The special election for Anthony Weiner's old seat

By Richard K. Barry




I don't know that many people are paying a lot of attention to the special election that will take place on September 13th for New York's 9th congressional district, but things are tighter there than they should be. 



This is the seat vacated by Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner for conduct unbecoming a congressman. You remember.



To provide some context, Weiner held the seat from January of 1999 until his resignation in June of this year. He won seven terms, never receiving less than 59 percent of the vote. The seat was previously held by Democrat Chuck Shumer, who went on to run successfully for the U.S. Senate.



In a Siena poll conducted Aug. 3-8, Democratic candidate David Weprin is leading Republican Bob Turner by a 48 to 42 percent margin. With a 4.4 percent margin of error, that makes things close.



One interesting note here is that Joe Lieberman has endorsed Weprin, a move meant to counter former New York City Mayor Ed Koch's endorsement of Turner. In general, the media has been trying to characterize the special election in this heavily Jewish Brooklyn and Queens district as a referendum on President Obama's Israel policies, which Koch has characterized as not sufficiently pro-Israel.



In giving his endorsement in late July, Lieberman, a strong supporter of the U.S.-Israel relationship, said:

While David Weprin can be counted on to fight for the safety and security of the State of Israel, we can also rely on him to protect the seniors and working families in Brooklyn and Queens.

Steve Greenberg, a pollster for Sienna, said what pollster always seem to say, which is that voter turnout will be key.

Which campaign will do a better job of identifying their voters and getting them to the polls [will be important] because, as we know, special elections tend to have low voter turnout. Probably fewer than 20 percent of the registered voters in the 9th congressional district will actually go to the polls and vote.

Turner is a retired media executive who ran unsuccessfully against Weiner in the general election last year.



Assemblyman Weprin is a former New York City councilman who ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination to be comptroller in 2009.



Just what the Democrats need right now: A close race in an historically Democratic district.



Thanks, Anthony.



(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

On vacation, full of debt ceiling rage

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I'm currently on vacation and won't be blogging all that much over the next few weeks. Here and there, when the mood is right, but otherwise not. Rest, relaxation, and family are the priorities.

But, fear not, Richard and the gang will keep things rolling, and so I hope you keep checking back for new posts from my wonderful team.

Actually, though, I'm full of rage at the moment. I'm generally trying to avoid the news, and especially U.S. politics, but, well...

What has me enraged? The Deal, of course.

Yes, the new bipartisan deal to avert default by raising the debt ceiling and, to please Republicans, slash spending (of course, mostly spending that benefits the poor and downtrodden, the usual GOP targets, those no one in power seems to give a shit about).

Now, it's not yet a done deal. President Obama and the Democratic and Republican leadership have agreed to it, but not the rank and file -- and there are sure to be many on both sides who object to it.

Democrats have good reason to object. The deal is heavily Republican, a largely right-wing fix to a crisis created by Republicans. It's all about cuts, not revenue increases, and cuts that, again, will hurt those Democrats supposedly care about. Some Republicans will object as well, but only because -- let's put it kindly -- they're a bunch of petulant extremists who refuse to compromise and who are willing to let the country go into default, and face economic calamity, to get everything they want.

In fact, it has come to this largely because Republicans, from the top down (the leadership included), are bullies crazy enough to risk the country's health, so "patriotic" are they, having basically held the country hostage throughout this entire process.

Sure, I'm deeply critical of Democrats, including the president, for not fighting harder to prevent this, and for not standing up more determinedly for what they purportedly stand for, but, honestly, what were they supposed to do? Let the country go into default? Let the debt ceiling deadline pass, come what may? Sure, maybe. Maybe they could have spun that and kept the blame on the other side, and even come away with a political win, and maybe the impending crisis and public outcry would have forced Republicans back to the negotiating table with their tails somewhat between their legs, but... should they really have taken such an enormous risk?

Maybe Republicans were always going to win this, maybe it was inevitable, because all along they were willing to go further and risk more. That's the problem trying to negotiate with crazy people. They're willing to do things you're not. (Isn't that how Keyser Söze solidified his power?) In this case, Republicans were willing to sacrifice their country for their ideological demands. Democrats, being mature and rational and responsible, were not. And so they had to agree to a deal on Republican (i.e., insane) terms.

There was a brief time when Obama had the upper hand, after he had turned the tables on Republicans and back them into a corner, and with public opinion on his side, but he was only going to win this if he went all the way. And, say what you will about him, he wasn't prepared to play that game, not with so much at stake.

I suspect the deal will pass tomorrow. There will be major defections, but surely enough arms can be twisted, enough dissenters bought off, to make it happen.

And then? Crisis will have been averted, at least temporarily, but Republicans will declare victory -- for getting most of they want (loads of cuts, no new revenue).

The Democrats? They'll get nothing out of this politically.

Obama? Yes, probably. He'll be able to reinforce his credibility among independents by presenting himself as a bipartisan leader who got it done when it mattered (no matter the awful details of what got done).

But unless Democrats can gain control of the narrative and make the debate about ending the deeply unpopular Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and protecting deeply popular entitlement programs (Social Security, Medicare, etc.), this deal won't do them any political favors next year, with with Republicans set to hammer them, however dishonestly (as usual), for being tax-happy, spend-happy socialists.

