“Why The GOP Should Tank The Midterms”: The “Party Of No” GOP Does Not Want To Actually Govern
Several statistical models used to forecast the midterm elections give the Republican Party a better-than-even shot at seizing the Senate.
This should terrify Republicans.
Look into Speaker John Boehner’s exasperated eyes and think about how much he has suffered the last two years trying to contain his tea–crazy Republican caucus. Now double it. Then add an extra dose of Sens. Ted Cruz and Rand Paul. And then take away the ability to blame Harry Reid for the failure to get any Republican bills passed in the Senate.
Add it all up, and what you get is not a glorious triumph of a unified army on an unstoppable march to the White House, but an expansion of the GOP civil war into a two-front bicameral battle.
Recently asked by Politico to explain what he would pursue with a GOP Senate, Boehner said, “Nobody’s given it that much thought.” Probably because thinking about it would give him a panic attack no amount of merlot could cure. What can he and his Senate counterpart possibly propose to position the party for a general election in 2016 that won’t be mocked and blocked by the Tea Party?
Consider Boehner’s most recent humiliation over legislation to address the child migrant influx.
While the politically rational Boehner tried to keep the immediate crisis separate from the messy politics of immigration reform, Sen. Cruz whipped up the House rank and file to refuse support for any bill that did not terminate the president’s executive order providing waivers to some undocumented immigrants already in America who arrived as children. Lacking the votes, Boehner junked his narrow proposal and bowed to the anti-immigration forces.
As a result, just one month after Boehner had decided that Republicans were better off avoiding any immigration reform votes, he had to schedule an incredibly controversial one. Now nearly every House Republican is on record in favor of deporting people who grew up in America and who have no significant connection to their birth country, further worsening Republican efforts to reach out to the Latino community in advance of the next presidential election.
If the Tea Party gets its mitts on the Senate too, the humiliations will only become more frequent and more public.
Now obviously, under normal circumstances, taking over the Senate while retaining the House would be a good thing. Republicans would control the national agenda, deny Obama a free hand in further shaping the judiciary, and be one step away from fully controlling Washington after the 2016 presidential election. They could pass whatever legislation they wanted, and put Obama in the unpleasant position of, having spent years complaining of GOP obstructionism, now having to constantly veto things himself, or swallow what Republicans feed him.
But this is not a normal circumstance.
There is a fundamental breakdown of trust between the party leadership and the conservative rank and file. Attempts by the leadership to tone down rhetoric, calibrate policy positions away from the ideological fringes, and avoid all-or-nothing legislative battles are irrationally decried as surrender. Such pragmatism would be crucial at the moment Republicans are in full control of Congress and carry a heightened responsibility to help govern, but they will be in no position to deliver. If the past few years have taught us anything, it is that the “party of no” GOP does not want to actually govern.
Republicans may want to take solace in the fact that Boehner has been able to contain the worst impulses of the party’s right flank. He was able to ram through bills to provide hurricane disaster relief, expand domestic violence protections to LBGT survivors, stave off cuts to Medicare reimbursements for doctors, and avoid the insolvency of the highway trust fund, all over the objections of conservative ideologues. And while he let Cruz’s followers shut down the government in 2013, he made sure it didn’t last long and that there would not be a repeat performance in an election year (though perhaps one shouldn’t be overconfident until Congress actually passes legislation to fund the government by the next Sept. 30 deadline).
That track record suggests a Republican-controlled House and Senate wouldn’t completely jump the rails. But even when Boehner wins, he wins ugly. And if the GOP wins the Senate, these fissures will constantly be laid bare in the upper chamber too, preventing the leadership from presenting a consistent and welcoming face to the general electorate, and putting Republican presidential contenders in one awkward position after another.
