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The Democratic Strategist

Political Strategy for a Permanent Democratic Majority

Political Strategy Notes

For a transcript of NPR’s new interview with TDS founding editor Ruy Teixeira, click here.
Here’s another transcript worth reading — of Steve Inskeep’s NPR interview with President Obama, nicely summarized up by Peter Sullivan at The Hill. “At the end of 2014, Obama said he could “look back and say we are as well-positioned today as we have been in quite some time economically, that American leadership is more needed around the world than ever before — and that is liberating in the sense that a lot of the work that we’ve done is now beginning to bear fruit…Obama finished the year with a flurry of executive actions, including moves to give 4.5 million illegal immigrants legal status and open relations with Cuba. Along with a climate change agreement with China and a deal with congressional Republicans that will keep the government funded through September, the jolt of work pushed back at any sense he’s entering the lame-duck, powerless portion of his presidency…”I think one of the things I’ve learned over six years, and it doesn’t always suit the news cycle, is having some strategic patience.”
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No one should be surprised that the GOP is relying on a wave of right wing judicial activism to advance their agenda, as Michael D. Shear reports at The New York Times — all the more reason for Democrats to never again allow an easy ride for Republican court nominees.
At Bloomberg News, Billy House’s “Political wake or wake-up? House Dems mull strategy” explores how Democratic members of congress will cope with Boehner’s enhanced majority. House notes, “”We’ve got to get ready for an alley fight” with House Republicans, said Rep. Raul Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat and progressive caucus co-chairman with Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota…The question is what agenda House Democrats will push heading toward the 2016 presidential election year after losing 13 seats in the Nov. 4 election. The 247-188 House majority won by Republicans will be their largest since the Congress elected in 1928. Democrats lost the majority to Republicans in 2010.”
The Huck revs his engine for the GOP’s 2016 demolition derby. If he greases his way through to win his party’s nod, Dems will put his sound-bite powers to the test when they make him explain his serial encitement of voter suppression and sabotage.
A GOP lion passes, and evokes memories of a time when Republicans opposed voter suppression and actually negotiated in good faith for the benefit of the country.
Speaking of the the current Republican party’s inability to negotiate in good faith, departing Sen. Saxby Chambliss now sheds crocodile tears for the decline of bipartisanship, even though he supported his party’s ‘wall of obstruction’ strategy with very few exceptions.
Michael Tomasky says Dems must assertively defend government, and plugs a new website dedicated to doing just that. “I believe that it is possible to make government interesting and appealing, says Tomasky, “and to surprise people with all that government does for them every day that they take for granted and just assume was the handiwork of the “more efficient” private sector…When the Republicans come after the EPA, Democrats need to be ready to talk about all that the EPA has accomplished over the years–the rivers and lakes made swimmable and fishable, the polluting power plants made cleaner, and all the rest. I never hear a Democrat talk about these goods, which are, in the literal sense, indivisible–for us all.”

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