I don't want to deceive anyone by that headline, so allow me to explain its meaning up front. President Obama has the whole political universe holding its collective breath on when he's going to make his announcement of a change in immigration and deportation policy. News reports last week guessed that the announcement could come "as early as next week." Now that next week has become this week, everyone in Washington is expecting an announcement any moment.

Obama should wait, though. Not for long -- just for a few weeks. Obama should wait until just after Congress passes the next budget bill and puts it on his desk. Harry Reid has already called on the president to wait, and I have to say that I agree with him. The difference in timing of the next few weeks could have rather large consequences, not only for the president politically, but for America as a whole. It would be worth the wait of a few weeks to try and avoid the worst possible outcome over the budget. It may happen anyway, but the chance that it won't is worth taking, especially when it means merely a few weeks of waiting.

Continue Reading »

What walks like a duck and quacks like a duck but seems to have serious mobility problems?

That's right -- we have entered the season of the lame duck! So far, it's shaping up to pretty spec-quack-ular. OK, I apologize. I'll stop, now.

Lame jokes aside, the lame-duck Congress has a lot on its plate. Other than passing a flurry of bills with precisely zero chance of becoming law, the Senate has a whole bunch of confirmations they need to get through before the end of the year (since pretty much nobody's going to be confirmed in the next two years). But the heavy lift for both houses of Congress is going to be passing a budget bill. They have to do this before December 11, if reports are correct, because that is precisely how far Congress kicked the can the last time they put off regular budgeting -- conveniently beyond the election, in other words. Well, that time has now come, and it will be interesting to see what is the result.

Continue Reading »

Senator Elizabeth Warren is about to become more influential in the Democratic Party. It was announced today that she will be joining the ranks of the Democrats' Senate leadership, albeit in a newly-created position that might be best called "Progressive Liaison." The position is seen as forming a new bridge between progressives and the party leadership, who have mostly been much more timid when it comes to issues with real populist appeal. Depending on what sort of leadership role Warren carves out for herself, this could be very good news.

I'm personally torn between cautious optimism and healthy skepticism, upon hearing the news. This could be a big step towards the Democratic Party getting back to its populist roots, where it proudly runs on issues which immediately benefit the average working American Jane and Joe. Or it could be just window-dressing, intended to assuage progressives without actually changing much at all. Conflicted thoughts, I must admit, but this stems mostly from the newness of Warren's new job.

Continue Reading »

There is a very old tactic in American politics, used for decades after the Civil War, which is called "waving the bloody shirt." Without getting into the ugly details of Reconstruction (or the ugly details of the Democratic Party's own "Red Shirts," for that matter), the definition of "waving the bloody shirt" soon became akin to "using past injustices to divert attention from present-day issues." Holding a big grudge, in other words, and then milking it for all it is politically worth.

This was brought to mind by one of the metaphors the Republicans are deploying in a pre-emptive attempt to convince President Obama not to act on his own on immigration reform: "waving a red flag in front of a bull." There are others, including "poisoning the well," and "playing with matches," but the red flag one was the one that struck a historical chord with me.

President Obama is going to be the unquestioned leader of the Democratic Party for the next two years. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have been relegated to minority status in Congress, leaving only one prominent voice to stand up for the Democratic agenda. How Obama chooses to do so in the next few weeks is going to set the tone for the next two years. It may indeed involve waving red flags or lighting fires under Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, since nothing's going to get done unless all three men agree.

Continue Reading »

[Program Note: Since today is a holiday, I am taking the day off. Below is what I wrote last year for Veterans' Day, so the calendar references are a bit out of date. This may be the first time I've ever re-run a re-run column, since last year's column actually contained within it a column written earlier that year. Call me twice lazy, I suppose, but then again it is a holiday and all. I hope everyone had a meaningful Armistice Day, and regular columns will return tomorrow. Everything below was originally published November 11, 2013.]

Today's holiday originally celebrated the end of "the war to end all wars," when the 1918 armistice took place on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. No World War I veterans still remain alive, and the holiday has grown to honor all America's veterans of more-recent wars -- so much so that many forget the origins of the holiday itself (which used to be "Armistice Day").