At least for now, there is reason for cautious, extremely cautious optimism. The deal would allow the president to raise the debt ceiling by $2.4 trillion (with $900 billion in spending cuts):

That will be paired with the formation of a Congressional committee tasked with reducing deficits by a minimum of $1.2 trillion. That reduction can come from spending cuts, tax increases or a mixture thereof.

If the committee fails to reach $1.2 trillion, it will trigger an automatic across the board spending cut, half from domestic spending, half from defense spending, of $1.2 trillion. The domestic cuts come from Medicare providers, but Medicaid and Social Security would be exempted. The enforcement mechanism carves out programs that help the poor and veterans as well.

If the committee finds $1.5 trillion or more in savings, the enforcement mechanism would not be triggered. That's because Republicans are insisting on a dollar-for-dollar match between deficit reduction and new borrowing authority, and $900 billion plus $1.5 trillion add up to $2.4 trillion.

However, if the committee finds somewhere between $1.2 and $1.5 trillion in savings, the balance will be made up by the corresponding percentage of the enforcement mechanism's cuts, still in a one-to-one ratio.

Democrats say they're confident that the enforcement mechanism is robust enough to convince Democrats and Republicans to deal fairly on the committee -- to come up with a somewhat balanced package of entitlement reforms and tax increases. However, the White House assures them that if the committee fails to produce "tax reform" he will veto any attempt to extend the Bush tax cuts, which expire at the end of next year.

Again, the focus is on spending cuts, not revenue increases, but at least cuts to defence spending are on the table and at least it's possible that revenue increases will be part of any future deal.

Actually, scratch that. I'm still highly enraged. And there's really no good reason for optimism at all, even cautious optimism. Obama may want to use the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy in his re-election campaign, as a winning issue (assuming public opinion stays roughly where it is), but he has shown little to no willingness to stand up for progressive principles -- indeed, for principles that are simply not Republican, so much of a moderate Republican does he appear to be -- and, what's more, neither have most Democrats on Capitol Hill, it seems.

All of which is to say, if Obama and the Democrats have been willing to cave so much already, what should make us think anything will change?

Made in the GOP

Republicans Seek Credit for a Debt Ceiling Solution

By Nicholas Wilbur

It's pretty clear at this point that the debt ceiling debacle isn't about spending cuts and tax increases and entitlement reform and balanced budget amendments.

It's about 2012.

That is the only logical explanation for the Republican Party's blanket opposition to every attempt by Democrats to solve this impasse over an otherwise routine debt limit increase. Republicans need something they can campaign on in 2012.

After three years of saying no to everything – health care reform, Don't Ask Don't Tell repeal, the Dream Act, a nuclear treaty with Russia, the Libya intervention, unemployment benefits, and most recently the debt ceiling increase itself – Republicans need a legislative victory they can show off to the voting public.

They fared well in the midterm election by campaigning against policies that were already on the books, but they've failed to achieve any of the repeals and nullifications they placed at the center of their 2010 campaign: "Obamacare" is still in place, the stimulus bill was not reversed, and the debt continues to grow.

They also failed to end federal funding for Planned Parenthood and NPR, to gut the regulatory oversight of the Environmental Protection Agency, and to turn Medicare into a voucher program. As for the far-right Tea Party conservatives out there who thought the 2010 election would mark a turning point for the morality of the United States, every day is another reminder that Republicans have also failed to make abortion illegal, to replace biology with Intelligent Design in our nation's schools, to abolish the IRS and the Department of Education, to return to the gold standard, and to protect our government against Sharia law with a constitutional amendment.

They cannot win another election simply by campaigning against everything, especially not when they've fallen short of achieving any of the goals they sought. Republicans need a legislative victory. This debt ceiling fight may be the last opportunity to campaign for something in 2012. (God knows they can't point to the 2011 budget negotiations and boast about how they slashed the deficit; according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, the bill they agreed to eventually ended up costing $3.2 billion, not saving the $78 billion they claimed.)

And that is why Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor stormed out of negotiations last month. It's why Speaker John Boehner abandoned negotiations with President Obama last week. Every deal Democrats have offered, whether to slash government spending by $4 trillion or to cut entitlements, may have been a capitulation to Republican demands; it may have been snatched up without pause by any other Republican Party; but it was still offered by Democrats.

Democrats are the opponents, and accepting a deal crafted by the enemy is sacrilege in Washington, D.C., today – even if doing so provides a means to achieving the ends you campaigned on in the last election.

Republicans need to draft their own bill. They need to prove that they are capable of governing, of leading. They must be able to demonstrate to their constituents that the Grand Old Party represents more than obstruction. They need to pass a law that has a "MADE in the GOP" label on it.

And so they did. Or tried.

It was titled the "Cut, Cap and Balance" bill, and it did everything Republicans wanted. It cut spending, capped total outlays based on average GDP growth, and called for an amendment to the Constitution requiring balanced annual budgets. (See "The Balanced Budget Amendment that Wasn't")

Despite being heralded by Speaker John Boehner as a "bipartisan bill," CC&B passed along party lines in the House, receiving only five Democratic votes to 229 from Republicans. Not a single Democrat voted for it in the Senate.

In a speech following the president's national address on the debt ceiling crisis, Boehner claimed, "there's no stalemate here in Congress." It wasn't his only false claim.

  

"I want you to know," he said, "I made sincere effort to work with the president, to identify a path forward that would implement the principles of 'Cut, Cap and Balance' in a manner that could secure bipartisan support and be signed into law."

