Post shutdown, Republicans are saying the key is they need more senators to defund Obamacare. That seems like a pretty elementary insight. And that goes along with President Obama’s point/jab today that if Tea Partiers really want to repeal Obamacare they should focus on winning an election. But the real story, I think, is that these standoffs are seriously weakening Republican chances of winning back the Senate next year. The House is in more jeopardy post crisis. But gerrymandering, concentration of Democrats in urban areas and simple incumbency still make that a really heavy lift for Democrats.
The Senate is another story.
Here’s a novel campaign strategy from a GOP state Senate candidate in New Jersey.
McConnell says no new shutdown in January 2014 or maybe ever. “One of my favorite old Kentucky sayings is there’s no education in the second kick of a mule. The first kick of a mule was when we shut the government down in the mid 1990s and the second kick was over the last 16 days.”
One of the interesting things about this is that this is clearly not the lesson taking by House Tea Partiers who see this as a mere three month time out before the next shutdown and debt default crisis. And I strongly suspect that Democrats will be asking opposing candidates starting now to pledge never to shutdown the government or threaten debt default again.
The Chamber of Commerce, for everything else it may or may not be about, doesn’t want recurrent run-ups to world-rocking debt defaults, government shutdowns that damp GDP, major corporate vendors going unpaid on government contracts. But when does the rubber meet the road? With the source of these dramas coming from the Republican party and more particularly its Tea Party wing, when does it stop funding these candidates?
Things got heated at TPM Cafe this week when Cathy Reisenwitz made the libertarian argument against criminalizing “revenge porn.”
That prompted feminist writer Amanda Marcotte to weigh in against skeezy guys who respond to rejection in such a nightmarish way. And it got the attention of Mitchell J. Matorin, an attorney who’s represented victims in these cases.
This quote from Harry Reid (D-NV) bears repeating …
“Ted Cruz is smart. He has always been able to talk down to people. He is now in the Senate. People are as smart as he is. He can’t talk down to anyone anymore. But he has still not accepted that in his own head. He still thinks he’s smarter than everybody else. He might be able to work a calculus problem better than I can. But he can’t legislate better than I can.”
Coming off the the shutdown/default debacle, House Tea Partiers say they’re pissed and plan to talk it out on immigrants by doubling down on killing immigration reform.
The leader of Tea Party Unity has the game change to turn back the gay tide. A class action suit against homosexuality. Just all homosexuality. Like the AGs did with the tobacco companies.
You may be in the running for dipsh#t of the year if you manage to break something that maybe a hundred million years worth of dinosaurs didn’t screw up.