Tag: house

Ten Things Barack Obama Will Need To Do In 2015 Before Republicans Will Begin To Trust Him.

(H/T: Hot Air) Apparently Democrats are getting to the point – however privately – where they’re starting to worry about whether Barack Obama will be ‘betraying’ them next year by making deals with a GOP House and Senate.  Well, I got bad news and good news for the Democrats.  On the one hand, it’s going to be really, really hard for Republicans to believe that Barack Obama would be willing to negotiate in good faith with us.  On the other hand, there is a path of redemption for the President to take along those lines.

On the gripping hand?  Barack Obama would absolutely HATE having to do any of the below, let alone all of it.

Ten Things Barack Obama Will Need To Do In 2015 Before Republicans Will Begin To Trust Him.

  1. Fire Valerie Jarrett.
  2. Stop protecting Eric Holder. And no pardon.
  3. Directly negotiate with the Speaker of the House and the new Senate Majority Leader.
  4. Clean house in the IRS.
  5. Open up the water supply in the San [Joaquin] Valley.
  6. Sign off on the Keystone Pipeline.
  7. Formally admit that Gitmo will not be closing during his administration.
  8. Accept personal responsibility for future mistakes made by his administration.
  9. Institute regular press conferences, complete with ample time for questions.
  10. Start showing up on time for things.

Continue reading Ten Things Barack Obama Will Need To Do In 2015 Before Republicans Will Begin To Trust Him.

Absent Factor X, the Democrats are not going to get back the House this year.

Articles like this are very helpful. For Republicans: “Is there anyway Democrats can win the 17 seats they need to capture the House majority this November? In one word: Yes.”

In several hundred words: no, not really.

Juan Williams is pretty much stuck with arguing generalities and gerrymandering. The first is used to assure his readers that the American people clearly love the Democrats more, while the latter is used to explain away that pesky problem that said American people have been apparently hate-voting the GOP into power since 2010. But it’s probably wise on Mr. Williams’ part, given that when actual numbers come into play things get sticky: “In the 2012 House races Democrats won 50.6 percent of America’s votes with a popular President Obama at the top of the ballot.” Continue reading Absent Factor X, the Democrats are not going to get back the House this year.

FL-13 Fallout Watch: Two Democratic House candidates drop out this week.

(H/T: AoSHQ) The two were Mike Parrish in PA-06 (Lean Republican) and Buffie McFadyen in CO-0[3] (Safe Republican). Of the two, obviously Parrish is the more disappointing news for Democrats… but it’s interesting to note that ‘R+5’ is apparently enough to be effectively out of the realm of possibility for Democrats this cycle anyway.  I remember a time when it was not, and that time was 2006 and 2008.

I know, I know, it’s vaguely minor news and everything.  But if you’re wondering why people are making certain assumptions about the 2014 election cycle, it’s because of stories like these.  You look at who is running, who is retiring, who is staying out of races, who is jumping in… money, too, of course, but money tends to get cancelled out by other money.  In the end, the people running are the biggest part of this picture.  To mangle Machiavelli… gold may not get you good candidates, but good candidates can always get you gold. Continue reading FL-13 Fallout Watch: Two Democratic House candidates drop out this week.

*More* Democratic House retirements this week?

I will believe it when I see it, but that’s the buzz right now: “[CNN’s John King was] told the Florida special election results were the last straw for at least two and perhaps more House Democrats facing tough 2014 races.” The problem with that is that it’s late for retirements; primary season has already started and at this point anybody who retires is going to put his or her party through an unseemly scramble to find a replacement. Pulling this on the Democratic party would be highly obnoxious, in other words; and while I don’t personally care I can still say that it’s not very professional to put your caucus through that sort of thing. Continue reading *More* Democratic House retirements this week?

Nancy Pelosi seems to think that #obamacare is *still* a winner.

