The Limits of Political Capital
Obama Takes in Some Constructivism at the Centre Pompidou (White House photo)
Felix Salmon reads Dave Roberts being bleak about cap and trade and John Gapper observing that “the US administration has clearly decided that it simply cannot get any large-scale consolidation of regulation through Congress, given the vested interests involved” and wonders what happened to Barack Obama?
How did Obama manage to spend all his political capital so quickly? Did it all go on the stimulus bill? Wasn’t the whole point of bringing Rahm in as chief of staff that he could work constructively with Congress to pass an ambitious agenda? And isn’t Obama himself the first president since JFK to have entered the White House from the Senate? I’m not sure when everything went wrong here, but I fear that the damage is now irreparable — and that Obama’s agenda is going to be severely scaled back as a result.
I think the answer to the puzzle is simply that “political capital” is a pretty misleading metaphor. The fact of the matter is that the Senate is what it is—to wit, an institution with an enormous status quo bias, that’s also biased in favor of conservative areas. On top of that, the entire structure of the US Congress with its bicameralism and multiple overlapping committees is biased toward making it easy for concentrated interests to block reform. Between them, Dianne Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, Chuck Schumer, Kristen Gillibrand, Bill Nelson, Dick Durbin, Roland Burriss, Arlen Specter, Bob Casey, Sherrod Brown, Carl Levin, Amy Klobuchar, Kay Hagan, Bob Menendez, Frank Lautenberg, Mark Warner, Jim Webb, Patty Murray, Maria Cantwell, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, and Evan Bayh represent 50 percent of the country’s population. But that only adds up to 22 Senators—you need thirty-eight more to pass a bill.
Meanwhile, the fact of the matter is that in recent years plenty of incumbent Republicans have been brought down by primary challenges from the right and as best I know zero Democrats have been brought down by primary challenges from the left. This has been a huge advantage for the Democrats in terms of winning elections—it’s an important part of the reason Democrats have these majorities. But it also means that when it comes to policymaking, Republicans have a lot of solidarity but Democratic leaders have little leverage over individual members. In other words, nobody thinks that Collin Peterson (D-MN) is going to lose his seat over badly watering down Waxman-Markey and that matters a lot more than airy considerations of capital.
The American presidency is a weird institution. If Barack Obama wants to start a war with North Korea and jeopardize the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, it’s not clear that anyone could stop him. If he wants to let cold-blooded murderers out of prison, it’s completely clear that nobody can stop him. But if he wants to implement the agenda he was elected on just a few months ago, he needs to obtain a supermajority in the United States Senate.
47 Responses to “The Limits of Political Capital”
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June 15th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
Some great points, thanks.
June 15th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
“The American presidency is a weird institution. If Barack Obama wants to start a war with North Korea and jeopardize the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, it’s not clear that anyone could stop him. If he wants to let cold-blooded murderers out of prison, it’s completely clear that nobody can stop him. But if he wants to implement the agenda he was elected on just a few months ago, he needs to obtain a supermajority in the United States Senate.”
Just another reason to thank God for the wisdom of the Founding Fathers in creating a central government that can respond quickly to foreign threats, but with built in choke points to limits its ability to quickly interfere in the affairs of the American people.
June 15th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
“The fact of the matter is that the Senate is what it is—to wit, an institution with an enormous status quo bias, that’s also biased in favor of conservative areas. On top of that, the entire structure of the US Congress with its bicameralism and multiple overlapping committees is biased toward making it easy for concentrated interests to block reform.”
Of course, the real roadblock is that the Senate requires a supermajority to pass most legislation in a way that is not anticipated by any wording in the Constitution.
There is a majority of the Senate ready to pass meaningful reform legislation on a wide variety of topics.
If we’ve got 51 votes, we ought to make the government do the people’s work.
June 15th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
That’s not constructivism, bub.
June 15th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
”I know zero Democrats have been brought down by primary challenges from the left”
Donna Edwards did it to Al Wynn. Wynn also shifted his voting record to the left in his last two years of time in Congress. If Harold Ford had stuck around he would have been challenged by now.
June 15th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
Well, this once again reiterates the fundamental problem with American governance (to wit: the Senate sucks) but I’m still not sure what our strategy is for fixing this problem.
