Posts Tagged ‘democrats and republicans’

Kate Kelly: Summer News Coverage: Usual Fare for First Families

Here are just a few of the news stories involving the president and his family over the course of the summer: • In June the...

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Role of the Democratic Party in co-opting dissent. (Part 1 of 4)

“Our democracy is but a name. We vote? What does that mean? It means that we choose between two bodies of real, though not avowed, autocrats. We choose between Tweedledum and Tweedledee” — Helen Keller From The Avocado Declaration, by Peter Camejo, written in Spring 2004 as he was running for vice president on the [...]

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JudicialNominations.org: New ACS Web-Based Project to Cover Nomination Process, Vacancies on the Federal Bench

The Senate is moving far too slowly on confirming judicial nominations, causing more vacancies on the federal bench and delaying justice for Americans, President Obama said earlier this week at the White House. ACS is launching JudicialNominations.or...

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Obama Urges Swift Confirmation of Judicial Nominees

President Barack Obama today urged Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and others in the Senate to fill the vacancies "that continue to plague our judiciary." "Right now, we've got nominees who've been waiting up to eight mo...

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Edward Flattau: In Good Conscience

What could be more unconscionable than to succeed in shortchanging beleaguered fellow Americans who in many instances might be on the verge of ruin because of the massive BP oil spill?

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NRSC ignores history, defends Rand Paul

TPM got an e-mail from the NRSC that defends Rand Paul by "by pointing out that it wasn't Republicans who were the most vocal opponents of the 1964 Civil Rights Act when it was in Congress." Of course, they conveniently ignore the fall-out from the passage of the CRA:

The true history of the Civil Rights act, according to Princeton university Sean Wilentz, is not exactly worthy of glib emails from the GOP.

"Everybody knows that in 1964, a proud southern Democratic President, Lyndon Johnson, pushed hard to secure the Civil Rights Bill, with the aid of a coalition of northern Democrats and Republicans," Wilentz said. "This sent the defeated segregationist Southern Democrats (led by Strom Thurmond) fleeing into the Republican Party, where its remnants, along with a younger generation of extremist conservative white southerners, including Rand Paul, still reside."
...

Wilentz said that any suggestion that Democrats talking about the Civil Rights act is somehow hypocritical is pretty much a complete rejection of the actual facts -- and the political landscape at the time.

"In many ways, the 1964 Act defined the modern political parties -- with the Republicans becoming the heirs to the traditions of the Confederacy and Jim Crow, and the Democrats embracing the tradition of Abraham Lincoln," he wrote.

He said that the history of the bill shows that Republicans didn't hold the high ground when it came to supporting Civil Rights.

"Brian Walsh may have forgotten that Lyndon Johnson ran for president in 1964 against a Republican nominee, Barry Goldwater, who repudiated the Civil Rights Act," Wilentz wrote.

Ah, the Republican selective memory.

Please support Rand Paul's Democratic opponent, Jack Conway: he's a good guy, he needs our help, and he can win.

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Bad news for incumbents, better news for Dems

Traditionally, people have wanted to throw out the bums in Congress, but just not their own. Their own representatives were the good guys, it was everyone else who was a bum.

Not this year.

People want Democrats to control Congress after this fall's elections, a shift from April, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll released Saturday. But the margin is thin and there's a flashing yellow light for incumbents of both parties: Only about one-third want their own lawmakers re-elected.

The tenuous 45 percent to 40 percent preference for a Democratic Congress reverses the finding a month ago on the same question: 44 percent for Republicans and 41 percent for Democrats. The new readout came as the economy continued showing signs of improvement and the tumultuous battle over the health care law that President Barack Obama finally signed in March faded into the background.

So good news, bad news. Good news, Dems are improving their numbers. Bad news, 59-60 percent of incumbents (in both chambers) are Democrats.

Still, the trends are definitely trending back our way:

The only pollsters currently showing the GOP with the generic congressional ballot are Rasmussen (of course) and Fox. But the generic ballot is only half the question. The other is voter intensity, and on that front, we're still lagging. The good news is that the gap is closing.

Republican registered voters' enthusiasm about voting in this year's midterm elections has declined significantly in recent weeks. As a result, Republicans' advantage over Democrats on this measure has shrunk from 19 points in early April to 10 points in the latest weekly aggregate.

We saw the same thing in our own weekly Research 2000 poll:

After spending a couple of weeks spreading back apart, the "enthusiasm gap" between Democrats and Republicans narrowed noticeably this week. Last week, that gap was ten points (with 75% of Republicans indicating certainty or likelihood of voting, versus 65% of Democrats). This week, that gap was whittled down to seven points. Democrats basically held steady (64%), but the GOP gave back some of their recent gains in intensity, with 71% of Republicans indicating their strong propensity for voting.

In both cases, note that Democratic intensity hasn't increased, but Republican one has decreased. That's not a safe place to be, but regardless, the less motivated they are and remain, the better off we'll be come November.

There's nothing we can do about dominating the ranks of incumbents. We just gotta work toward making sure Republicans feel the brunt of that sentiment as harshly as Democrats do.

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Weekly Tracking Poll: Continued cause for optimism?

Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 5/10/2010-5/13/2010. Registered Voters. MoE 2.8% (Last week's results in parentheses):

Full crosstabs here. This poll is updated every Friday morning, and you can see trendline graphs here.

On the surface, there appears to be very little to report in this week's incarnation of the Daily Kos "State of the Nation" tracking poll. After all, there is minimal movement this week, and there is no clear partisan pattern to the incremental rises and falls which accompany this week's poll.

A little bit beneath the surface, however, there are some things that are happening which should bear more attention as the summer approaches.

