Graham ever been to a lingerie shower? Ask her. And how many men were there?”
He didn’t appear to be kidding. In Southerland’s mind, a sitting congressman hosting a policy discussion with donors is comparable to women hosting a “lingerie shower.”
Just as an aside, I’ll confess to having the exact same reaction to this as the Miami Herald’s Marc Caputo: “What’s a ‘lingerie shower?’ Most people know what baby showers are. And a few are probably familiar with lingerie shows. To combine the two is kinda creepy.” When a reader noted that “lingerie showers” are usually held for brides to be, Caputo added, “And that makes Southerland’s comment even less helpful to his cause.”
MSNBC’s Anna Brand talked to Gwen Graham’s campaign manager about Southerland’s comments.
Graham’s campaign manager Julia Gill Woodward responded to the comparison to msnbc, saying “This isn’t just stuff Steve Southerland says; given his pattern of troubling actions and disturbing comments, it is obviously what Steve Southerland believes. Southerland says these things out of a fundamental disrespect for women.”
“Only if Southerland disrespects women could he hold an official, Men-Only Southerland campaign fundraiser and laugh it off after the fact,” Woodward continued. “Only if Southerland disrespects women could he air TV ads claiming to have voted for The Violence Against Women Act while he actually voted against it in Congress. Only if Southerland disrespects women could he make this insulting ‘lingerie party’ comment about a woman like Gwen Graham.”
The DCCC’s interest in this race was strong before. I have a hunch it just got stronger.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, September 15, 2014
“Just So We’re Clear”: Arizona Republican Suggests Sterilizing Poor Women
Russell Pearce has had quite a career in Arizona. The Republican started as a fairly obscure state senator, before his anti-immigrant SB1070 pushed him into the national spotlight, which Pearce parlayed into a promotion as state Senate President.
His shooting star didn’t last – Pearce’s record and extremist associations undermined his standing, and in 2011, voters pushed him out of office in a recall election.
State Republicans probably should have allowed Pearce to fade from public view, but instead, GOP officials made Pearce the #2 leader in the state party. As Zach Roth reported, that didn’t turn out too well, either.
The far-right former lawmaker who helped create Arizona’s “papers please” immigration law has resigned as a top official with the state GOP after making comments about sterilizing poor women. […]
On Saturday, the state Democratic Party highlighted comments Pearce made recently on his radio show. Discussing the state’s public assistance programs, Pearce declared: “You put me in charge of Medicaid, the first thing I’d do is get Norplant, birth-control implants, or tubal ligations…. Then we’ll test recipients for drugs and alcohol, and if you want to [reproduce] or use drugs or alcohol, then get a job.”
Just so we’re clear, by making Norplant a part of public assistance, Pearce was, fairly explicitly, talking about sterilizing low-income women.
By way of a response, the principal author of Arizona’s “papers please” law argued in a written statement that he was referencing “comments written by someone else and failed to attribute them to the author.”
It’s a rare sight: a politician trying to defend himself by relying on an admission of plagiarism.
Of course, the problem has nothing to do with attribution and everything to do with an intended message. No one cares whether Pearce was sharing someone else’s argument; everyone cares that he talked about sterilizing poor people.
Daniel Strauss added that Arizona Republicans were so eager to support Pearce after his recall race that he was made the first-ever vice chairman of the Arizona GOP a year after his ouster.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, September 15, 2014
“Oil And Gas”: The Combustible Mix Of Ted Cruz And The House GOP
Congress will have to act fairly soon to approve a new stopgap spending measure, called a “continuing resolution,” to prevent a government shutdown at the end of the month. Leaders in both parties and both chambers seem fairly optimistic – especially now that President Obama has postponed an announcement on immigration executive actions – that an ugly fight can be avoided.
But as we learned during the Republican shutdown last fall, congressional leaders don’t always get what they want.
Sen. Ted Cruz again met with a small group of House Republicans late Tuesday night, this time to discuss over pizza a conservative strategy on the continuing resolution.
While many of the Cruz meetings have seemed to lack a specific agenda or resolution, members trickled out of Tuesday’s nearly two-hour meeting repeating a similar refrain: We want a new expiration date on the CR.
The House GOP leadership seems to have adopted a let’s-not-screw-this-up-again strategy. They’ll advance a “clean” spending measure that will keep the government open through mid-December, then act again during the lame-duck session that will follow the midterm elections. No muss, no fuss.
Cruz isn’t sure he likes that plan. The far-right Texan, for example, yesterday suggested members use “any and all means necessary” to prevent President Obama from using his executive powers to further address immigration policy. In the context of the continuing resolution, that presumably means Cruz would like to see measures added to the spending bill to tie the president’s hands – and if those measures aren’t there, then the spending bill should be blocked, regardless of the consequences.
The senator and his allies also have concerns about the length of the CR and a possible extension of the Export-Import Bank.
Whether their concerns have the traction necessary to shut down the government again is another matter entirely.
