This Is Discouraging

From “How the White House silenced gun control groups,” Reid J. Epstein, Politico:

“President Barack Obama’s gun control agenda is looking more doomed by the day, but gun control advocates still haven’t said a word to complain.

“That’s no accident.

“The White House knew its post-Newtown effort would require bringing key gun control groups into the fold. So the White House offered a simple arrangement: the groups could have access and involvement, but they’d have to offer silence and support in exchange.

“The implied rules, according to conversations with many of those involved: No infighting. No second-guessing in the press. Support whatever the president and Vice President Joe Biden propose. And most of all, don’t make waves or get ahead of the White House.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/03/how-white-house-quieted-gun-control-groups-88546.html#ixzz2Mt3mFojV

McConnell Draws Battle Lines

President Obama said that he won’t negotiate on the debt ceiling and that he will be looking for more tax increases (through tax reform).  Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has a new op-ed telling the Prez to fuhgeddaboudit and that the fiscal cliff deal “was the last word on taxes.”

McConnell says the debt ceiling won’t get raised without negotiations on spending cuts:

“Now the conversation turns to cutting spending on the government programs that are the real source of the nation’s fiscal imbalance. And the upcoming debate on the debt limit is the perfect time to have that discussion.

“We simply cannot increase the nation’s borrowing limit without committing to long overdue reforms to spending programs that are the very cause of our debt.”

So now we have more of a chasm than a cliff.  Let’s see Biden solve this one.

Fiscal Cliff Deal Passes Senate

The Biden-McConnell deal passed the Senate 89-8.  Both D’s and R’s were among those opposed.

The Democrats who voted against it were Tom Carper of Delaware, Tom Harkin of Iowa, and Michael Bennet of Colorado.  The Republicans who voted against it were Mike Lee of Utah, Richard Shelby of Alabama, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, and Marco Rubio  of Florida.

Given that wide, bipartisan margin of victory, it will be tough for the House to turn down the deal.

On the Edge

Mitch McConnell and Joe Biden continue to negotiate, with Biden having taken Harry Reid’s place for the Dems.

They have agreed on raising federal income taxes for individuals who make more than $400,000 and families who make more than $450,000.  They have agreed on a permanent fix to the alternative minimum tax, which has been getting annual fixes to keep it from hitting middle class families.

It looks as if the estate tax will rise to 40% from 35% for estates worth $5 million or more.

Unemployment benefits will be extended for a year for about two million Americans who otherwise would lose them starting tomorrow.  The Medicare “doc fix” will be extended for a year, so that doctors accepting Medicare patients don’t see their payments reduced.

They are still negotiating about turning off the sequester to avoid the automatic spending cuts that will begin tomorrow.

Troubling, Very Troubling

Watching the Obama campaign send Bill Clinton to Minnesota and Joe Biden to Pennsylvania.

At this late date, you campaign in swing states and don’t waste time in solid states.  So you have to wonder how solid Minnesota and Pennsylvania are.

The Romney campaign claims they’re expanding the map not to get to 270, but to get to 300.  Since they lie about everything else, I sure hope they’re lying about this.

The “Post-Truth” Era

From Greg Sargent at The Plum Line blog, WaPo:

“Mitt Romney’s new television ad suggesting that the auto bailout will result in American jeep jobs getting shipped to China has been widely pilloried by news organizations, both nationally and in Ohio. The Romney campaign’s response: It is expanding the ad campaign.

“A Dem source familiar with ad buy info tells me that the Romney campaign has now put a version of the spot on the radio in Toledo, Ohio — the site of a Jeep plant.

“The move seems to confirm that the Romney campaign is making the Jeep-to-China falsehood central to its final push to turn things around in the state. The Romney campaign has explicitly said in the past that it will not let fact checking constrain its messaging, so perhaps it’s not surprising that it appears to be expanding an ad campaign based on a claim that has been widely pilloried by fact checkers.

“The move represents a gamble on Romney’s part. The audacity of this falsehood makes it easier for the Obama camp to raise doubts about Romney’s character, integrity, and honesty — and to make the case that Romney not only failed to support the bailout when Ohio needed it; he’s now lying extensively to cover it up. Yesterday in Ohio, Joe Biden slammed the Romney camp by saying: ‘Have they no shame?’

“As Steve Benen put it, this episode demonstrates more clearly than any other yet that Romney ‘believes we’ve entered a post-truth era and the disincentive has disappeared — he can repeat falsehoods with impunity without fear of consequences.’

“This falsehood is particularly pernicious — it plays on people’s fears for their livelihoods.

“Ultimately, this may be Romney’s only recourse. It’s the only response Romney has left to the fact that he got it wrong on a policy that helped save an industry linked to one in eight Ohio jobs, and Obama got it right. And who knows — it just might work for him.”  Emphasis added.

I, of course, hope Mitt loses, but I especially hope he loses big in Ohio.  He equates intelligence with wealth.  He thinks if you’re not rich like him, you must be stupid.

 

Grace Under Pressure

Joe Biden did a great job tonight saying what Obama should have said, and the Obama campaign is back on track.  Now Obama just has to keep it there.