The bill "could" secure bipartisan support if it were a bipartisan bill, but it didn't because it isn't – and neither was the proposal Boehner came up with after Democrats rejected the CC&B bill in the Senate.

CBS News poll

In attempting to solve one problem, Republicans have created another. Like everything Republicans have proposed this year – repealing health care reform, eviscerating the EPA, defunding public radio – Boehner's proposal is slated for failure because it makes no concessions to Democrats.

What's more, not only will the new proposal fail to garner bipartisan support in the upper chamber, it is also failing to unite Republicans in the House.

Rep. Jim Jordan, standing alongside Boehner at a press conference, thanked the speaker "for fighting for Republican principles," but said "I cannot support the plan that was presented to House Republicans this afternoon."

Instead, Jordan is urging Republicans to stick with the CC&B proposal, even though it couldn't garner a simple majority in the Senate; even though it requires a supermajority to pass.

Republicans have found their footing with a bill that the majority of Republicans support, but they have isolated their opposition such that voting on their bill represents nothing more than a symbolic gesture aimed at creating the perception of party unity.

Boehner's speakership is on the line. The Republican Party's majority hold over the House may be in jeopardy, as well. A strong majority of the American people have shunned the GOP for holding up a deal to avert default. A strong majority supports tax increases. A strong majority supports compromise.

Any debt ceiling deal that cuts federal spending, reduces the national deficit, and averts disaster by preventing U.S. default will be seen by voters of both sides as a policy victory for the ages.

Republicans appear incapable of taking the steps that are necessary to allow them to claim even partial credit in that historic deal. They cannot accept anything they themselves didn't create, and they cannot make concessions that will allow Democrats to accept anything they did create.

Congress is no closer to a debt ceiling agreement today than it was six months ago, and the Republican Party's goal of having a legislative record on which they can base their 2012 campaign is still out of reach.

At this point, Plan B is likely a repeat of the 2010 "blame Obama" strategy.

Unfortunately for Republicans, public opinion polls consistently show a "blame Republicans" mentality.

According to the latest CBS News poll, 71 percent of the American public holds Republicans responsible for the impasse.

If the United States defaults, Democrats would be wise to take a page from the Republican Party's 2010 campaign playbook. A "repeal the GOP" platform could prove effective in 2102.

Then again, if Republicans let the nation default, Democrats might not have to campaign at all.

(Cross-posted at Muddy Politics.)

The politics of the debt ceiling crisis: Tea Party says no to Boehner, Republicans snatch defeat from the jaws of victory

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Things were looking good for Republicans. More or less. They might not have been able to turn the tables on Obama and the Democrats, which was the plan, but by continuing to hold the country (and, more specifically, the Democrats) hostage on the debt ceiling, they were testing the Democrats' resolve -- and it didn't look like they had much resolve left.

A two-step plan. That's what the Republicans were proposing -- not because it's a good idea but because it's pretty much the only way for them to keep the party from fragmenting, the only way to win the issue politically. Show a bit of seriousness, maybe win back public support, give both the GOP's financial establishment and the Tea Party something to like, hope Obama and the Democrats take the blame. Simple enough.

And, indeed, it was looking like Republicans were poised for a huge win:

John Boehner is proposing a deal with about $1 trillion in spending cuts and a short-term increase in the debt ceiling and a bipartisan congressional committee charged with developing a large deficit reduction package that would be immune to amendments and filibusters and would be the price of the next increase in the debt ceiling. Harry Reid is developing a package of spending cuts that Democrats could accept and would reach Boehner's $2.4 trillion mark.

If you take the Republicans' goals as avoiding a deal in which they have to vote for tax increases and denying Obama a political victory, it looks like they have succeeded. That success has come with costs -- they've done themselves political damage, are risking a crisis that could do the economy tremendous harm, and have left the Bush tax cuts unresolved, which means they might end up watching taxes rise much higher than if they'd taken Obama's offer -- but it's still been a success. 

Basically, Boehner would get a short-term debt increase, appeasing the GOP's corporate-finance base, as well as spending cuts not offset by any revenue increases. Obama would have gotten his increase, but not a political win. And the issue, and the crisis, would have been largely put on hold until 2012, with Republicans dishonestly hammering Obama for supposedly not being serious enough about making a deal. Yes, the costs could turn out to be enormous for the Republicans, but they probably hope they could win the spin.

But no.

Aside from the fact that Boehner is almost certainly wrong about this -- the public is against the GOP on the debt ceiling and Obama has proven successful at using the bully pulpit to shift public opinon -- opposition to his plan has come not so much from the Democrats, who oppose a short-term increase but who might have given in, but from his own party:

The chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee wasted little time announcing his opposition to the House GOP leadership's two-step plan to raise the debt ceiling.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who stood — visibly uncomfortable — next to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) during Monday's announcement of the plan, released a statement saying he would vote "no" on the measure.

As well as from the Tea Party:

A coalition of Tea Party chapters and conservative lawmakers on Monday rejected the debt proposal put forward by Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), despite his efforts to sweeten the deal with provisions favored by his conservative base.

The Cut, Cap, Balance Coalition, which boasts hundreds of Tea Party groups and more than 100 GOP lawmakers in its membership, is citing two provisions in Boehner's proposal that amount to deal-breakers: its call for creating a Congressional Commission and its inclusion of a balanced budget amendment that, according to the group, is only for show.

