Month: December 2011

On the pay-roll tax cut, a profile in total cowardice.

"I asked [Gingrich] if he’s elected, how does he plan to engage gay Americans. How are we to support him? And he told me to support Obama," – Scott Arnold, university professor and Iowa voter. 

I wasn't there and cannot verify this. But it qualifies as a Kinsley gaffe, in as much as the GOP does not merely have no outreach to gays, but actively promotes candidates who seek our disappearance from the face of the earth through "reparative therapy", whose supporters boo openly gay servicemembers in public, who wish to amend the federal Constitution to deny us core civil rights, who find a defense of gay people from violence and persecution abroad to be against "American values", and who back every hate crime laws but those that protect gays from violence.

The GOP could be a party that wants everyone to agree to its principles. Instead, it is a party defined in part by its contempt for and fear of a whole group of people merely because they have the same sexual orientation as Newt Gingrich's step-sister, Dick Cheney's daughter and Karl Rove's dad.

But don't get too close:

He's now nationally getting votes from Bachmann and Huntsman, has a clear lead in Iowa in the poll of polls, in New Hampshire, he is closing in on Gingrich, and his two-point lead in the ISU/Gazette/KCRG may be more significant:

"What our poll says is that 51 percent of Paul's supporters say they're definitely backing him," said James McCormick, professor and chair of political science at Iowa State and coordinator of the poll. "The percentage for the next two candidates is much weaker, at 16.1 for Mitt Romney and 15.2 for Newt Gingrich.

Moreover, the percentage of respondents 'leaning to' or 'still undecided' in their support for these latter two candidates remains high, at 58 percent for Gingrich and 38 percent for Romney. In other words, I'm going to make the case that these numbers are still very soft for those two candidates."

"I think Paul probably under-polls," said Dave Peterson, interim director of the Harkin Institute of Public Policy at Iowa State and associate professor of political science who assisted with the poll. "His supporters are younger and more likely to reply on a cell phone, so he's probably going to perform better than his polling suggests. His supporters also are dedicated and will likely turn out on caucus night and not change their minds."

"After a year of the tea party House, Mr. Obama and Senate Democrats have had to make no major policy concessions beyond extending the Bush tax rates for two years. Mr. Obama is in a stronger re-election position today than he was a year ago, and the chances of Mr. McConnell becoming Majority Leader in 2013 are declining," – the editors of the Wall Street Journal.

These things happen quite quickly in the public's mind. An event crystallizes an inchoate general feeling, and gives it clarity. I think of the moment Gingrich threw a hissy-fit about his seat on Airforce One; or the moment when Americans first saw Bill Clinton sitting for a taped deposition, and changed sides almost instantly.

The House Republicans have now all but guaranteed that taxes will go up on middle-class Americans because of what they themselves have called "high stakes poker." And this moment may as well sum up why Americans despise this Congress as deeply as they do:

Yep, he is literally walking away – giving Hoyer a perfect moment for the rhetorical slam-dunk.

For the GOP to vote down sustaining a tax cut – after a huge majority in the Senate and president had both signed off – and to stalk off into the Christmas vacation leaving a struggling workforce in the lurch … well, it's a novel form of politicking, don't you think? I understand why this two-month extension is a joke, but again, that simply reveals the poker game attitude of the House GOP, refusing to do what they wouldn't even think twice about of a Republican president asked. They hate Obama so much they are willing to raise taxes! Think how deep the derangement must then go.

If you wonder why Obama is slowly rising again, I'd look less to his own smart re-framing of the issues than to the utter fecklessness of the opposition party. The circus of the primaries and the farce of the House will not leave the public consciousness very soon.

Question? askandrew@thedailybeast.com Video archive here.

Nate Silver ponders Obama's approval bump:

I am not an economic determinist who says economic numbers are the only thing that matters; the relationships are more tenuous than that. However, my view is that the economy deserves the “right of first refusal.” If you can explain a change in approval ratings based on economic attitudes — and I think you can in this case — this will usually be necessary and sufficient.

The above chart, showing Obama's approval numbers minus Rassmussen and Gallup polls, from Josh Marshall: 

[T]he important thing to note is that the overall trend and average is heavily weighted toward the two organizations that run daily tracking polls — Rasmussen, which tends to run unfriendly to the president and Gallup, which is generally more favorable to him. Tracking polls only have full, non-duplicated data every three to five days (depending on the tracking poll).

The tumblr gets remixed into a new one – Kim Jong-il Dropping The Bass: