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We've got a lot to cover today (as that headline should evince), but before we begin examining the anniversaries, elections, and politics of the week, I'd like to begin instead by promoting a video.
There's been a shakeup in the Montana Senate race. John Walsh, who was earlier appointed to the Senate (when Max Baucus left to become ambassador to China), has now announced he will be removing his name from the ballot. This leaves the Democratic nomination empty.
President Obama had another bad month in the polls in July, although it wasn't as sharp a downturn as he experienced in June. That, and "he managed not to set any all-time or daily low points during the month" is about all that can be positively said. Without further ado, let's get to the new chart:
It wasn't supposed to happen this way. Republicans were so confident they had devised a winning 2014 campaign strategy that they went ahead and just admitted what it was going to be, almost a year out. As 2013 ended and 2014 began, Republicans weren't shy about letting everyone know that the midterm contest was going to be a single-issue election campaign for them, and that that single issue was going to be the abject failure of Obamacare. Republicans in the House were adamant that nothing else should detract from this single-minded obsession, which (in layman's terms) equated to the House doing absolutely nothing on all the other issues on its agenda. No immigration bill would be voted upon, they said, because doing so would just take attention away from the white-hot focus on Obamacare.
As I write this, the House has still not managed to pass a bill to deal with the border crisis. They've been trying for a few days now, but have been locked in a serious battle between Tea Party hardliners and Republicans from more moderate districts. The Tea Partiers are demanding the harshest possible bill, and the moderates are the ones who actually demanded that Speaker John Boehner attempt to do his job and get a bill through before they all fly home for a lavish five-week vacation. Moderate Republicans know that "we couldn't pass anything" is going to be a tough sell back home. When Boehner tries to make the bill extreme enough to appease the Tea Party hardliners, he loses moderate votes. When he tries to make it appealing enough to the moderates to vote for it, he loses Tea Party votes. Stay tuned, as the last act in this Keystone Kops drama has yet to take place!
Speaker of the House John Boehner just gets weaker by the day, it seems. Today, he had to pull a bill from consideration because he did not have enough votes to pass it. The reason he didn't have enough votes to pass it is because he cannot do anything without the approval of a small faction of extremists within his own ranks. The Tea Party tail just wagged the Boehner dog, once again. Boehner, unsurprisingly, is attempting to blame it all on President Barack Obama. It beats the alternative of admitting his own weakness and incompetence, I guess.
This is a rare week indeed in Washington, since it is one of those weeks when Congress actually attempts to get something done. There's a reason for this, of course, and it is the usual one: they're about to take another jaw-droppingly extensive vacation. They scurry about, in the days leading up to playtime, in an attempt to con the American people into thinking they can still get something done. It is, in fact, just about the only time any bills actually move forward -- when the threat of possibly having to cut their vacation short by a few days inspires them to action.
John Boehner is currently involved in playing what can only be called a "game of chicken" with his own party. To rev this metaphor up to the redline (warning: this entire column is really nothing more than an extended metaphor), Boehner is driving the Republican Party towards a head-on collision with the Tea Party, way out on the edge of town, down Impeachment Road. As is usual in these bouts of self-destructiveness, Boehner has already taken his go-to explanation out of his pocket, and tried to blame President Obama for the fine mess Boehner is creating for himself. In other words, welcome to the opening of "Silly Season, 2014."
Has marijuana legalization reached the tipping point, where positive change is now all but inevitable? That question might have been seen as wildly optimistic even just last week, but over the weekend the respected New York Times editorial board fully endorsed legalizing recreational marijuana at the federal level, in a piece aptly entitled: "Repeal Prohibition, Again." This has already shifted the debate so dramatically that some are now comparing it to the impact of Walter Cronkite coming out against the Vietnam War (after which, President Lyndon Johnson famously said: "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost middle America"). While I'm cautiously optimistic and certainly think it will further the conversation, I have to say I think it might be just a little too early to declare this moment in time to be marijuana's tipping point. I think we're fast approaching that moment, but I don't think we've gotten there quite yet.
Back in Washington, we have one week to go before the opening of "Silly Season 2014," an annual event brought on by hordes of political reporters scrambling around, devoid of actual stories, while Congress is away on its six-week vacation. What will the main Silly Season story become, for pundits to endlessly obsess over this August? Your guess is as good as mine. Several candidates have already popped up ("Hey, let's all talk about impeachment!" for starters), but perhaps some lonely town hall meeting (with some hapless member of Congress) somewhere in the hinterlands will provide the fodder for this year's Silly Season obsession -- hopefully, with an epic rant caught on video!