June 15th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
“Just another reason to thank God for the wisdom of the Founding Fathers in creating a central government that can respond quickly to foreign threats, but with built in choke points to limits its ability to quickly interfere in the affairs of the American people”
Whether or not you like the way the US political system works
these days (I think it’s bizarre myself), you ought to recognize
that the use of the Senate filibuster to block legislation
didn’t originate in the Constitution. And that in fact, the
current filibuster-everything tactics arose only in the last
couple of decades.
The Founding Fathers did a pretty crappy job IMO (slaves
count 3/5 of a vote, remember ?). But the current dysfunction
is the fault of the current generation, not what happened
a couple of centuries ago.
June 15th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
“Well, this once again reiterates the fundamental problem with American governance (to wit: the Senate sucks) but I’m still not sure what our strategy is for fixing this problem.”
Pass bills with 51 votes. Pass the same bills in the House. Have the President sign them.
June 15th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
What the hell?
Look, the thing that happened between last summer and now is a gigantic freaking recession/depression. The obvious effect of that was that support for the parts of the energy program related to stimulating the economy – green jobs and public investments – remained strong, while support for the parts of the energy program that are economically chilling – cap and trade or carbon taxes – was hurt.
June 15th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
the Senate sucks
This can’t be repeated enough.
I’m still not sure what our strategy is for fixing this problem.
Perhaps House leaders should take on the Senate and force Reid to make Republicans and corporate Democrats filibuster at least one high-profile popular bill. Then at least the people would realize there is a problem.
June 15th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Pass bills with 51 votes. Pass the same bills in the House. Have the President sign them.
I heard some talking head or another this weekend — I think it may have been Ceci Connolly — saying that in her experience the majority party in the senate can get the parliamentarian to rule whichever they want. Reconciliation could be widely used — didn’t the GOP do so during the Bush years? — if the will existed.
June 15th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
Bill Mahrer had a good comment on his show. Obama needs to fight, not finesse. He’s got to ram this stuff down their throats. Bush II had way less of a mandate after his first election and he acted like owned the place and just lied and lied his way to getting what his masters wanted him to do. Obama has to take on the opposition with this rhetorical skills and call out some spineless Democrats. Just like Bush/Cheney left Iraq for Obama to deal with, Obama has to get cap-n-trade, health care and new financial regulatory oversight into position so that it cannot be dismantled but must be dealt with after he leaves office.
June 15th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Why should anyone think that Obama doesn’t answer to the same bosses as the senators?
He has lots of political capital that he hasn’t even tried to use. He didn’t fight for bankruptcy cramdown or lower credit card rates. He appointed a Goldman-Sachs hack to the CFTC. He appointed a Fed guy as Treasury Secretary and a guy on the take from hedge funds as chief economic advisor. He is beefing up the forces in Afghanistan.
Seems to me he just isn’t a progressive.
June 15th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
All the more reason to support Joe Sestak against Specter. A Sestak win would send a message to moderate Dems that too much disloyalty to the party principles would come with real consequences. Even if he doesn’t win, it will challenge Snarlin’ Arlen to be a more reliable Democratic vote while his support is critically for major progressive legislation. Either way, progressives gain and moderates might start thinking twice before reflexively kowtowing to GOP-aligned special interests.
Races like this is how movements are built.
June 15th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
Simple: eliminate the filibuster. 24 hours after the beginning of debate on any given bill, it goes to vote automatically unless 60 senators vote to extend debate. Extensions have to be re-voted and re-passed every 24 hours.
This allows extended debate when it’s really necessary – i.e. hardly ever – but prevents “debate” just for the purposes of obstruction, because a coalition that can’t defeat a bill can’t filibuster it either.
June 15th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
Some electoral arithmetic: Do the Dems get all of Indiana’s population in your calculation, even though Bayh shares the state with Lugar? If so, you have to multiply by two the population allocated to a party that has both senate seats in order to arrive at a fair percentage. I haven’t seen this worked out, but I’ll bet the Democratic underepresentation would be even more glaring in this fairer accounting.
June 15th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
I heard some talking head or another this weekend — I think it may have been Ceci Connolly — saying that in her experience the majority party in the senate can get the parliamentarian to rule whichever they want. Reconciliation could be widely used — didn’t the GOP do so during the Bush years? — if the will existed.
Reconciliation has a built-in timetable for when the bill would be revoked. See Bush-era tax cuts for an example. It also has a much shorter debate time, which could lead to hidden traps on complicated bills.