A titanic budget battle, with the usual mix of unreasonable demands and threat of government shutdown, will be irresistible to the Tea Party once Republicans run all of Congress. But an outside-the-Beltway candidate like Jeb Bush or Chris Christie, inclined to run as someone who can end the federal government’s chronic dysfunction, will be hard-pressed to choose between criticizing Washington or praising the priorities of the Washington Republicans. If another natural disaster hits — especially in a key primary state or swing state — and conservatives again fight against emergency aid, presidential candidates who have a vote in Congress will be forced to choose between the compassion of the average voter and frugality of the debt-obsessed right-winger.
Those are the sorts of headaches that await Republicans if they win the Senate. And what exactly would they gain? Yes, they would be better able to stop Obama from further shaping the judiciary. But so long as they keep the House, they don’t need the Senate to bottle up Obama’s legislative agenda. Nor do they need to win the Senate outright in 2014 to win both the White House and the Senate in 2016. The few benefits do not outweigh the costs stemming from expanded governing responsibilities.
Republicans who want to win big in 2016 should ask themselves: Do we really want to export the House circus to the Senate next year? Or do we want to take a little extra time to sort out our own issues, and give our next presidential nominee more latitude to define the party’s agenda for the future?
By: Bill Scher, The Week, August 11, 2014
“Facing A Demographic Reality”: The So-Called ‘War On Whites’ Is A Fight The GOP Can’t Win
At this point, you really have to wonder: Is it still news when a Republican says something asinine?
On the off chance it is, let us spend a few moments pondering the strange case of Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks, who said last week that the Democratic Party is waging a “War on Whites.”
Yeah, he actually said that. You can look it up if you want.
Brooks was responding to radio talk show host Laura Ingraham, who had asked him to comment on a remark from National Journal columnist Ron Fournier to the effect that the GOP cannot continue to be competitive in national elections if it continues to alienate voters of color. This is a truth so self-evident as to have been adopted by the GOP itself in its “autopsy” report after the 2012 election.
Yet here is what Brooks said in response: “This is a part of the war on whites that is being launched by the Democratic Party. And the way in which they’re launching this war is by claiming that whites hate everybody else. It’s a part of the strategy that Barack Obama implemented in 2008, continued in 2012, where he divides us all on race, on sex, greed, envy, class warfare, all those kinds of things.”
“A War on Whites.” Yet it’s President Obama who is guilty of racially inflammatory rhetoric?
Brooks’ words so alarmed Ingraham that she suggested his rhetoric was “a little out there.” This woman belches fire on all things conservative; for her to suggest you’ve gone too far is like Charlie Sheen telling you to cut back on hookers and cigarettes.
But Brooks doubled down, repeating the claim in an interview with a website, AL.com: “What the Democrats are doing with their dividing America by race is they are waging a war on whites and I find that repugnant.”
OK, so let’s say the obvious first. There’s something surreal and absurd about this lecture, coming as it does from a member of the party that invented the Southern strategy and birtherism and whose voters were last seen standing at the border screaming at terrified Guatemalan kids.
But it’s not the ridiculousness of Brooks’ words that should be of greatest concern. You see, Fournier is right. If something does not arrest its present trajectory, the GOP seems destined to shrink into a regional party with appeal only to older white voters. It will be irrelevant in a nation where white voters will soon cease to be a majority — no group will be a majority — and appeals to racial and cultural resentments have less power to sway elections.
That should concern the GOP brain trust. It should concern us all. As a practical matter, this country has only two political parties; if one ceases to be competitive, we become a de facto single party system. That is not democracy. No ideology has a monopoly on good ideas. So America needs a healthy Republican Party.
Yet for every Rand Paul trying — albeit in a fumbling and deeply flawed manner — to reach constituencies the party has written off and driven off, or to engage on issues it has disregarded, there seem to be five Mo Brookses doubling down on the politics of resentment and fear.
His party needs to realize once and for all that that day is done. It is critical for the GOP to wean itself from the cowardly belief that simply to discuss race and culture, to acknowledge disparity in treatment and outcomes, to put forward ways of addressing those things, constitutes “playing the race card” or “race baiting” or fighting a “war on whites.”
