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President Barack Obama's poll numbers took a serious downturn in June, which essentially wiped out the progress he's made in the public's opinion since the beginning of the year. There's no real way to sugarcoat it: Obama had a bad month last month. About the only positive thing that can be said is that it wasn't his worst month ever -- but that's not really saying much, is it?
'Tis the season when the political press all goes a-courtin'. So to speak.
Enough digression, though. Last night, Senator Thad Cochran pulled off an upset of sorts, by defeating his Tea Party primary challenger in the rematch atmosphere of a "top two" runoff election. His chance of victory had been seen by many (at least before the election results began coming in) as increasingly unlikely -- which is why the political world is abuzz over what just happened down in the Magnolia State. Consider the fact that Cochran came in second in the original primary, and it was only due to a third candidate being in the race that he was even given the second chance of a runoff election (because main Tea Party challenger Chris McDaniel failed to reach 50 percent of the vote, to put this another way). Because of this, and because of what was perceived as the growing national momentum of the Tea Party after Eric Cantor's epic defeat (more on this in a moment), it seemed Cochran was doomed. The energy was supposed to mostly be on the Tea Party's side, and turnouts for runoff elections are notoriously low, so most watchers of politics had all but written off Cochran's chances to pull off an upset victory. And yet, against all this conventional wisdom, Cochran still won -- he successfully "iced out" the Tea Party.
In all the pontificating on what now should be done (and what should have been done previously) in Iraq, one subject oddly never seems to be on the table. I find this a bit strange, because it really should be a subject worthy of debate -- if only to add to the finger-pointing about what could have been done to avoid the current situation. From hawks to isolationists, though, nobody seems to ever bring up the possibility of Iraqis performing their own airstrikes. To put this another way: where is the Iraqi Air Force?
Today, we're going to have a special edition of the talking points, where we get to know a Montana politician who seems to be seriously considering taking on Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016. But before we do so, it was a busy week otherwise, so let's just dive right into it. First, a look at what's going with Republicans.
I have to begin this week by apologizing for the irreverent nature of that title, but then how often do you get a chance to coin a cool word like "selenofriggatriskaidekaphobia"? The proper answer is that the chance won't come again until 2049, which explains why we couldn't resist. The word is a mashup of two phobias, the fear of a full moon (selenophobia) and the fear of Friday the 13th (friggatriskaidekaphobia, not to be confused with fear of the number 13, which is just triskaidekaphobia, of course). The rare occurrence of a full moon on a Friday the 13th won't happen again for another 35 years, so today's pretty much it for this generation of selenofriggatriskaidekaphobics, at least. But enough of this looney etymological fun, let's get on with a week chock-full of political happenings, shall we?
Every so often, the American political world is turned upside down. Last night was one of those moments, as House Majority Leader Eric Cantor was "primaried" out of a job. Nobody (including me) predicted this upset. Today, pundits are falling all over themselves to come up with an appropriate metaphor for the magnitude of Cantor's loss on the political scene. Living in California as I do, I'm going to go with earthquake terminology: this was a massive and cataclysmic temblor for Republicans -- the equivalent of about a 9.0 on the political Richter scale.
This week was notable in many respects in the political world, but one subject overwhelmed almost everything else. We're going to address the prisoner swap and Bowe Bergdahl in an unusual way this week, in lieu of our regular talking points at the end of the column. But first, we're going to take a very quick look at what else happened this week, and then hand out the weekly awards.
When one usually speaks of the "fog of war," the term is generally understood to mean the disorganization of combat. When battles are fought, it is often unclear as to what is going on, whether you're a private in the trenches or a rear-echelon officer trying to keep on top of a developing situation under your command. What is also understood is that after a while, the fog usually clears somewhat. Things which aren't immediately apparent become clarified when enough time has passed for accurate reports of the situation to come in.
Today is primary election day in eight states across the land (including my own). The most media attention will be paid to the Mississippi Republican Senate primary, where the incumbent, Senator Thad Cochran, may be in trouble from a Tea Party challenger. So while the storyline a few weeks ago was "Establishment Republicans win big over Tea Party," the storyline tomorrow may be "Tea Party strikes back!"