1. The Right Track/Wrong Track Indicator
This week, we see another incremental two point bump in the right track/wrong track metric. This week, the net difference is a negative 11, with 43% saying America is on the right track and 54% saying we are on the wrong track. This is the highest percentage of Americans citing optimism in the direction of the country in over ten months. You have to go back to the July 9th poll in 2009 to find the right track numbers at 43% or better.

This is also the fourth consecutive week that the right track/wrong track indicator has improved. If the national mood improves, that could go an awfully long way towards minimizing the losses for the Democratic Party come November.

2. Voter Intensity
After spending a couple of weeks spreading back apart, the "enthusiasm gap" between Democrats and Republicans narrowed noticeably this week. Last week, that gap was ten points (with 75% of Republicans indicating certainty or likelihood of voting, versus 65% of Democrats). This week, that gap was whittled down to seven points. Democrats basically held steady (64%), but the GOP gave back some of their recent gains in intensity, with 71% of Republicans indicating their strong propensity for voting.

That doesn't mean that all of the news on the voter intensity is good for the Democrats. In the past month, there has been some slippage with two key demographics for the Democratic Party. Both Black voters and voters aged 18-29 have seen some slippage in their voter intensity over the past month. Whereas the likely/unlikely to vote ratio for black voters was 46/31 a month ago, it now lies at 45/38. And while the number of young voters claiming to be likely voters has gone up over the past month (from 36% to 44%), the number claiming to be unlikely to vote or certain not to vote have grown even faster (from 30% to 40%).

3. The Health Care Bill
Shortly after its passage in March, DK/R2K began to poll nationally on what kind of candidate votes would prefer: one who supported and wanted to work with the new HIR bill, or one who wanted to junk it altogether.

There has been some gradual movement here, as well, and it has been in the favor of those who support the recent reform.

Would you be more likely to vote for a candidate who supports and will work to improve the new health care reform law, or a candidate who will work to repeal it completely? (4/15/10 in parentheses)

While both sides have seen incremental gains, the margin between support and repeal has held steady, and even moved a few points in favor of support for candidates willing to stand by the reforms.

This is also true among the critical corps of Independent voters. While indies preferred support to repeal by three points last month, that margin has crept up to six points today.

The bottom line is this: there are still plenty of sources of apprehension for Democrats in this election cycle. The intensity gap, while not as bad as it has been, is still very much apparent. The generic ballot is still quite close (Democrats hold a lead, but only a two-point advantage), which indicates a certain number of GOP pickups in the House are still inevitable.

But there is also some reason to suspect that the smattering of stories about signs of a political climate change are not just the chattering of overly optimistic Democrats. There is some evidence in the data here that should at least bear close observation as Spring turns into Summer.

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Today in Congress

In the House, courtesy of the Office of the Majority Leader:

FLOOR SCHEDULE FOR THURSDAY, MAY 6, 2010

House Meets At...
10:00 a.m.: Legislative Business
First Vote Predicted... 10:30 – 11:30 a.m.
Last Vote Predicted... 2:30 – 3:30 p.m.

"One Minutes" (5 per side)

H.R. 5019 - Home Star Energy Retrofit Act of 2010 (Rep. Welch – Energy and Commerce) (Subject to a Rule)

Postponed Suspension Votes (2 Bills):

H.Res. 1295 - Celebrating the role of mothers in the United States and supporting the goals and ideals of Mother's Day (Rep. Fortenberry - Oversight and Government Reform)

H.R. 1722 - Telework Improvements Act (Rep. Sarbanes - Oversight and Government Reform)

• Conference Reports may be brought up at any time.

Motions to go to Conference should they become available.

Possible Motions to Instruct Conferees.

In the Senate, courtesy of the Office of the Majority Leader:

Convenes: 9:30am

The Senate will convene at 9:30am and will resume consideration of S.3217, Wall Street Reform. The time until 10am will be for debate with respect to the Tester-Hutchison amendment #3749 (FDIC insurance premiums). At 10am, the Senate will proceed to vote in relation to the amendment. Additional votes are expected to occur throughout the day.

The Senate is underway with its amendment process on the Wall Street reform bill. As you might have expected, they've ended up with no 60-vote threshold agreement, which makes sense given that agreements of that sort are meant to bypass the formalities and difficulties of dealing with filibusters and cloture, and the only credible filibuster threat out there belongs to people who actually want their amendments to have a chance but don't want the bill to pass and can afford to be seen filibustering it. There aren't too many of those around. Not 41, in any case.

But they do appear to have an agreement at least on the ratio of amendments that'll be offered: a 1:1 ratio between Democrats and Republicans (despite the ratio in the Senate actually being closer to 1.5:1). And with that agreement in place, Senators who filed CYA amendments in the uncertain circumstances preceding the agreement can now drop duplicative ones and concentrate on some smaller number of them instead.

The House is down to the last few suspensions of the week. As you've no doubt observed along with me, they've gotten into the habit of postponing votes on a few of these each day, and carrying them over into the latter part of the week, presumably to keep the schedule full when there's nothing hot & heavy coming down the pike.

Also on the House agenda, the Home Star Energy Retrofit bill. What's it all about? Rather than have me try to explain it, I'll let you see what the Whip's office circulated about it. The Whip's office (that's Jim Clyburn (D-SC-06), by the way) is a pretty decent source for general run-downs on what's in any given bill coming to the floor. It doesn't always give you a lot of lead time, though. But if something's coming to the floor that you haven't had time to track -- let's say, uh... hypothetically speaking -- you can check in with them and see if there's any basic info to get you oriented. A good bookmark if you're into that sort of thing.

Today's committee schedule appears below.

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