Yes, even when faced with an historic victory, Republicans don't think it's quite good enough, demanding more and more and refusing to give up their ideological absolutism for anything smelling of compromise -- even a pro-GOP compromise with an almost full-scale Democratic sellout.

So why is anyone even listening to Boehner anymore? He clearly doesn't control his caucus and can't even come up with a viable plan. Maybe that's not his fault. He's dealing with extremists, after all, and with them refusing to budge, there isn't really much he can do. Forget the policy, he can't even win the politics, which means the Republicans won't win the spin.

On the other side, Harry Reid actually does have a plan, one Obama seems to like. It's hardly an ideal plan from a progressive perspective, a $2.7 trillion debt ceiling increase with $2.7 million in spending cuts (mostly from ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan), but it's got some potential:

[W]hile Reid's plan doesn't raise taxes, it also doesn't take tax increases off the table. Currently, the Bush tax cuts are scheduled to expire in 2012. If Reid's all-cuts plan passes, that still leaves the door open to significant revenue increases. Now that doesn't mean this is brilliant 11-dimensional chess. The Reid Plan is consistent with substantial revenues coming online in 2012, but that will only happen if President Obama and Senate Democrats stand firm and play hardball on the tax issue. Back in December 2010, they utterly failed to do so. 

True, it's hard to have much confidence in Obama and the Democrats. But this could be a way for them to "win" the issue politically, as it shows once more that they're serious about getting something done, even if nothing actually gets done, while the Republicans continue to splinter and look desperate and pethetic, and ever more extremist.

But... enough.

We're spending so much time on the politics of the debt ceiling crisis. What about actually raising it? Is that going to happen? If so, how?

Economic catastrophe is at hand. Isn't preventing that from happening a more pressing priority than scoring the most political points?

Maybe Jonathan Chait is right and Obama, in his speech last night, was "positioning himself for failure." And maybe there's just no avoiding it now.

If so, if there is failure, then it is American democracy that has failed. And if it has, it is the Republicans who are to blame, for they have embraced right-wing radicalism, descended into madness, and pulled the country into the abyss.

I used to think America was better than that. I was wrong. And now, I am at a loss. What is there left to do?

(photo)

The politics of the debt ceiling crisis: How it's still Obama's issue to lose

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The debt ceiling crisis has become more about politics than policy. Actually, it's become a game of chicken -- all thanks to the Republicans. The only question is, which side will swerve out of the way first.

Well, sort of.

President Obama and the Democrats have proven again and again that they're serious about averting imminent economic catastrophe by reaching across the aisle in search of compromise. To that end, they've been willing to give up a lot. The same has obviously not been true of Republicans.

Indeed, while Republicans refuse to budge on taxes, on sufficient revenue increases to make getting America's fiscal house in order possible, the president -- the adult in the room -- has indicated that he's willing to agree to massive spending cuts, including to Social Security and Medicare, much to the frustration (to put it mildly) of progressives and much of the Democratic base.

On the policy, in my view, Obama has been less than admirable. On the politics, though, he has been typically awesome, successfully turning the tables on the Republicans and backing them into a corner. Polls show that the American people blame the Republicans far more than they do the president for the debt ceiling fiasco, and I suspect Obama has been willing to give up so much largely because he has realized all along that he'd never actually be able to get a deal done. In this sense, he has successfully positioned himself as the sort of centrist, the sort of serious deficit-fighter, independents, not to mention the Beltway media, like (and want to vote for). Meanwhile, the Republicans look like a gang of extremists wielding unreasonable demands and petulantly threatening to pull the country into the abyss if they don't get their unreasonable way.

This is all happening quickly, but what's clear is that the Republicans have gotten desperate, hurling smears at Obama that bear no resemblance to reality whatsoever. He a tax-happy socialist, they scream. Well, no, he's willing to agree to a deal that would slash trillions in spending with only minimal revenue increases. He's not at all serious about cutting spending, they shriek. Wrong again. Look at what he's been proposing. The facts are clear.

Ultimately, Obama will find some way to increase the debt ceiling. He has to. And the Republicans know it, not least because their corporate, Wall Street backers are demanding that it be done, just as it's always been done. But that doesn't mean they won't try to win the issue politically, and that's what's going on now. They're trying to turn the tables back on Obama, trying to back him into a corner, trying to make him take the fall if a deal doesn't get done.

Speaker Boehner is now saying he wants a deal done by today. Okay, but where's he been all along? Clearly, this is posturing. And it would appear that what he wants is a two-stage deal:

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is set to call the Democratic Party's bluff on the debt ceiling. The Ohio Republican, in a briefing with his conference on Saturday, announced that he would press for a short-term deal, with major spending cuts paired with longer-term deficit-reduction strategies, as a way around the current impasse.

That strategy puts the speaker directly at odds with the White House and allied Democrats, who have insisted for weeks that they would not support a short-term extension of the debt ceiling. The president went so far as to dare House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) to test his opposition to a temporary deal during a tense meeting more than a week ago.

Whether that rigidity will fade as the Aug. 2 deadline to raise the debt ceiling nears is a big gamble on Boehner's part. 

This after talks collapsed yesterday.

Now, it's possible that, faced with that deadline (and with the possibility of economic catastrophe), Obama and the Democrats will cave. But thus far they've been firm in their staunch opposition to a short-term deal. As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid clarified yesterday:

I want to reaffirm my statement from last night. I will not support any short-term agreement, and neither will President Obama nor Leader Pelosi. We seek an extension of the debt ceiling through at least the end of 2012. We will not send a message of uncertainty to the world.