Not saying it shouldn’t be used, but it isn’t an automatic bypass of the filibuster.
June 15th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
Remember Ned Lamont in 2006? Democrats chose him over chickenhawk Lieberman. Unfortunately Republicans got to choose between them in the general and Lieberman eeked it out with 50%. The actual, official Republican on the ballot got only 10% because the party threw its resources behind the incumbent.
June 15th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
I know zero Democrats have been brought down by primary challenges from the left
=============================================================
I guess it depends on what you mean by “brought down” but Joe Lieberman did have to leave the party and run as an “I”
June 15th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Jasper, I don’t think reconciliation is what Petey means. Pretty sure he means fuck the filibuster, as indicated by the words “in a way that is not anticipated by any wording in the Constitution.” I, for one, agree wholeheartedly.
Also, in this point, he’s finding common ground with Matt, which he basically hasn’t done since the New Hampshire primary. So more’s to the good.
June 15th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
Some electoral arithmetic: Do the Dems get all of Indiana’s population in your calculation, even though Bayh shares the state with Lugar? If so, you have to multiply by two the population allocated to a party that has both senate seats in order to arrive at a fair percentage.
Yeah, I think Matt’s cheating on the math. I haven’t worked it out but I think he’s giving all of Florida to Nelson, Indiana to Bayh, etc.
Meanwhile, the fact of the matter is that in recent years plenty of incumbent Republicans have been brought down by primary challenges from the right and as best I know zero Democrats have been brought down by primary challenges from the left.
Incumbent Republican Senators? Who are you referring to? Chafee and Specter both survived right-wing challengers (parallel, especially in Specter’s case, to Lieberman surviving a left-wing challenge). The only Republican Senator I’m aware of losing a primary in recent years was Bob Smith, who lost to John Sununu, but (a) that was 7 years ago, and (b) Smith was a complete nut.
June 15th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
“…you need 38 more to pass a bill.”
no, that is only true under Harry Reid’s derelict “leadership”. just because the Senate is ‘functioning’ in this manner currently, it shouldn’t be bought into and stated as being the outright truth of the situation. it is not. Senate Dems could decide they wanted to do something, and ask Reid to sit down. they won’t, but they could.
June 15th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
Jasper, I don’t think reconciliation is what Petey means. Pretty sure he means fuck the filibuster, as indicated by the words “in a way that is not anticipated by any wording in the Constitution.”
Well, as far as I know reconciliation is the sole way of “fucking” the filibuster. The senate, of course, if constitutionally free to set its own rules, and that could mean sharply paring back or even getting rid of the filibuster. But such a strategy seems far more difficult than simply using existing loopholes to get around the supermarjority vote requirement imposed by the existence of the filibuster. Or, to put it another way, if you think it will prove too difficult for senate Democrats to get past cloture via the use of reconciliation, how do you think they’ll possibly be able to “fuck” (by which I assume you mean “get rid of”) the filibuster itself?
Also, this may seem a tad cynical, but if were somehow possible to ignore or suppress the filibuster while Democrats are in the ascendancy, but keep it for the eventual return of Republican majorities, we’d then get the best of both worlds.
June 15th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
Reconciliation has a built-in timetable for when the bill would be revoked.
I don’t think this is actually much of a problem. Bush’s tax cuts are unpopular and won’t be renewed. Health care reform is popular and will likely continue to be, and so there will be plenty of chances for future Congresses to renew it in the next ten years. Also, since progressive programs tend to become more popular over time, eventually the politics of the country will move such that you don’t even need to use reconciliation to renew the program, and an outright supermajority will vote for a sunsetless version of the program.
That said, I share Alex @17’s worry about hidden traps, deliberate or accidental. There’s far too much legislation for Congresspeople to ready every word of every bill they vote on, so we are, like it or not, entrusting most legislating to staffers who come and go with the members of Congress, and to lobbyists, who don’t exactly always have the spirit of the bill at heart. Is it possible to set up a body of law-writers independent of individual members and of lobbying groups? This doesn’t have to be a French-style civil service, but couldn’t the political parties have professional, career law-writers responsible for writing the legislation the parties introduce? Or even blocs within the parties: Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins can have their own little sane, non-evil shop of bill-writers and the rest of the GOP can delegate its bill-writing to John Yoo and David Addington.
