The Pentagon is poised to extend the life of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy by proposing to study it before deciding whether to lift the ban on gays in the military. That and the day’s other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.
As we’ve tried to take stock of what happened to Health Care Reform in January, one thing I keep coming back to is the way Democrats got completely focused on the legislative inside game and in many ways just withdraw from the out of doors political realm. To some degree that’s hindsight. And there’s certainly something to be said for having an election and then setting aside politics for a while to make a good bill which brings real change. But politics, legislation and policy can never really be divided. As we’ve seen, what happens in the country at large has big feedback effects on what happens on the Hill — as it should. And for all the things that couldn’t be predicted or came down to bad luck, this is the strategic, even conceptual error that Democrats made consistently over the course of the year.
On Chris Matthews show last night, Chuck Todd noted something relevant to this point — that Democrats have not done nearly as much as Republicans did organizing tough votes for the opposition party, to tease out their unpopular stand on numerous issues. That’s one of the biggest powers of the majority in the House — you get to decide what gets voted on.
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A lot of pundits are chattering about and a lot of Dems are hoping that we’re going to see a ton of contested and embittered Tea Party primaries around the country this year. That’s what happened in NY-23 last Fall. But is it really? Tonight, Mark Kirk, who is close to the personification of what right-wingers call a RINO is poised to crush Tea Party candidates in the Illinois senate primary.
Last week, Stephen Colbert named Harold Ford, Jr., “Alpha Dog of the Week.” Last night, he had Ford on the show, where he played to alpha dog type by referring to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand — who, at 43, is 3 1/2 years his senior — as the “young lady I’m looking to run against.” Watch.
A long-time reader chimes in on the dividing line between politics and policy …
I think you hit on something really important here. And I think there is more to the story. One of the great tensions in the Democratic staff world is between those of us who work primarily on election and those who work primary on legislation and policy – and it is particularly true on the Hill.
Looks like the good folks at Reuters got a little bit ahead of the curve on the bamboozlement front.
John Judis looks at Obama’s little-noticed regulatory revolution.
Sen. Blanche Lincoln’s reelection chances are in a world of hurt: She trails her likely Republican opponent by 23 points in a new survey by Public Policy Polling.
A Chief of Staff for a House Dem chimes in on our discussion of legislation and politics — and using the power of the Speakership …
Absolutely. There have been tons of opportunities to force Republicans to take hard votes and make difficult choices. When you hold the majority in the House, you set the agenda and you control everything. We just haven’t been good about using that to our advantage.
It’s not just us being in the majority, either. Republicans continue to make very effective use of Motions to Recommit to force Dems into tough votes, regularly cleaving the Caucus. It’s a tool they use very well. When we were in the minority? We’d offer policy positions or substitute legislation that they could easily vote against. Very rarely did we offer anything that was a tough vote for their marginal Members.