The Republicans are obviously hoping they can pin the blame on Obama and the Democrats for the collective failure to get something done. Whether or not they sign on to Boehner's plan, Republicans can and will accuse them of being the real obstacles to a more substantive deal. In other words, they hope they can win the spin. It may be entirely dishonest, but you know they'll do it. Because it's pretty much all they've got left.

In my view, Obama and the Democrats need to stand firm. If Boehner is calling Obama's bluff, then Obama needs to call Boehner's. The president has public opinion on his side and can go with the constitutional option to raise the debt ceiling. And, of course, he has the bully pulpit, not to mention his own phenomenal political skills, and can make his case far better than the Republicans can theirs. (And, what's more, Republicans are still deeply divided on the issue, with the Tea Party right opposed to compromise and the establishment, with the party's financial backers behind it, understanding that a debt ceiling increase is absolutely necessary. The president should exploit this division as much as possible.)

In other words, don't let the Republicans define the issue and get their way. It's as simple as that. I'm not sure I have all that much confidence that Obama and the Democrats will actually stand their ground, but they'd be crazy not to take advantage of their current position and keep up the pressure on the Republicans. The issue, politically speaking, is theirs to lose.

America gets that poll-taxed look

By Zandar

I've been talking about GOP voter suppression efforts at the state level that all but constitute a de facto poll tax for months now, in Ohio specifically and nationwide. People are beginning to notice and you know it's got the GOP concerned because the noise machine is screaming "The only racists in America are Democrats!" as loudly and in as farcical a manner as possible.

But now we're starting to see Democrats take notice and start fighting back. It's fitting that the man leading the way on this is respected civil rights leader and long-time Congressman John Lewis of Georgia.

Mr. Speaker, voting rights are under attack in America. There's a deliberate and systematic attempt to prevent millions of elderly voters, young voters, students, minority and low-income voters from exercising their Constitutional right to engage in the democratic process. Voter ID laws are becoming all too common, but make no mistake: Voter ID laws are a poll tax. People who struggle to pay for basic necessities cannot afford a voter ID. The right to vote is precious and almost sacred, and one of the most important blessings of our democracy. Today we must be strong in protecting that blessing.

Lewis, as usual, does not mince words. Voter ID laws really cannot be seen as anything other than a deliberate effort to make voting as difficult as possible for the groups he mentioned:  the elderly, the young, students, low-income Americans, and minorities... groups that tend to vote Democratic.

Many, many more Democrats at the state and federal level need to take up this call going into 2012, and stop these laws that attempt to circumvent the right to vote. It's a right, not a privlege. Throwing up legal roadblocks to voting was abhorrent in America's past, and it's a critical mistake to ignore it again now just because these efforts are wearing the mask of "protecting your right to vote."

When there have only been 86 convictions of wrongful voter identification out of 196 million votes cast when the Bush Administration declared war on "widespread voter fraud" in America, the true reasons behind making it more difficult to vote in order to disenfranchise people becomes crystal clear.   Anyone who makes it harder to vote in order to reduce who can vote is trying to take your vote away from you, period.

Good for John Lewis to name the demon.

(Cross-posted at ZVTS.)

On the debt ceiling, Obama turns tables on Republicans

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Photo from The New York Times

Something has to get done. Whatever sort of deal, or whether or not a deal at all, the debt ceiling must be raised. It's as simple as that, even if the process of getting there is mired in complication.

The Democrats know this, and they're pretty much all on board. But Republicans... oh, they're not quite as unified. John Boehner has lost control (and so is lashing out at the White House, because there's nothing left for him to do), to the extent that he ever had any, over the House, where Eric Cantor is angling for the top spot and most Republicans, Tea Party or otherwise, don't think there's any problem with not raising the debt ceiling. More than that, they object to raising it unless they can get something out of it, like a balanced budget amendment. Even a deal that would give Republicans so much of what they want, major spending cuts, including to hated entitlement programs like Social Security, offset by only a mild revenue increase, isn't enough, as Boehner has learned. House Republicans are right-wing extremists. They loathe compromise, refuse to agree to anything short of the absolute implementation of their extremist agenda, and aren't about to give in even to the corporate interests who fund the party.

Mitch McConnell has floated the idea -- his contingency plan -- of allowing for a debt ceiling raise in return for nothing, as Democrats are the ones who vote for it and hence the ones whom voters will blame for it. Conservatives reject this as well, as it would allow Obama to get what he wants, and what the country desperately needs. And I'm not sure McConnell is right that voters would blame Democrats for it. Ultimately, Obama would be able to make the case that it simply had to be done, and I'm really not sure this issue has political legs. What McConnell's idea reflects is the enormity of the pressure on the Republican leadership, at least in the Senate (there is pressure on Boehner in the House, to be sure, but, again, he is pretty much on his own now), to get something done, pressure coming from the GOP's corporate, Wall Street constituency. TNR's Jonathan Cohn explains:

Is Mitch McConnell panicking? It sure looks that way. The debt ceiling proposal he released yesterday afternoon confused pretty much everybody, including yours truly. But stripped to its bare essence it’s actually quite simple: Congress would give President Obama the authority to make good on the country’s debts, without imposing any binding policy constraints. This is, more or less, what Obama wanted originally and what Republicans have been saying they wouldn’t give him.