June 15th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
“Jasper, I don’t think reconciliation is what Petey means. Pretty sure he means fuck the filibuster, as indicated by the words “in a way that is not anticipated by any wording in the Constitution.” I, for one, agree wholeheartedly.”
Indeed.
51 votes rules the Senate. It’s really that simple.
The Founders made some regrettable but necessary compromises to get the Constitution accepted. The Byrd rule was not one of those compromises. A simple majority in both houses of Congress is all that is needed to bring a bill to the President’s desk for signature into law.
June 15th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
Obama has shot his proverbial wad. The stimulus bill was huge and politically compromised. Taking over two car companies and handing them to unions, established his socialist leanings. Spending trillions to establish universal healthcare has the obvious flaw of mythical “savings in the future”, while avoiding the equally obvious qualifier of fixing Medicare now. Add in taking over the financial system, insurance companies, and rampant cronyism… pushback was inevitable.
Moreover, more people consider themselves conservative than liberal. Reality has a well known conservative bias.
June 15th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
Jasper @23: Also, this may seem a tad cynical, but if were somehow possible to ignore or suppress the filibuster while Democrats are in the ascendancy, but keep it for the eventual return of Republican majorities, we’d then get the best of both worlds.
I may be naive and optimistic here, but I’m inclined to think that 2001-2006 was an aberration, possible only with 9/11, a preternaturally supine media, and a special moment in demography where population gains from Latinos and Northern transplants in the Southwest and the southern Atlantic coast were enough to increase the importance of those regions but not enough yet to bring them toward the center. This means that the eventual return of Republican majorities will not be a return of Bush/DeLay/Limbaugh majorities, but some transformed Republican party that is not especially insane or stupid.
I’m thus not particularly worried about a Republican government passingly mildly conservative, David Cameron-style legislation in 2020 with only 51 Senators if it means that by then, the U.S. will have a public universal health care option, a meaningful cap-and-trade system, reinstated inheritance tax, federal civil unions for same-sex couples, a 6-3 center-left majority on the Supreme Court, and modernized energy and transportation infrastructures.
June 15th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
No, it arose only since Jan. 2007, when the GOP became the minority party and decided to crap on the will of the American people and just block everything and anything, no matter what.
Oh, and shooter242 can’t read — while more people may consider themselves “conservative” in a general sense, they’re sure as hell not Republicans:
There’s also the fact women are more likely to be Democrats, as are the younger set and Latinos. So, yeah, have the old white men. We’ll take the rest.
June 15th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
Dan Kervick is obviously correct. And Obama is still getting stuff done with respect to environmental issues . . . and if given a second term with a healthy economy, he may well get a real carbon pricing scheme.
June 15th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
“Also, this may seem a tad cynical, but if were somehow possible to ignore or suppress the filibuster while Democrats are in the ascendancy, but keep it for the eventual return of Republican majorities, we’d then get the best of both worlds.”
I’m willing to live within the wording of the Constitution.
If the opposition is able to pass bills in the future due to having majorities in both houses and the Presidency, so be it. That’s why we have elections.
A properly functioning government is most definitely in the interests of progressives. Supermajorities beyond those envisioned in the Constitution prevent a properly functioning government. That holds true regardless of which party is currently popular.
Representative democracy under the law with a balance of powers is actually a pretty damn good system.
June 15th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
It is all coming down to 2010 and 2012. All this nonsense is a cloudy precursor. If Obama doesn’t have a supermajority by 2012, say good-bye USA and say hello to Stage 4 of Dimitri Orlov’s Collapse Scenario. We have entered Stage 3, by the way, and there are only five stages.
http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2008/02/five-stages-of-collapse.html
How easy did Roosey have it? 69 seats in 1934, 76 seats in 1936, 69 seats in 1938, and 58 seats in 1942. Give Obama 16 years and 70 seats and we are back in business.
June 15th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
I wish the Republicans had had the balls to abolish the fillibuster back when they were threatening the nuclear option back in ‘05. What a stupid f’in rule.
But isn’t the whole problem that our government is built on the notion of 50 mostly independent and mostly sovereign states, despite the fact that this hasn’t made any sense in well over a century? State boundaries were drawn long ago and today are totally arbitrary, only serving to give disproportionate power to rural areas of the country.