That idea was always wrongheaded and dumb. Very soon it will become electorally untenable as well. So the GOP must learn to speak a language it has shunned to people it has ignored.
Because its biggest threat is not the Democratic Party but demographic reality. And right now, that reality is winning, hands down.
By: Leonard Pitts. Jr., Columnist, The Miami Herald; The National Memo, August 11, 2014
“Presidential Leadership Is A Moving Target”: For Republicans, President Obama Shouldn’t Do Anything That Might Make Them Mad
If Ron Fournier’s goal was to generate some discussion with his new column, he succeeded. Putting aside whether readers found his thesis compelling, it’s clearly generated some chatter.
Before highlighting Fournier’s case, it’s important to note for those unfamiliar with his work that the National Journal columnist is perhaps best known for his frequent – some might say, incessant – calls for President Obama to “lead” more. Many, including me, tend to think Fournier’s thesis is superficial and blind to institutional limits, but it’s nevertheless become a signature issue for him.
It’s with this background in mind that his latest piece seemed especially noteworthy. Fournier considered the president’s possible use of executive actions on some key issues, including immigration, and urged caution.
Bypassing Congress may be legal. The reforms he wants may be a good idea. But when I look beyond the next election and set aside my issue biases, I reluctantly conclude that it would be very wrong.
Depending on how far Obama extends presidential authority – and he suggested Wednesday that he’s willing to stretch it like soft taffy – this could be a political nuclear bomb. The man whose foundational promise was unity (“I don’t want to pit red America against blue America”) could seal his fate as the most polarizing president in history.
Well, that certainly sounds serious. Fournier has been eager, if not desperate, to see Obama lead more, but now that the president is considering a forceful demonstration of leadership, the columnist sees a “political nuclear bomb.” And why is that?
For argument’s sake, let’s say Obama is right on the issue and has legal authority to act. The big question is … Would it be wrong to end-run Congress? Another way to put it might be, “Would more polarization in Washington and throughout the country be wrong?” How about exponentially more polarization, gridlock, and incivility? If the president goes too far, he owns that disaster.
Hmm. For argument’s sake, the nation is facing some serious policy challenges, and the White House has some meaningful solutions in mind. Those solutions, again for argument’s sake, are both legally sound and correct on the merits. As a matter of public policy, President Obama could take these actions and advance proposals with real merit.
But apparently, he should do no such thing. Fournier, who has spent years complaining about the need for Obama to lead more, now recommends the president lead less – because doing the correct and legally sound thing would make Obama’s opponents unhappy.
It’s a curious prescription for presidential leadership: Obama should take bold moves to move the nation forward, but only if his opponents who refuse to govern first extend their approval.
Under this Fournier thesis, legal authority and policy merit are but two legs of a three-legged stool. The president still needs permission from those who would see him fail – even if they refuse to govern, even if they will not negotiate in good faith, even if their preferred policy is to do nothing, regardless of the consequences.
Kevin Drum summarized this nicely: “What Fournier is saying is that President Obama shouldn’t do anything that might make Republicans mad. But this means the president is literally helpless: No proposal of his has any chance of securing serious Republican engagement in Congress, but he’s not allowed to take executive action for fear of making them even more intransigent. Obama’s only legitimate option, apparently, is to persuade Republicans to support his proposals, even though it’s no secret that Republicans decided years ago to obstruct everything, sight unseen, that was on Obama’s agenda. So that leaves Obama with no options at all.”
I find Fournier’s argument well-intentioned, but ultimately incomprehensible. Indeed, to a certain degree it’s bizarre – Fournier has argued that Obama must “act” on his agenda. Great presidents, the columnist has said, “find a way” to advance their goals, even in the face of fierce opposition.
And as Obama prepares to do exactly that, effectively embracing on Fourier’s own advice, the National Journal columnist suddenly decides bold presidential action isn’t so great after all. Obama’s principal concern should no longer be advancing worthwhile ideas to advance national interests, but rather, the focus should be what might make Republicans – the unpopular party that lost the most recent elections – angrier than they already are.