Perhaps McConnell is listening to business leaders nervous that Congress will leave the current debt ceiling in place, causing the U.S. to delay some government payments and potentially causing a financial crisis that could quickly spread around the world. Perhaps McConnell is watching the polls and noticing that voters don’t share his party’s aversion to taxes on the wealthy. Or perhaps it’s some combination of those and other factors. Whatever the reason, he’s clearly very worried. Otherwise he wouldn’t have made such an offer in the first place.

Of course, McConnell has designed his proposal so that it will inflict maximum political pain, or what he thinks will be maximum political pain, on the Democrats – by, among other things, forcing those who serve in Congress to vote to raise the debt ceiling. And who knows, it might work: Gaming out the possibilities is too complicated for me. But first McConnell must convince the rest of his party, particularly those who serve in the House of Representatives, to go along. And as of this writing that seems like it will be awfully difficult.

Yes, it might work, but I doubt it. And I also doubt that he'll be able to get the House on board. Boehner yes, the rest of the Republican caucus not so much, particularly with Cantor looming.

But the panic is understandable. Business is terrified. No one quite knows for sure what would happen were America to begin go into default and be unable to pay its bills, but it wouldn't be good and could potentially be apocalyptic. And, make no mistake, there's no way around it. Moody's has already put the country on notice. And that's far more worrisome (and far less funny) than when, say, Stephen Colbert puts someone or something on notice.

Republicans -- or at least the McConnells and Boehners of the party -- are in a tough spot, pretty much a no-win situation. Basically, Obama has skillfully, and amazingly, backed them into a corner. As TNR's Jonathan Chait explains:

If you told me last week that we might get a debt ceiling hike without Obama making policy concessions to Republicans, I wouldn't have believed you. What happened since then? Well, Obama called the Republicans' bluff. He turned the debate from a generalized question of cutting spending, where the public sides with Republicans, into a debate over specific policy priorities, where the public overwhelmingly supports the Democrats. Most people want a balanced package of revenue increases and spending cuts, in contradiction to the GOP's all-cuts-or-die stance. The public strongly favors higher taxes on the rich and strongly opposes entitlement cuts. Obama smoked out the GOP's actual policy choices. And he smoked out the Republicans' refusal to compromise on its unpopular priorities, establishing himself as the one party who was willing to make the kind of compromise that was the only plausible avenue to deficit reduction.

More recently, Obama said that if the debt ceiling is not lifted, he won't be able to send out Social Security checks. Imagine how that one would play out for Republicans. In general, he demonstrated yet again that it's very hard for Congress to win a public relations fight against the president. Meanwhile, the business lobby was no doubt pushing hard behind the scenes, and the business lobby usually wins.

*****

I've been lambasting Obama's strategy pretty much on a daily basis. It appeared that Obama blundered into a hostage crisis he didn't need, and then wound up offering Republicans an absurdly generous deal, trading away major entitlement cuts in return for a pittance of revenue -- no higher than what will be raised if the Bush tax cuts expire on schedule.

So those were the options as of last week: A massive policy giveaway that won Obama some centrist credibility at immense substantive cost, or else let the economy get killed. Instead, Obama has reestablished credibility on the deficit at zero substantive cost. (He can always cut a deal without a gun to the economy's head.) Either the administration is run by pure political geniuses, or they're the luckiest sons of guns who ever lived.

Yes, the "worm" has indeed turned. I admire and respect the president's political skills enough to know that this was always a possibility, and I have thought it was throughout this whole process, but I didn't actually think it would turn out this way. Just a couple of days ago I was wondering why Obama was willing to give up so much to get a deal done, and I objected strenuously to his putting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid on the table -- again, pretty much willing to give Republicans what they wanted in exchange for a debt ceiling raise and possibly a relatively small revenue increase. I wondered why Obama wasn't calling the Republicans' bluff, why he continued to allow them to determine the narrative and set the parameters for a deal.

But then... we knew this was all politics, right? Here's what I wrote, sending that things, it seemed, were changing:

I do see what Obama's doing here. It's what he's done all along, from issue to issue. He's agreeing to concessions in the name of compromise and then taking the high road while Republicans dither over whether to make any concessions of their own. If they do, Obama can present himself as the guy who got it done, as a non-partisan leader who brought both sides to the table and put country before partisanship or ideology. Voters, and especially independents, seem to like that. If they don't, he can present them as extremist and obstructionist. This is what happened on health-care reform and it's what's happening now on the debt ceiling.

*****

Obama has handled this whole issue badly and is now in a position of having to give up a lot just to get anything done. It didn't have to be this way. I call bullshit on much of what he's saying, but I really do hope he knows what he's doing.

Does he? Or has it just worked out that way? Well, nothing is worked out yet, and I still object to giving away so much, or to being willing to give away so much, but it looks like Obama may just triumph yet again over an opposition that, while generally extremist and obstructionist, is divided so deeply internally that it's almost about to cave in on itself.

No, no, I'm not getting ahead of myself. It's still possible that nothing gets done. Obama walked out of talks with Cantor et al. yesterday, perhaps more theater than anything else (he's the adult here, after all, and was probably just making a statement), and Alan Simpson is saying there's "no hope" of getting a deal done. But, politically, Obama now appears to have the upper hand -- he's winning, in other words, and you can tell that just from the way Republicans are acting, a mixture of resignation, frustration, and exaggerated outrage. They know they're losing, you see, and they don't quite know what to do.