My question is why doesn’t California carve itself up into a dozen states so it can compete with the midwest in the Senate? Or heck, the individual Burroughs of New York City have bigger populations than some of our smaller states – why not have two Senators from Brooklyn, two from Queens, etc.
Or better yet, abolish the archaic institution of the Senate altogether. States don’t need representatives in the federal government, people do.
June 15th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Pass bills with 51 votes. Pass the same bills in the House. Have the President sign them.
If I could just mind-control the Senate, though, I wouldn’t need to get rid of the filibuster. :-/
Let me take a different tack: how do we, concerned progressive citizens, cause the steps to be taken that will make the Senate a useful chamber, including but not limited to eliminating the filibuster, given that:
* It has a pro-capital bias (people with money consistently compromise the voting habits of Senators)
* It has a pro-special-interests bias (small groups with narrow legislative foci regularly outmaneuver the diffuse interests of wide groups of constituents)
* It has a geographic bias towards conservative, rural communities
* Our SML is ludicrously ineffective and no clear procedure by which to influence the Senate to reject him in favor of a better alternative really exists
* People who are already in the Senate like the fact that it’s run like a corrupt old boy’s club
* People who agree with the people already in the Senate will throw their weight against people who disagree making their way into the Senate
June 15th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
This isn’t fundamentally a procedural problem. The real issue is that lobbyists are in charge of the agenda. You’ll notice that in six years of controlling both Congress and the Presidency, the Republicans did pretty much diddly/squat to implement the agenda of social conservatives, but plenty to help out corporate interests. In the same vein, some of you who are perhaps expecting lots of Congressional action on things like gays in the military, civil liberties, investigation of illegal torture, or reductions in our overseas adventurism – but you have a wake-up call coming, if you haven’t figured out the game already. You can transfer a trillion bucks to the banking industry in a week or two, but for gays in the military it’s mañana, siempre mañana…
June 15th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
“Let me take a different tack: how do we, concerned progressive citizens, cause the steps to be taken that will make the Senate a useful chamber”
Vote and organize.
Petition your elected representatives to pass meaningful and good healthcare reform legislation.
June 15th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
ONE TWO WHAT ARE WE FIGHTING FOR ABSOLUTELY NOTHING
(Bill Clinton on Culture Change)
He (CLINTON) told an Arab-American audience of (1,000) One-Thousand, people that the (U.S.) or (AIE/W) American Israeli Empire-West, is no longer just a black-white country, nor a country that is (DOMINATED BY) dominated by Christians (AND A POWERFUL JEWISH MINORITY), given the growing numbers of Muslims, Hindus and other religious groups here. Clinton said by (2050) the (U.S./AIE/W) will no longer have a majority of people with European heritage and that in an interdependent world “this is a very positive thing.” (Source: CHRISTINE SIMMONS, Associated Press Writer, Bill Clinton urges Americans to be mindful of the country’s growing diversity)
(THE QUESTIONS BILL CREATED)
Bill Clinton has made a public comment that now raises questions that many in the (AIE) American Israeli Empire must now face and ask. The concept of those other than European-White-Anglo-Saxon, (Christian, Protestant, Roman Catholic or Jewish) fighting for the Empire is of course to bring about the ending of the European dominated Christians and a powerful Jewish Minority, creating a nation much different culturally than now exists.
But, for those of European-White-Anglo-Saxon (Christian, Protestant, Roman Catholic or Jewish), what is the benefit of an (18, 19, or 20) year old risking it all to defend a country that will no longer exist when they are (58, 59, 60) and one which will not exit for their children and their children, a country no longer based upon the values which they grew up in. (One, Two, What Are We Fighting For, Absolutely Nothing). Would it be better to consider relocation into cultures that more reflect their values, Canada, Australia, even Europe? Or, does it become fight for what is yours now?
It becomes very important to those of the Jewish Culture, either Non-Israeli-Jews or Israeli-Jews, as the country that most provided military and political support in global affairs will no longer under a Muslim majority either support but be a Clear and Present Danger to their existence with the largest Nuclear Arsenal, and Military Industrial Complex on the globe will be aligned against their survival. Should the Jewish Community come together as a culture and take by force the entire former nation of Israel and reestablish it, by force and preemptively nuclear attack the Shi-ite Persian Republic of Iran and any other Arab or Persian culture that would threaten its existence.
(This is a very positive thing?)