The fact remains that most House Republicans appear eager to spend as little time as possible on Capitol Hill before the elections. The goal, in general, is to keep the government’s lights on and get back to the campaign trail. Luckily for the GOP, most voters no longer seem to remember last year’s ridiculous shutdown, and so long as Republicans don’t do it again, they probably won’t face any real consequences for their actions at all.
And so when Cruz interjects to argue that he and his far-right cohorts should do it again, it’s a tough sell for the Texas Republican.
Still, strange things happen when Cruz and House Republicans huddle for private meetings.
As we discussed earlier in the summer, Cruz met privately with a group of House Republicans in late July to urge them to ignore their own leadership and oppose their party’s border bill. Less than a day later, House GOP leaders were forced to pull their preferred legislation – too many of House Speaker John Boehner’s members were listening to Cruz, not him.
It’s part of a growing pattern. Last September, for example, Boehner presented a plan to avoid a government shutdown. Cruz met directly with House Republicans, urged them to ignore their own leader’s plan, and GOP House members followed his advice. A month later, Cruz held another meeting with House Republicans, this time in a private room at a Capitol Hill restaurant.
This year, in April, the Texas senator again gathered House Republicans, this time for a private meeting in his office. In June, less than an hour after House Republicans elected a new leadership team, Cruz invited House Republicans to join him for “an evening of discussion and fellowship.”
In July, as Congress prepared for some 11th-hour legislating before their month-long break, Cruz and House Republicans met to plot strategy, and a week later, they huddled once more.
The Texas Republican doesn’t seem to get along with other senators, but he spends an inordinate amount of time huddling with House Republicans who actually seem to listen to his advice.
This time, though, the odds are against Cruz’s success. Will the House GOP majority really move towards a government shutdown – two months before Election Day – in the hopes of blocking executive actions on immigration that haven’t even been introduced? The fact that Cruz and his allies would consider such a tactic is itself remarkable, but he’s nevertheless likely to lose this round.
By: Steve Benen, The Madow Blog, September 10, 2014
“The Return Of The Ruthless Cyborg”: Republicans Just Can’t Get Enough Of Dick Cheney
It was just a few months ago when the Republican Study Committee, a group of far-right House GOP lawmaker, invited former Vice President Dick Cheney to Capitol Hill to complain about President Obama for a while. Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), now a member of the House GOP leadership, said at the time, in reference to Cheney, “He’s got a lot of credibility when it comes to talking about foreign policy.”
I don’t think he was kidding.
Apparently, this thinking remains quite pervasive among GOP lawmakers, who keep extending invitations to Cheney, his spectacular failures and incompetence notwithstanding. The Washington Post reported late yesterday:
The leading architect of the Iraq war will be on Capitol Hill for a private chat with House Republicans on Tuesday, just as Congress is grappling again with how involved the United States should be in the region’s snowballing unrest.
Yes, as in Dick Cheney, one of the war’s most ardent defenders. The former vice president was invited by the GOP’s campaign arm to speak at its first weekly conference meeting since Congress’s five-week break, a House GOP official confirmed.
It says something important about Republican lawmakers that to better understand international affairs, they not only keep turning to failed former officials, they keep seeking guidance from the same failed former official.
Indeed, this isn’t a situation in which Cheney was just wandering around, looking for someone who’d listen to his mindless condemnations of the president who’s cleaning up Cheney’s messes, and GOP lawmakers agreed to listen as a courtesy. Rather, Congressional Republicans have gone out of their way to make the former V.P. one of their most sought after instructors.
Just in this Congress, Cheney has been on Capitol Hill advising GOP lawmakers over and over and over again.
It’s tempting to start the usual diatribe, highlighting all of Cheney’s horrific failures, his spectacular misjudgments, and his propensity for dishonesty on a breathtaking scale. But let’s skip that, stipulating that Cheney’s tenure in national office was a genuine disaster, the effects of which Americans will be dealing with for many years to come.
Let’s instead note how truly remarkable the timing of Cheney’s latest invitation to Capitol Hill is.
Republicans are concerned about the threat posed by ISIS? The group’s existence is largely the result of the disastrous war Cheney helped launch under false pretenses.
Republicans are outraged that the White House is completing a plan for the next phase of the U.S. counter-terrorism policy? Cheney’s the guy who helped invade Iraq without a plan for what would happen after the war began.
I talked to a Democratic source last night who also reminded me of the current circumstances in Iraq, which are illustrative of a larger point. During Cheney’s tenure, the U.S. policy in Iraq was incoherent – the Republican White House couldn’t figure out what to do about the terrorist threat, parts of which they inadvertently helped create; picked Maliki to run the country almost at random; and struggled to understand the value of political solutions.
President Obama, meanwhile, has been adept where Cheney was clueless – patiently pushing Maliki aside and helping produce tangible political results in Baghdad, including the ones we saw just yesterday.
I don’t imagine any of this will come up during today’s “private chat.”
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, September 9, 2014
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