I wasn’t really worried that Biden would have a gaffe, and he didn’t.  I was more worried about the age contrast.  When you have two candidates who are a generation apart, you wonder if the younger guy will make the older guy seem over the hill, or if the older guy will make the younger one seem callow.  Tonight it was clearly the latter.

Biden was passionate, engaged, energetic, fluent, and forceful.  He came across as authentic and sincere, as someone who speaks from the heart.

I always think of Mitt as Eddie Haskell, and tonight Ryan was Eddie Haskell, Jr.  He was slick and smarmy.   He seemed over-rehearsed.  He’s turning into a robot like Mitt. He was his far-right self, and so he raised doubts about that Moderate Mitt we saw last week.

My favorite moment was his Dan Quayle, deer-in-the-headlights look when Martha Raddatz asked if those who support abortion rights should be worried if he and Mitt win.  The correct answer was “Well, duh!,” but Ryan refused to answer it directly, sputtering about unelected judges versus elected representatives deciding.  How about women deciding for themselves, how about that?

Martha Raddatz did a great job.

If only the Yankees had won tonight…

It’s the Enthusiasm, Stupid

Nate Silver says that Joe Biden’s mission tonight is to be the anti-Larry David — he needs to whip up enthusiasm.

From “Biden’s Debate Mission:  Whip Up Democrats to Blunt Romney’s Gains,” FiveThirtyEight, NYT:

“When [Biden] takes the debate stage…, he will probably not be able to erase all of Mitt Romney’s gains in the polls after his debate performance….

“For the first time since Aug. 28, the FiveThirtyEight model projects Mr. Obama to win fewer than 300 electoral votes.  But Mr. Biden may be able to do something about the yawning gap in enthusiasm between Democratic and Republican voters.  That gap might be the greatest threat to Mr. Obama’s winning another term…, and it seems to have widened since the Denver debate.

“This year, the [enthusiasm] gap has been wider than usual. … But since the Denver debate, some polling firms have shown an especially large split between registered and likely voters.

“Gallup…found the split to be five points in Mr. Romney’s favor.  That was enough to put him ahead by two points among likely voters in the Tuesday poll — even though he trailed Mr. Obama by three points among registered voters.

“Pew Research…found a four-point difference in their post-debate poll —  enough to account for all of the lead they found for Mr. Romney.

“It is probably too late for Mr. Biden and Mr. Obama to do anything about the high level of Republican enthusiasm.

“In general, it is easier to persuade voters to turn out than to compel them to change their minds.

“It seems plausible that roughly half of Mr. Romney’s post-debate bounce…has resulted from the shift in enthusiasm.  It will be Mr. Biden’s job in Danville to work on that half of the problem.  Then Mr. Obama will need to improve his performance in the last two debates to get back the rest of what he lost in Denver.”  Emphasis added.

Slippery Mitt Slides Agan

From “How Romney Is Obscuring His Upper Income Tax Cuts,” Sahil Kapur, Talking Points Memo:

“Seeking to neutralize the Obama campaign’s charge that his tax proposal will disproportionately benefit the wealthy, Mitt Romney has subtly changed the way he talks about his plan, in a way that obscures what its impact would be.

“Before the general election, Romney consistently argued that he wanted the wealthy to pay the same share of the overall tax burden as they do today. Now, as often as not, he claims he doesn’t want to reduce their burden at all.

“The two descriptions of his plan have wildly different implications — and he’s effectively using their superficial similarities to hide the real impact his proposal would likely have.

“Romney’s official proposal is to cut all marginal rates by 20 percent and to eliminate unspecified tax loopholes for high incomes. When nonpartisan experts analyzed the plan they concluded that under friendly assumptions his rate cuts will either require a higher burden on the middle class or an increase in the deficit.

“That conclusion caught Romney’s campaign flatfooted — and so he changed the pitch. Now he promises that the middle class will see a reduced tax burden, the rich will pay the same amount, and the deficit won’t rise. But that describes an entirely new tax reform proposal — one which experts also say would increase the deficit.

“Yet despite this major change, Romney has been able to avoid direct scrutiny about it from the media, even as he bounces back and forth between insisting that high income earners as a group will continue to pay the same share of the taxes as they do now and asserting that individual high earners will pay the same proportion of income as they do now.”  Emphasis added.

Mitt is counting on the American people’s being both bad at math and too lazy to bother.  You’ll see Paul Ryan counting on that tomorrow night.  Short of a blackboard (borrowed from Glenn Beck?), I’m not sure that Biden can shame Ryan successfully.

Biden Can Only Do So Much

There’s obviously tremendous pressure on Joe Biden to perform well in his debate with Paul Ryan on Thursday.  But there are limits to what Biden can accomplish because there are two concerns from last week’s debate.

Biden can “stop the bleeding” by pointing out the Romney/Ryan lies and making a clear contrast between Dem and GOP policy positions.  He can and must make a strong policy case for his side as being on the side of all those who aren’t already rich.

But policy is only one problem — the other is personality, and only Obama can fix that, Biden can’t do it for him.  Obama didn’t look or sound presidential last Wednesday.  He didn’t inspire confidence, he inspired incredulity.

Biden is the #2 guy.  Only the #1 guy can convince us that he wants and deserves to remain the most powerful person in the world.

Biden can’t fix it, he can only keep it from getting worse and set up Obama to make it right on the 16th.