Now, both sides on this issue have opinions, Bill’s opinion is this is a very positive thing, and seeing that Bill is (66) Sixty-Six, and in (41) Forty-One year at (107) One-Hundred-Seven, its not going to be all that big of a deal, others may beg to differ. We can be sure, that when the Roman Catholic Spanish landed in the New World to replace and change the culture of the Native Cultures they encountered, those cultures may have begged to differ, as the Irish did with the English, or the Anglos did with the Saxons, or the Normans, different cultures view the change from different vantage points. History has proven that no culture just rolls over and plays dead while it is being over-run, Bill Clinton sees this as a good thing, but history has shown its is a dangerous and bloody exercise in Change.
THE GOVERNMENT WANTS TO LOSE CAPITAL, TELL THE MASS THAT A MASSIVE CULTURAL CHANGE WILL BE ALLOWED TO HAPPEN WITHOUT ITS CONCENT!
TRIATHLON
June 15th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
Spent his political capital…Really? LOL more magical thinking! Obama still enjoys a 64% favorable rate and you want to push the meme that he has spent his political capital…..get a real job because your a poor representative at this one.
Your like the insane guy who thinks if he says something enough times that people will begin to believe it….LOL
OBAMA
June 15th, 2009 at 8:50 pm
‘He spent his political capital’ is a more comforting narrative for someone like Matt than ‘turns out he actually doesn’t give a shit about a lot of these issues’. Just saying.
June 15th, 2009 at 9:15 pm
Yeah, I think Matt’s cheating on the math. I haven’t worked it out but I think he’s giving all of Florida to Nelson, Indiana to Bayh, etc.
No, I’m not. I’m giving Nelson half of Florida and Bayh half of Indiana, and Boxer half of California and Feinstein the other half of California.
June 16th, 2009 at 8:38 am
[...] Hablaré más sobre esto más adelante; es algo importante. Parece que entre las guerras entre comités e intereses personales de cada pequeño congresista y troglodita senador están arreglándoselas para debilitar muchísimo la legislación sobre cambio climático. [...]
June 16th, 2009 at 8:41 am
Matt, I still don’t think your math works out. Look at the cumulative total in the far-right column of the Wikipedia entry. The states through Indiana have a cumulative total of 67.14% of the population. Republican-represented states in that 67% are Texas (7.81%), half Florida (5.97%/2), half Ohio (3.75%/2), Georgia (3.12%), half North Carolina (3.08%/2), Arizona (2.07%), and half Indiana (2.07%/2), which adds up to 19.89 of the population. To get to 50% we have to add in McCaskill, Mikulski, Sarbanes, Feingold, Kohl, and Klobuchar (also, you mixed up Klobuchar and Stabenow — that should be Stabenow with Levin), so in fact it’s 28 Democratic Senators that represent half the population. The point still stands of course.
BTW, I’m giving Klobuchar all of Minnesota’s population, since she’s currently the only Senator from Minnesota, and she still gets only one vote. If you like you could toss DC in, because it has no Senators at all, but I don’t think it changes the math.
June 16th, 2009 at 10:42 am
[...] on yesterday’s theme, if you add together the two Republican Senators from Wyoming with the one from Alaska, one from [...]
June 16th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
”I know zero Democrats have been brought down by primary challenges from the left.”
You know it and they know it. That’s the problem.
June 16th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
[...] Patashnik says I shouldn’t call the presidency a weird institution, the real issue is that we have weird campaigns: In a more rational world, presidential campaigns [...]
June 16th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
[...] Patashnik says I shouldn’t call the presidency a weird institution, the real issue is that we have weird campaigns: In a more rational world, presidential campaigns [...]
June 16th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
[...] Matt Y notes that Felix Salmon notes two posts. David Roberts at Grist (on cap and trade): Republicans have settled on a strategy of blanket opposition to both the health care and climate legislation. This obviously isn’t in the best interests of the country; it’s not even obviously in the narrow self-interest of many Republicans. Nonetheless, a combination of increasing ideological rigidity, lack of new ideas, and sheer cussed habit has taken the Right completely out of these debates, except as rock-throwers and gear-grinders. They’ve decided that Democratic successes on either of these major initiatives could fuel further electoral losses, and that’s their worst fear. [...]
June 16th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
[...] think Matt Yglesias and Ryan Avent both have the appropriate response: the problem here is not Obama, but [...]