The president’s detractors can’t have it both ways. They can’t say Obama is leading too much and too little at the same time. They shouldn’t demand bold action and passive timidity simultaneously.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, August 8, 2014
“Don’t Count Primaries In The Short Run”: The Tea Party Is Still A Powerful Force In GOP Politics
Liberal-friendly media outlets have been running obituaries for the Tea Party almost from the moment the grassroots conservative movement began in 2009. Tea Party anger over ObamaCare and corporate bailouts helped fuel a surprise Republican wave in 2010, shocking most pundits, as the House of Representatives shifted firmly into the GOP’s control. But then the movement fell short in 2012, and ever since then, much of the media have once again seemed eager to pronounce the Tea Party either dead or irrelevant — missing the larger point, and the larger impact. And the media’s Tea Party misfire will surely continue today, now that longtime Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts has emerged victorious over conservative challenger Milton Wolf in Tuesday’s GOP primary.
Or take, for instance, this year’s Mississippi Senate primary. The Republican incumbent, Thad Cochran, has a long reputation for pork-barrel politics and down-home pandering, neither of which has endeared him to small-government conservatives. The competitive challenge from Chris McDaniel came as a shock to Cochran and his supporters, who believed they could get one more easy ride back to the Senate from the seven-term senator in one of the friendliest states for Republicans. Instead, McDaniel narrowly edged Cochran in the initial vote, and narrowly lost the runoff — although McDaniel is contesting the results. To win the runoff, Cochran had to appeal to an unusual constituency: Democrats.
But in most states where incumbents faced challenges from Tea Party activists, the incumbents have had to defend their conservative credentials. Two key Senate GOP leaders had to fend off challengers with more effort than they have probably expended in several cycles put together. National Republican Senatorial Committee chair John Cornyn defeated a sitting House member, Steve Stockman, in the March primary in Texas, but it wasn’t easy; Cornyn got 59 percent of the vote, a decent enough showing, but hardly a ringing endorsement, even after Cornyn vigorously defended his brand of conservatism in the Lone Star State.
Mitch McConnell in Kentucky found himself in the hot seat, too. The Senate minority leader often runs afoul of Tea Party activists for his efforts to find compromise on issues when the grassroots want confrontation. McConnell won his Senate primary by 25 points over a first-time challenger, whose campaign ended up collapsing under its own weight. But first, Matt Bevin forced McConnell to shift to the right and get more defiant, at least rhetorically speaking.
Most Republican incumbents knew to move to the right well before the primary campaign; Lindsey Graham began laying the groundwork two years ago for his re-election effort, which paid off this spring in an easy win over six challengers. But not everyone got the memo. The biggest surprise came in the primary for Virginia’s 7th congressional district, where House Majority Leader Eric Cantor was expected to win easily. Cantor certainly expected it, spending most of his campaign fundraising outside of the district and barely engaging in his own race. Dave Brat, a local college professor with no electoral experience but with plenty of grassroots support, spent less on his whole campaign than Cantor spent on steakhouses — and ended up beating Cantor by double digits.
This dynamic — of conservative challengers, win or lose, forcing longtime incumbents to be more conservative — seems to be lost on the media. This week, both CBS News and The Hill ran Tea Party obituaries. CBS called this week’s primaries “the Tea Party’s last gasp this year,” while The Hill said that the movement’s Senate hopes will surely “fade.” And in the moment, that might well be true.
But look: The true test of the Tea Party won’t be in primary victories this week or this year, but in the impact of the conservative grassroots movement on the Republican Party. We have already seen incumbents who have rarely if ever had to deal with intraparty challengers shift their focus and message in response. The lack of banner wins in 2012 certainly didn’t persuade most of these incumbents to dismiss that pressure — in fact, the ones who succeeded most were the ones who prepared soonest and most vigorously.
