November 17: Democrats Will Have to Fight Through More Government Shutdown Threats
Fortunately, the federal government will stay open through the holidays, but Democrats must stay vigilant, since the nihilist forces that keep bringing Congress to the brink have not gone away, as I explained at New York:
After his success in passing a two-tiered stopgap spending bill with a ton of Democratic votes and quiet concurrence from the Democratic-controlled Senate and the White House, freshly minted House Speaker Mike Johnson hastily retreated into a Thanksgiving recess with angry shouts from his erstwhile hard-core MAGA allies echoing in his ears, as Punchbowl News reports:
“Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), policy chair for the House Freedom Caucus, went to the House floor and angrily bashed the GOP leadership after members had bolted town on Wednesday, a bitter ending to a grueling 10-week marathon for the chamber.
“’I want my Republican colleagues to give me one thing — one — that I can go campaign on and say we did. One!’ Roy yelled during a speech in an otherwise empty House chamber.
“’Anybody sitting in the complex, you want to come down to the floor and come explain to me one material, meaningful, significant thing the Republican majority has done besides, well, I guess it’s not as bad as the Democrats.’”
Among the “material, significant things” Roy and others among the 93 House Republicans who voted against Johnson’s plan wanted were deep spending cuts in disfavored areas of the federal government and perhaps some symbolic policy shibboleths smiting abortion providers or transgender athletes or tax collectors. Such items would have been treated by Democrats and even some Republicans as poison pills, which is why Johnson’s “clean” stopgap bill didn’t include them. The new Speaker’s support for a “clean” bill and his reliance on Democratic voters are precisely the actions that got old Speaker Kevin McCarthy tossed out on his ear. Thanks to Johnson’s past record of rigorous right-wing orthodoxy (and perhaps exhaustion following the long fight over McCarthy’s successor), his rebellious friends appear to have given him a mulligan. But it probably won’t last.
A new government shutdown threat will likely appear once the first “tier” of the stopgap bill expires on January 19. Indeed, the hard-liners are already firing shots across Johnson’s bow, as Politico reports:
“Hardliners sunk any chances of passage for two additional funding bills this week — marking a major setback for Speaker Mike Johnson less than 24 hours after working with Democrats to pass a bill that would thwart a shutdown deadline Saturday …
“GOP leadership then canceled the rest of the votes for the week, with Republicans predicting that Johnson’s spending headache won’t get any easier once they return at the end of the month.
“Instead, members of the Freedom Caucus vowed to continue blocking House Republicans’ remaining five funding bills. They urged Johnson to come up with a plan that would cut spending for the fiscal year that began on Oct. 1, without any accounting tricks.”
What makes this revolt even more significant is that Freedom Caucus types are really obsessed with the need to enact individual appropriations bills instead of the catchall measures they believe endemic to out-of-control federal spending. A big part of the rationale for Johnson’s two-tiered stopgap was to provide enough time — and no more — for passage of these individual bills. But now HFC leaders are sabotaging that very possibility out of a fit of pique, in an exceptional example of what it means to cut off your nose to spite your face.
The thing is, Senate Democrats and the White House aren’t going to bend to Chip Roy’s definition of what the American people want or need between now and the time the next shutdown crisis arrives (indeed, a collision over aid to Ukraine and border policy contained in the president’s supplemental spending proposal will likely come to a head before Christmas). So the shutdown threat may have simply been deferred for a bit even as House GOP hard-liners flagellate themselves for letting Johnson off the hook for the exact sins that damned McCarthy. Enjoy the holidays, federal employees. But stash away some provisions for what could be a stormy winter.
Can someone explain why in slide #37 there are only 37% Gore voters from 2000 but 43% Bush voters?
Am I to understand that tons more people who voted for Gore in 2000 failed to come out than who voted for Bush? Why would that be?
There are moderate Democrats in the red states but they lose due to straight ticket voting – just look at the Senate elections this year, where moderate Dems got clobbered everywhere but Colorado.
Exit poll and other pre-election polling have a limited usefulness this time because they didn’t seem to correlate very well with the election itself. To use this data to try to understand why Kerry lost is probably not wise until we have a better understanding of why these polls didn’t match the outcome.
My personal theory is that there was an unusually large contingent of Bush backers who just weren’t willing to talk to pollsters– who they probably consider part of the “leftist media conspiracy”. In the same way that African-American candidates have often gotten fewer votes than polls indicated they would, I think voters who were anti-gay specifically or anti-tolerance more generally showed up to vote but not to talk to strangers. If that was the case– and it’s basically unprovable, probably– the exit polls would have to be adjusted.
