The federal government is going to shut down this weekend, barring some miracle. And Democrats really need to make sure Americans know exactly who insisted on this avoidable crisis. It’s the House GOP, as I explained at New York.
If you are bewildered by the inability of Congress to head off a government shutdown beginning this weekend, donât feel poorly informed: Some of the Capitolâs top wizards are throwing up their hands as well, as the Washington Post reports:
â’We are truly heading for the first-ever shutdown about nothing,’ said Michael Strain, director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think tank. Strain has started referring to the current GOP House-led impasse as “the âSeinfeldâ shutdown,â a reference to the popular sitcom widely known as ‘a show about nothing.’ ‘The weirdest thing about it is that the Republicans donât have any demands. What do they want? What is it that theyâre going to shut the government down for? We simply donât know.’â
Thatâs a bit of an exaggeration. Many House Republicans, led by a band of right-wing hard-liners, want to impose their fiscal and policy views on the nation despite the GOPâs narrow majority in the House. Their chief asset, beyond fanaticism, is that the federal government canât remain open past the end of the fiscal year without the concurrence of the House, and they donât really mind an extended government shutdown, if only to preen and posture. They are being encouraged in this wildly irresponsible position by their leader and likely 2024 presidential nominee Donald Trump.
But the hard-linersâ real motive, it seems, is to use the dysfunction theyâve caused in the House to get rid of Speaker Kevin McCarthy for being dysfunctional. The not-so-hidden plan hatched by Florida congressman Matt Gaetz is to thwart every effort by McCarthy to move forward with spending plans for the next fiscal year and then defenestrate him via a motion to vacate the chair, which just five Republicans can pass any time they wish (with the complicity of Democrats). Indeed, the Post reports the rebels are casting about for a replacement Speaker right now:
“A contingent of far-right House Republicans is plotting an attempt to remove Kevin McCarthy as House speaker as early as next week, a move that would throw the chamber into further disarray in the middle of a potential government shutdown, according to four people familiar with the effort who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private talks.”
McCarthyâs tormenters would like to have a successor lined up who will presumably be even less inclined to compromise with Democrats than the current Speaker. And thatâs saying a lot, since McCarthy has already bowed to the Gaetz demand that House Republicans reject even the idea of a continuing resolution â the stopgap spending measures used to forestall or end government shutdowns in the past â and instead plod through individual appropriations bills loaded with provisions no Democrat would ever accept (e.g., deep domestic spending cuts, draconian border policies, anti-Ukraine measures, and abortion restrictions). Itâs a recipe for a long shutdown, but itâs clear if McCarthy moves a muscle toward negotiating with Democrats (who have already passed a CR in the Senate), then kaboom! Here comes the motion to vacate.
Some observers think getting rid of McCarthy is an end in itself for the hard-liners â particularly Gaetz, who has a long-standing grudge against the Californian and opposed his original selection as Speaker to the bitter end â no matter what he does or doesnât do. In theory, House Democrats could save McCarthy by lending a few ânoâ votes to him if the motion to vacate hits the floor, but theyâve made it clear the price for saving him would be high, including abandonment of the GOPâs Biden impeachment inquiry.
So strictly speaking, the impending shutdown isnât âabout nothingâ; itâs about internal far-right factional politics that very few of the people about to be affected by the shutdown care about at all. Understandably, most Democrats from President Biden on down are focusing their efforts on making sure the public knows this isnât about âbig governmentâ or âpoliticiansâ or âpartisan polarization,â but about one partyâs extremism and cannibalistic infighting. For now, thereâs little anyone outside the GOP fever swamps can do about it other than watch the carnage.
Note that Zogby has just classified AZ, CO, VA, and NC as “battleground states”. I thought these states were supposed to be RED. đ
PS: VA hasn’t gone Democratic in a Presidential election since 1964.
Very interesting if you look at this poll state by state.
Using WSJ definitions and expanding it, if you take “Tier I” Kerry battleground states (five of them MI, MN, NH, PA & WA) to be states where he is ahead above the margin of error, adding the electoral votes gives Kerry only 245. Still not enough to win. If you make another set of “Tier II” Kerry battleground states as states where Gore won and Kerry is ahead (OR, IA, NM, WI), then Kerry wins with a total electoral vote of 274. In other words each one of these 9 states is a Kerry MUST WIN, since any of these in the Bush column and Bush wins. OTOW, what is interesting is that there isn’t a single battleground state where Gore won last time and Bush is ahead now. I’m not a professional politician but it must be easier to convince someone to vote Dem again, than to get people to change their mind and admit they were wrong 4 years ago.
Still, although this proves it really is a ballgame,
Kerry has the advantage in turnovers and hopefully politics is like football….
The strategy should be to pound on the four Tier II states (and throw in Nevada (cheap), West Virginia(maybe?) and Florida GOTV), focus on the Tier I states and hope for the best in Missouri, Tennessee and maybe West Virginia.
But what about Colorado?
A lot of people in Ohio work/ed in industries at least tangentially related to Defense, so there’s that. The state has also been leaning right over the past few years – I think in part due to the flagging influence of organized labor as the jobless rates grow.
Put it another way: Bush leads is 3 of 16 swing states.
1. Bush’s lead in NV is 0.6% and the WSJ paints it bright red!
2. Arkansas is a swing state?
3. What’s up with Ohio? Did all the unemployed move to Illinois?