Next week, however, is an even more poignant anniversary: the sesquicentennial of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, certainly the most well-known speech in American history. Only 275 words long, Lincoln spoke for mere minutes, following a lengthy two-hour oration given by Edward Everett. But today, only scholars remember Everett's name, and few historians bother to read the text of his remarks. Lincoln's words are still memorized by schoolchildren, even to this day.

Continue Reading »

Politico has an interesting article up which details the efforts in the liberal political donor camp to come up with something to combat the influence of the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC. The new liberal counterpart will be named the State Innovation Exchange, or "SiX." Creative capitalization seems to be their first innovation.

But I shouldn't get snarky about their branding, because the basic idea is a good one: counterbalance the impressive inroads Republicans have made in state legislatures. ALEC has an excellent record of accomplishments, from getting laws passed (voter suppression and "Stand Your Ground" legislation, to name two ALEC issues) to providing support (read: campaign money) for state-level legislators.

ALEC has largely been operating in a liberal vacuum. Their model is to take money from big businesses and then use it to not only help conservatives get elected at their state level but also provide them with ready-made boilerplate legislation for ALEC's pet issues after they do get elected. Just fill in a few blanks (like "name of state") and an inexperienced lawmaker can easily create a bill ready to introduce into their state legislature.

Continue Reading »

Not a fun week to be a Democrat, was it?

President Obama called the 2010 midterms a "shellacking." He demurred on providing a label for the 2014 midterms, but others sprang into the void. The most notable label so far (the one seemingly most repeated, at any rate) is that Democrats suffered an "ass-kicking" this past Tuesday night. At this point, I won't quibble over terms. Democrats got beat, and they got beat pretty badly.

Some called this election "the Seinfeld election," since it was essentially "an election about nothing." This is somewhat of an oversimplification, but it does point out how the two parties pretty much had a handshake agreement that they weren't going to lay out any sort of economic agenda for average Americans at all, they were just going to fling mud for the entire cycle. Republicans have always been better at flinging mud, and so they won. But they didn't beat any sort of shining Democratic agenda, because it largely didn't exist. If I had to use a television metaphor from Seinfeld, I think I'd have to call it "the Soup Nazi election," because it was mostly anger and pique that drove the voters ("No elected office for you!") than anything else.

Continue Reading »

A Surprisingly Good Month

This may come as a surprise to some, especially after Tuesday's election results, but President Obama actually had a rather good October in his job approval polling.

Now, I realize that this is really no more than a side issue this week (of all weeks), but we're already overdue for the poll-watching this month, so bear with me. I realize that the biggest "poll" was the election, but this column has always focused solely on creating a monthly average of the public opinion polling on Obama's job approval. Where, as I said, Obama had a pretty good month. Let's take a look at the chart.

[Click on graph to see larger-scale version.]

October, 2014

Continue Reading »

It's either the morning after, or the mourning after -- take your choice.

Last night, Democrats got well and truly shellacked once again in a midterm election. It was so bad, it's pretty hard for Democrats to even attempt to gild the lily or spot that elusive silver lining. Republicans are consumed with glee, which they've well earned this year.

Because this was a rather momentous election with a power shift in the Senate, there is a lot to talk about when contemplating the aftermath. I'm just going to dive in and present my snap reactions to the new political situation, in no particular order. I will likely return to each of these subjects later on (in future columns) in far more detail, I should mention. For now, here are my disjointed thoughts on the aftermath of the 2014 midterm elections. Oh, and I should also state up front that I called at least three (and possibly even five or six) Senate elections wrong in my pre-election prediction column, but I think my House predictions will be less than ten seats off (possibly only five), when all the results are in. So I didn't do so hot in the crystal ball department this time around. So it goes.

Continue Reading »

Happy Election Day, everyone! It being an off-year election, there will be no presidential race to dominate the news tonight as the election returns come in. The biggest races will be in the Senate, with political control of the chamber hanging in the balance. On the House side, the only real question is how many seats the Republicans will pick up. But there are plenty of interesting down-ballot races to watch, while waiting for Alaska's returns to come in late in the night (or, perhaps, the recounting of West Podunk's ballots). I thought, as a preview/guide to tonight's returns, it'd be worth the time to take a quick look at some of the other contests we may be hearing about this evening.

Continue Reading »