[ Posted Monday, February 24th, 2014 – 18:10 UTC ]
As we enter into what political wonks call "primary season," the next few months are going to prove instructive as to the relative strength in the Republican Party of both the Tea Party and the Establishment Republican factions. The Tea Party rode high in the 2010 election cycle, and was again influential during the whole 2012 race, but one has to wonder if the luster of the Tea Party's shine is beginning to wear off -- even among Republican primary voters. The next few months will tell, as sitting Republicans either win their primaries or are dethroned by their Tea Party challengers.
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[ Posted Friday, February 21st, 2014 – 18:29 UTC ]
We've got a lot to get to in our weekly roundup of politics this week, it seems.
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[ Posted Thursday, February 20th, 2014 – 18:01 UTC ]
The White House has just given everyone a peek at what President Obama's next budget proposal is going to look like. Full details aren't yet available and likely won't be until next month, when Obama's budget is officially released. What is known, at this point, is that the White House is signaling that the attempt to reach out to Republicans and meet them halfway in some "grand bargain" on the budget is officially over, at least for the time being. Specifically, Obama has dropped his "chained C.P.I." idea. What this is going to mean for the rest of the year is likely "not much," at least outside the realm of politicking. It is, after all, an election year. But Obama is sending a strong message to Democrats that he won't be "giving away the store" in any budget agreements this year, which comes as a relief to many Democrats.
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[ Posted Wednesday, February 19th, 2014 – 18:23 UTC ]
Marijuana is in the news today, as the Coalition for Cannabis Policy Reform (the best-financed advocacy group in California) have stated that they will not, after all, be moving forward with a ballot initiative in 2014 to legalize recreational use of marijuana. After considering their ballot measure's chances (the "Control, Regulate and Tax Marijuana Act"), the group has decided to wait until 2016 to move forward. This may come as a blow to California marijuana supporters, but in the long run it may have been the smart thing to do. Waiting another two years isn't a welcome prospect to many, but it may produce a better law and broader public support in the end.
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[ Posted Tuesday, February 18th, 2014 – 18:19 UTC ]
The Congressional Budget Office just put out a report on what effects raising the minimum wage might have on the American economy. The Washington Post has a pretty good rundown (complete with charts and excerpts from the report), which does a good job showing what the C.B.O. numbers really are, and what they predict. One of these numbers in particular is getting most of the attention, but we're going to largely avoid the debate over the numbers themselves and instead focus in on what this report is going to mean politically for both sides in the debate.
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[ Posted Friday, February 14th, 2014 – 19:10 UTC ]
John Boehner has a song in his heart. That song is "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah," which he was heard quoting from as he was busy passing a clean debt ceiling bill in his House. He followed up with another lyric from the tune: "Plenty of sunshine coming my way." Mr. Boehner is, of course, being amusingly ironic. He does not, in fact, have a song in his heart, and he is not looking for beams of sunshine heading his way from his fellow Republicans.
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[ Posted Thursday, February 13th, 2014 – 17:44 UTC ]
I'm going to ignore the main "will he or won't he" question for the time being, and instead concentrate on a wonkier subject: "when will he, if he does?" This stems from a piece of conventional Washington wisdom (which, I might add, I usually treat very gingerly, and always wash my hands afterwards) -- that John Boehner is waiting to introduce immigration reform until after the season of filing deadlines for the primary elections, to avoid Republican House members facing primary challenges from Tea Partiers. This qualifies as Washington conventional wisdom because the notion is being bandied about by both Lefties and Righties. Democrats and Republicans (those who want to see something done on immigration) agree that Boehner is just waiting for this magic window, while Republicans against immigration reform are using the same idea as a dire warning (mostly to spur fundraising). But has anyone really examined the primary schedule? Because it is a lot more spread out than might be expected. So the question becomes: does this window even really exist?
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[ Posted Tuesday, February 11th, 2014 – 17:26 UTC ]
John Boehner just bowed to reality for the third straight time, rather than choosing to create yet another meaningless self-imposed crisis for the American economy. There are metaphors a-plenty to describe today's events, but we're going with how one fellow Republican put it (who didn't even agree with Boehner when it came time to vote): "John Boehner was the adult in the room."
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[ Posted Friday, February 7th, 2014 – 19:18 UTC ]
Americans across the land are banding together to solve one of the country's most pressing problems, it seems: demanding that Justin Bieber be deported!
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[ Posted Wednesday, February 5th, 2014 – 17:32 UTC ]
Other than the Electoral College shift, another rather strange dynamic seems to be shaping up between the two dominant American political parties. Democrats and Republicans are reversing their traditional scenarios when it comes to nominating presidential candidates. This tradition even comes with its own bumpersticker slogan to define it: "Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in line." Democrats, in other words, have a large field to pick from and select the one that everybody likes best, in the end, and then enthusiastically gets behind them for the general election. Republicans, however, pretty much know who is "next in line" for the nomination, and while other candidates may put up a limited fight, everyone knows who the nominee is going to be long before the first primary happens -- after which, Republicans all fall into line behind him, like him or not. But this time around the primary field is going to be wild and wooly over on the Republican side, with nobody being able to convincingly claim to be "next in line" (Rick Santorum or Paul Ryan could come closest to making such a claim, but this is going to be challenged by many others). But over on the Democratic side, there is only one woman standing, at least at this point, and her name is Hillary Rodham Clinton.
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