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.
Kerry will win by three. Now feel free to rest. đ
Well, you can try some of the meta-analysis sites out there. These analyze a bunch of polls through various means and try to estimate the outcome. I think you’ll be pleased with the results:
http://synapse.princeton.edu/~sam/pollcalc.html
http://binomial.csuhayward.edu/WeeklyStatus.html
http://arrowheadengineering.com/
http://www.econ.umn.edu/~amoro/Research/presprobs.html
based on all the polls and interperetations of the polls and increase in voter reg and GOTV efforts and %blacks for kerry and % cuban americans for bush….i was just wondering when someone will tell me how much kerry will win by.
frankly i am exhasuted and would like to take a long rest….any convincing predictions out there?
This is their online poll, and it should be noted that this results differs markedly from the telephone poll released just a few days ago. In the poll, using the same definition of likely voters, Bush was up 8 points. (With the less stringest definition, Bush was up 2 points). This is a big swing of 9 points, but one was telephone, one was internet.
Personally, I have more faith in their Internet polls.
chris matthews said today kerry had the wind at his back and if the wind is still blowing in kerry’s direction tomorow(thursday) kerry will win.
chris matthew called the election for bush exactly 7 days ago.
larry o’donnel spent 10 solid minutes calling swift boat john o’neil a “liar” on scarbourgh 2 nights ago.
not “misleading’ …he called him a “lair” about 37 times , and very loudly. hats off to o’donnel.
You wonder whether Bush in fact has superfluous solid red support, and whether the non-solid-red polls, which really matter, might show 2% more for Kerry.
Isn’t this LV definition the same one that gave Bush a 51-43 edge in the October 14-17 Harris Poll?
Whether this reflects a real shift or just the LV definition working better closer to the election is another question.
I think the BUSH trend is “YOU”RE FIRED.” I was out cnvassing for MOVE ON last night. I called in TEN strong Kerry Edwards voters for ten stops. These were all voters that were not likely to be sampled by any major polling system. There is a vast undercurrent of anger towards the current administration which I think is starting to head towards a crest.
With such a robust sample, you can see that Bush’s MoE puts his ceiling at 49%. His ceiling, mind you.
It does seem that Kerry is breaking a hair ahead in national horse races.
The Harris Poll is the most encouraging poll yet. Last week they ran the poll and offered two different LV scenarios – one with those who will definitely vote AND voted in 2000, and the other with those who will definitely vote but did NOT vote in 2000 (and were old enough). In the second scenario, without 2000 voters, Kerry trailed Bush by 2 (48-46). In the first scenario that excludes new voters Kerry trailed by 8 (51-43). However, in the Harris Poll just released, the LV model resembles the first scenario of the last poll. In other words, Kerry didn’t just increase from -2 to +1, he moved from -8 to +1! That is incredible, if it is true, and shows a huge closing among undecideds for Kerry. I can only imagine what the number is for the second scenario voters now.
Notice how the WSJ headline writers just can’t bring themselves to say that it’s Kerry who is ahead in the latest Harris poll. You have to read to the end of the second paragraph to get that info. Compare that with some recent headlines characterizing Bush’s 1-pt leads as “surges” or “grabs”. I know, it’s no called the SCLM for nothing.
Harris seems to be something that slips under the radar, but from what I’ve heard they’re pretty good.
a trend seems to be emerging, and it’s not good news for George Bush.
Harris is underrepresenting new voters. Their likely voter screen:
“Likely Voters are defined as adults who are registered to vote and say they are “absolutely certain” to vote and, if they were old enough, voted in 2000.”
So if you didn’t vote in 2000 (unregistered, unmotivated) you don’t get counted. I think this poll is even better for Kerry than it seems on the surface.
Is it wishful thinking, or am I detecting a trend here? Kerry is up in the following: Democracy Corps 2 pts, LA Times up 1 pt, Harris 1 pt, and ABC News/Washingto Post 2 pts. Gallop has Bush ahead by only 4 which, if their internals have the same problems, is probably a dead heat. I suspect (and hope) that Kerry is doing his famous closing, and I think the 380 tonnes of missing explosives will galvanize the fence-sitter into KE direction.