Jay Bradfield, you’re exactly right.
They also beat us with discipline we lack. We’re always too busy making sure everyone gets to speak their mind. We wouldn’t want anyone to feel disenfranchised.
Organizing the left for Democratic theme issues is next to impossible, because complaining about THEIR issue always transcends winning the presidency or congress. As someone once said, it’s like moving frogs in a wheel barrow.
Conservatives love order, so they love a good, firm chain of command, where orders come down and are followed. Meanwhile, liberals are still arguing about which T-shirt makes the appropriate statement with this outfit.
Liberals are too busy crying about whatever it is that makes them unhappy at the moment to work on finding the middle. Not content to be minority status in all branches of federal and state government, they seek to turn the course further left.
I am a former conservative Republican red-stater turned progressive. The reason we don’t see fusion politicians in the red states is because of the effectiveness of the Inside the beltway conservative movement. I am sadly beginning to realize there is no equivalent progressive movement.
The conservative movement goes out of its way to get all of its candidates to tow the line on conservative issues. So you might have social conservative mid-westerners who is tempermentally opposed to free trade, as are his constituents but because of the working of the conservative network of think tanks, lobbyists, donors, and activists this guy will eventually change his tune on free trade. Maybe it’s because he is convinced by the rationales offered in a Heritage Backgrounder, maybe it’s because right-wing activists show how he can still win while be free trade, or maybe a wealthy conservative donor had a chat with him about his political future. Either way the conservative movement takes care of itself, its agenda, and its members. Progressive don’t. Progressives lose.
Dobson is a guru for the “family” devotees within the evangelics, but his role is no different in the Bush campaign than Limbaugh’s: He’s there to excite and motivate the base, and he does.
The people who listen to Dobson and Limbaugh and watch Fox News, are the same people. At least there is large overlap. Find someone who likes Dobson but doesn’t like Limbaugh.
Whatever his message, Kerry did a poor job of communicating it. Bush was just terrible in the campaign, and only because Kerry was hopelessly worse did Bush prevail.
alan abramovitz’s show claims that the the GOP have an effective lock on the senate and the house for the forseeable future, although he seems more optimistic about the dems regaining the presidency in 2008.
what puzzles me why the GOP has such a great advantage in the senate house, if “cultural issues” are so paramount. one would think that the senate and house candidates — from both parties — would more closely reflect the people that reside in their districts, which would effectively “level the playing field” with regard to cultural issues. why, then, aren’t there more democratic senators and representatives from the blue states? the only answer i have is that even for house and senate races, democratic candidates end up taking the views of the national party on issues such as gay rights and abortion, which puts them at odds with most of their consituents, even if they more closely “connect” with their voters on other, less crucial issues.
but this brings to mind another question: why do democratic candidates from red states persist in reflecting the the national party on cultural/wedge issues? why have we not seen the emergence of red state politicians (from either party) that would seek to more closely align themselves with red state voters by wedding cultural conservatism (opposition to gay rights, abortion) with economic liberalism (higher minimum wage, national health insurance)?
the fact that we’ve not seen “fusion politicians” such as these makes me wonder if there’s a flaw in thomas franks’ analysis in “what’s the matter with kansas?” maybe, contrary to what he says, the midwest picks the GOP as much for its economic program as its cultural program, although i’m hopelessly mystified as to why. or maybe there’s some coupling between the GOP’s cultural and economic programs that we blue staters simply can’t grasp.
Do not be distracted by continued verbal self-flgulation. The election was stolen and unless we ALL focus on the false result of this election, we are going to remin fractured and out of power. Evangelists are passionate but they are not stupid. They did not give Bush this election. Voter fraud did.
My understanding is that the Gay Marriage issue resonated with Dr. James Dobson whose radio show reaches a reputed 7,000,000 listeners. By “closing the deal” with Dobson and earning his endorsement, Bush probably picked up a fair number of his devotees who may or may not care much about gay marriage. My take is that the Republican Gay Marriage strategy was to influence those who can influence others. Then frighten the masses with wolves. It might be interesting to try to find out what portion of the population sought advice/were given advice from someone they trust and how this advice affected their vote.
So, the economy was a push, the morals issue was a wash, Kerry should have offered a clear opposing plan for Iraq, and for fighting terrorism. And he should never have switched his message from Iraq and foreign policy. Kerry kicked Bush’s butt in the first debate about foreign policy he had Bush rocked, but failed to knock him out. Joe Biden was right, hammer away on Iraq and offer a clear plan. The future doesn’t look too bright in the congress either.