So, Nancy Pelosi…

Um. Nancy Pelosi. Pelosi.  P-E-L-O-S-I.  She used to be Speaker of the House, remember?  Yeah, back in 2010.  She stopped being Speaker after the Republican party used Obamacare to gut the Democrats’ House caucus.  …What? Oh, no, she didn’t retire: Nancy stayed on as House Minority Leader, which is pretty much why the GOP only lost a handful of seats in 2012.  No, I don’t know why she stuck around either.

But Nancy Pelosi is still around! And she’s claiming that the GOP won’t be able to run on Obamacare this year. Continue reading Nancy Pelosi seems to think that #obamacare is *still* a winner.

House bill introduced to spank anti-Semites in higher academia.

Good. Shame it’s not a literal spanking:

A new bipartisan bill introduced Thursday in the House would strip all federal funds from any U.S. academic institution that decides to boycott Israel, according to a copy of the newly filed legislation obtained by the Free Beacon.

The introduction of the bill marks the first time that Congress has sought to level harsh economic penalties on federally funded universities that seek to boycott the Jewish state.

Continue reading House bill introduced to spank anti-Semites in higher academia.

While I *generally* don’t consider dKos to be worth a p*sshole in the snow…

…David Nir’s work is actually quite reliably good (too good, in fact, for dKos*). Solid, even: Nir largely keeps his politics out of his political calculations, which is refreshing. A shame that he’s never going on to anything better, but that’s not precisely something keeping me up nights anyway.

Anyway, David Nir’s first look at the 2014 House rankings is up; and you will find them highly entertaining reading**. Particularly the comments, which keep falling back on the narrative of gerrymandering like a comforting Friendly Friend that will never betray them…

Via

 

Moe Lane Continue reading While I *generally* don’t consider dKos to be worth a p*sshole in the snow…

House decides to let Senate be on the hook for #Syria.

Which is the smart call, by the way.

The House could push back a vote on a resolution authorizing military strikes on Syria by as long as a week, according to a memo Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) sent to Republican lawmakers Friday.

“Understanding that there are differing opinions on both sides of the aisle, it is up to President Obama to make the case to Congress and to the American people that this is the right course of action,” Cantor wrote in a memo outlining the House GOP’s fall agenda. “Members should expect a robust debate and vote on an authorization of use of military force pertaining to Syria in the next two weeks.”

Continue reading House decides to let Senate be on the hook for #Syria.

QotD, And House Democrats Deserve This, Too edition.

Cook Political Report, establishing what we knew already:

In many respects, observing House Democrats trying to take back their majority is like watching a soccer team play a comparably skilled opponent with the field slanted 15 degrees against them.

Short version: Section V of the Voting Rights Act.  We’ve gotten into the habit of creating majority-minority districts; the Democrats are utterly reliant on the black vote to win elections; members of the Congressional Black Caucus are always willing to work with the Republican party to keep their seats safe (and to get new majority-minority districts); white Democrats are a bit reluctant to vote for minority Democrats; and it’s really hard to get the courts to throw out a map that the GOP/CBC has collaborated on.  Mix it all together, and hey presto! Structural GOP majority.

This drives the Online Left nuts, by the way: being largely white Democrats themselves and not entirely stupid, most of the smarter ones figure out eventually that they’re being given the shaft by minority Democrats.  The problem is that while the Online Left largely despises minorities they’re also exceptionally well conditioned by now to never, ever let that show.  So they just blame us, instead.  Oh, and vent their ire on minority conservatives: those are apparently safe targets. Continue reading QotD, And House Democrats Deserve This, Too edition.

#RSRH I was really going to rip into this Nancy Pelosi House nonsense…

…until I realized that she was just going for shock value, in order to try to get back some relevance.  Seriously: if somebody is telling you that the Democrats are going to retake the House this year, you need to make him or her sit down and show you the races, show why the Democrat will win… and show you why all those races that the Republicans are scheduled to win aren’t relevant.

Look, I expect the Democrats to gain seats.  In the single digits, because they’re going to be offset by a bunch of lost seats, too.  Anybody thinks that’s wrong, they’re going to have to catalog the state of the 435 House races.  This can be done – see here, here, and here – but note that those guys are all more or less saying the same thing that I am.