When the New Left brand of progressivism arose in the 1960s, its candidates didn’t win a lot of elections at first either. It took two decades for the pressure of the movement to shift the center of the Democratic Party away from its traditional, blue-collar liberalism. In the late 1980s, the trend worried Democrats enough to form the Democratic Leadership Council to push back and recruit moderates to run for office, the most successful of which was Bill Clinton in 1992. By 2008, his wife blew her opening for the presidential nomination in part by falling short of the progressive credentials of Barack Obama.
The lesson here is not to count primaries in the short run. Look for the way incumbents have to defend their record and wait for the grassroots to produce change organically over the long run.
By: Edward Morrissey, The Week, August 6, 2014
“A Tough Week For Sen Pearl Jam”: Rand Paul Spouting ‘Weaselspeak’ Like A Native
I haven’t commented yet on Robert Draper’s much-discussed New York Times Magazine piece entitled “Has the ‘Libertarian Moment’ Finally Arrived?” That’s partly because my instinctive hostility to libertarianism (possibly due to an early high-school brush with the adolescent virus of Objectivism) means I have to calm down and think clearly before writing of such things. And it’s partly because Draper’s piece–while fascinating like everything the man writes–spends a lot of time retailing dubious libertarian claims that this or that generational trend on a scattered assortment of issues means The Movement is on the brink of some national breakthrough (as Draper notes, we’ve heard that before).
But the most interesting part of the piece is the increasingly familiar idea that Sen. Rand Paul has the skills and flexibility to launch some sort of gussied-up version of the Eternally Correct Ideology with enough mass appeal to conquer the GOP and then the nation. It’s analogous to how some movement conservatives looked at Ronald Reagan, who wasn’t as simon-pure as Barry Goldwater by any stretch of the imagination, but was trusted to have the best interests of The Cause foremost in his mind, and knew where to trim and prevaricate in the pursuit of votes. One of Draper’s aging hipster libertarian interlocutors offered a similar analogy of Rand Paul being Pearl Jam to his old man’s Nirvana.
I’ve earlier talked about Rand seeking to advance some sort of Big Tent Libertarianism that’s soft enough around the edges and weasely enough on tough issues to be tempting to many regular Republicans looking for a change of pace without abandoning core anti-government and Obama-bashing principles. He’s been pretty good at it in the past (viz. his election in not-exactly-hipster Kentucky), but as I’ve been noting, he’s struggling now with a pattern of self-contradiction and transparent flip-flopping. As usual, Charlie Pierce sums it up pungently after noting the snares Paul has become entangled in after his flight from DREAMers at a fundraiser with Steve King earlier this week:
America’s brogressive love-puppet speaks the weaselspeak like a native, doesn’t he? He doesn’t want any contact with the berating scofflaws, but he wants them to have work permits, but not in-state tuition. In four or five days, he will likely reverse all three of these reversals of positions. He will feel very strongly all three ways and, also, free pot! All in all, I am disinclined to agree with my friend Bob Draper that we are living through the libertarian moment, at least as represented by Senator Aqua Buddha. This is because “the libertarian moment” is a scam.
Paul has similar trouble sticking to a coherent position on all kinds of issues, from abortion and same-sex marriage (often relying on the usual “federalism” dodge when he’s not taking the most hard-core positions imaginable and/or suggesting these shouldn’t be “priorities” for the GOP) to national security and fiscal policy. The big question is whether in running for president as a first-term senator he has enough base support beyond his old man’s Revolution to ever get to the point where non-libertarians are confronted with the option of finding him acceptable. If I were him I’d go off on a retreat with the Koch Brothers and whoever else he relies on for serious money and advice (leaving the hipsters at home) and hammer out a platform and strategy he can stick to for an extended period of time. The day-to-day improvisation is beginning to sound less like Pearl Jam than the Experimental Blues/Jazz Jam from This Is Spinal Tap.
By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Writer, Washington Monthly Political Animal, August 8, 2014
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