Quite the turn of events.

Who's Ed Koch?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Because he's a right-wing extremist on Israel, and therefore opposes President Obama's moderate views on Israel and the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, former New York City Mayor Ed Koch wants a Republican to replace Anthony Weiner in New York's 9th Congressional District, a heavily Jewish district in Brooklyn and Queens. A Republican win, he thinks, would "be another political shot heard around the nation" and make Obama more centrist (i.e., more pro-Israel in a way he approves). No matter that the Democratic candidate, David Weprin is an Orthodox Jew with conservative views on Israel. For Koch, it's all about sending a message to the White House.

All of which is complete nonsense. Koch won't be happy unless Obama, or any president, embraces Likudnik extremism. Sensible moderation isn't enough. But, then, this election should be (and will be) about more than just Israel (and Obama's Israel policy), even in a heavily Jewish district. Other issues are just as much on the minds of voters, if not much more so, and it's silly to think that the vote should be a referendum of sorts on Obama's views on Israel without any regard for the views of the candidates themselves or of the various other concerns of voters. Koch would seem to have a one-track mind. The voters in NY-9 surely have other priorities.

Regardless, I must ask this: Does anyone actually care what Ed Koch thinks about anything? He's a certifiable fool.

Obama is full of shit

By Nicholas Wilbur

(Ed. note: For more on the politics of the debt ceiling debate, not that there's any real debate, see my post from yesterday, "Why the hell is Obama willing to give away so much just to get a debt ceiling deal done?" -- MJWS)

I don't think President Obama is a dick, but I do think he's full of shit – and I mean that in a the most adoring and respectful way possible.

The Huffington Post reports that House Speaker John Boehner gave an emphatic "NO!" to President Obama's proposal to cut Medicare and Social Security spending if Republicans agree to $100 billion in annual tax increases as part of the debt ceiling negotiations: 

Boehner is rejecting President Obama's offer to make historic cuts to the federal government and the social safety net, saying in a statement Saturday evening that he can not agree to the tax increases Democrats insisted on as part of the bargain. 

Unless Obama recently was lobotomized, this is just politics.

Putting "entitlements" on the table merely adds to the image of the president as a moderate negotiator, a sane, bipartisan national leader who's willing and ready to attack the big problems of the country by reaching across the aisle and making the unpopular decisions no president or Congress has been willing to make for decades.

He may want to appear as that guy, and he is appearing as that guy, but he's not actually trying to be guy – mainly because that guy would be an idiot.

Obama saw the incensed response from the electorate when House Republicans voted on a budget plan that essentially privatized Medicare. Members of Congress were being booed out of town-hall meetings by 90-year olds, for Christ's sake. The reaction wouldn't have been any different if Democrats had proposed it. And that is why I don't think Obama's "Grand Bargain" was made in good faith.

It was political posturing, pure and simple. Obama needed no contingency plan because he knew Boehner couldn't afford the political blowback within his party of accepting such a deal – not with the Norquistian Tea Partiers equating tax increases with treason. Republicans would have been slaughtered just as savagely by their constituents as Democrats would have been by theirs.

As Jay Newton-Small put it:

[T]the collapse of the grand bargain leaves President Obama in a more favorable political position. If both parties agree to cut $2 trillion from the budget with minor tax increases, he'll notch a bipartisan accomplishment. But he can also say he tried something more ambitious in putting cuts to Social Security and Medicare on the table without facing the political fallout of actually slashing those programs. He went big and congressional Republicans – not to mention the noticeably silent 2012 Republican presidential candidates – didn't.

Well said.

Obama isn't a dick. He’s a political genius.

(Cross-posted at Muddy Politics.)

Government shutdown 2.0: The debt ceiling

By Nicholas Wilbur 

It's getting down to the wire. The eleventh hour. Crunch time.

If Democrats and Republicans don't make a deal on the debt ceiling by August 2, the Earth will explode. The U.S. will default on its debts. Interest rates will rise. Rep. Eric Cantor will make a killing on his stock investments against the U.S. economy. And who knows, Ann Coulter might not look like a barfly in her next book-jacket photo, Jon Stewart might sign a contract with Fox News, Rep. Barney Frank might go back into the closet, and Marcus Bachmann might come out.

Golfing Buddies: Obama & Boehner
Source: Charles Dharapak/Associated Press

Nobody knows for sure how bad it would be if America defaulted, but everyone who's trained in the economic arts to have an educated opinion about such things seems pretty well convinced it wouldn't rank very far behind "vicious shark attack" on the summer fun scale. And isn't that odd? Doesn't President Obama have an apocalypse czar for this sort of thing?

The fact that nobody knows the exact consequences of a default says something about the likelihood of Congress not increasing the debt ceiling. Maybe it's just me, but this seems oddly reminiscent of the media frenzy surrounding the government shutdown threats in March and April of this year, when Republicans demanded a "historic" $100 billion in spending cuts to the 2011 budget.

Remember that? All the hype about the effects a shutdown would have on society – the unsettling mental images of senior citizens rotting in their own filth because they didn't get their Social Security checks on time to pay the nurse, little kids burning American flags in protest of Yellowstone campground closures, foreigners rioting in the streets (of their home countries?) because their VISA applications weren't processed? It was going to be chaotic. And then, suddenly, it wasn't.

It didn't happen. The Republicans who'd threatened to shut down the government if Obama and Co. didn't defund Planned Parenthood and NPR and the health-care reform law and the EPA, they eventually compromised, threw in the towel on the Tea Party's demands for radical policy riders, and settled on a budget deal that satisfied everyone, more or less.

Leaders from both parties boasted about the agreement, the shared sacrifice, "the biggest annual spending cut in history."

Facing threats of a primary election challenge from the Tea Party, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) had to confute his right-wing critics who claimed he was a spineless "Republican in Name Only" (RINO). And he did. He secured "historic" budget cuts and proved himself a socialism slayer, a fiscal hawk, and a trusted advocate of the small government ideal that is foundational to the Republican Party.

"This has been a long discussion and a long fight," he said, "but we fought to keep government spending down because it really will, in fact, help create a better environment for job creators in our country." The "fact" about a better job creating environment didn't pan out exactly as planned, but he heralded the deal as a victory for the GOP, because it was, and he promised to continue fighting for even more spending cuts in the future, which he has.

President Obama got what he needed from the deal as well. He was the lead negotiator of a compromise bill that was both fiscally and socially responsible. "Reducing spending while still investing in the future is just common sense," he said. He demonstrated his leadership skills by negotiating what amounted to a short-term stimulus bill, and he upheld his promise to govern from the middle – an appeal to both independent voters and the moderates who comprise the majority of the Democratic establishment. Once again, he looked like the adult sitting at the kids table. 

They avoided a government shutdown, and something tells me Congress won't let the country fall into default, either, if only because nothing has changed since the April budget deal.

Raising the debt ceiling isn't uncommon, not since Reagan anyway.
Source: TheAtlantic.com

The same Tea Party leaders continue to threaten RINOs with primary-election challenges. The same Democratic president continues his pursuit to convince the nation that he's not the radical left-wing socialist Fox & Friends accuse him of being. And the same anti-Washington blowback is at stake if the two parties fail to reach an agreement.

Will there be significant spending cuts? Probably, at least compared to what Republicans managed to finagle from Obama last time around. (The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office reported after the budget agreement was approved that the $78 billion in alleged spending cuts actually resulted in a net increase in government spending – to the tune of about $3.2 billion.)

Will the country crumble under the pressure of such austerity measures? Probably not, as Obama and the leaders of the Democratic Party understand much better than I do that appearing as the sane and level-headed party of political moderates means nothing in the eyes of the electorate if the spending cuts they so pragmatically negotiated end up causing a double-dip recession.

As Andrew Leonard predicted, the final product will likely involve "loophole closing, public-sector-employee squeezing, inflation-index finagling, and tax code juggling that allows Democrats to claim revenue increases while Republicans can pledge allegiance to the god of zero tax hikes."

But at the end of the day, the details of an agreement matter less than the politics of it. Boehner and the GOP need only look like hawks in the eyes of the extremists and the 67 percent of Republicans who identify as "conservatives." Obama and the Democrats need only appear as moderate and responsible peacekeepers who saved America from an economic apocalypse without giving away the farm in the process.

When each side agrees to the talking points, they will emerge from the negotiations and begin a joint press conference announcing in broad strokes the "historic" agreement to increase the debt ceiling before the August 2 deadline.

Because that's politics.

(Cross-posted at Muddy Politics.)

And still more on the special election in Nevada's 2nd Congressional District

By Richard K. Barry

Just because I have been following this story for so long, I thought I might as well close the loop. This is the one about the Sept. 13th special election in Nevada's 2nd Congressional District, which, you may recall, is necessary because former Rep. Dean Heller was appointed to the Senate to replace John Ensign, who resigned amidst a sex scandal having to do with the wife of a staffer.

In Nevada, for reasons unclear to me, a primary cannot be used to determine party candidates for special elections. The Secretary of State of Nevada, Ross Miller (D), initially ruled that multiple Republicans and Democrats could run to fill the vacant seat, which meant that a Democrat might be able to sneak through with many candidates running in what is traditionally a Republican seat. This was what they were calling the Battle Royale scenario.

If this is starting to get confusing, just consider that if many Democratic and Republican candidates ran, it could allow an unexpected result, which might have been the only way a Democrat could win.

Anyway, the court ruled on July 5th that parties could in fact choose a singular candidate to run under their party banner, which is what will happen.

It seems as well that both parties have already determined their nominees. Republican Mark Amodei, of the really weird "China will take over America if we raise the debt ceiling" political ad, will take on Nevada State Treasurer Kate Marshall.

Not that it matters anymore, but nut job Tea Party darling Sharron Angle had been in the running earlier but dropped out for reasons only known to herself.

I don't know that the Democrats can't win the seat, but having a crazy person like Angle in the mix or a quirky Battle Royale scenario might have been their best hope. A Democrats has never won a general election for the 2nd District since the district was created after the 1980 census.

Not to go on about this, though I see that I already have, but the most interesting part of this whole story may be the extent to which local courts can have an impact on electoral outcomes. I'm no expert on election law, but it does vary greatly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and, as we know, especially in general elections, both sides have teams of lawyers ready to swoop in at the slightest hint of impropriety or, shall we say, at the opportunity to create impropriety.

What was it that Shakespeare said about lawyers in Henry VI?

(Cross-posted to Lippmann's Ghost.)