Jon Chait thinks Tuesday’s NY-26 special election is a sign that Republicans are back to being blamed for the slowly recovering economy.
Now there are outdoor smoking bans. That’s too much in my opinion. In fact, since many jurisdictions have taxes on cigarrettes, and largely depend on that revenue in balancing their budgets, the government needs people to smoke. So outdoor bans are self defeating. It might force us to raise taxes on rich people, and we all know how horrible that prospect is.
House Republicans had ample warnings about the political pitfalls of the Ryan plan. And they committed suicide anyway just so Boehner could look tough for the teabaggers. Governor Rendell is right. Republicans are idiots and are unfit for office.
What the White House thinks about the horrid GOP presidential field.
The primary race, most of Obama’s team believes, is Mitt Romney’s to lose. And here’s the case they’d make for him: He was an effective governor of a very blue state with notable achievements (not just health care) to his name, a very smart policy-oriented brain, and an underappreciated asset: he saved the 2002 Olympics—or so the story goes. (Never underestimate the power of Americana during an election year.)
Romney’s problem is similar to Obama’s: he doesn’t play well with downscale voters. He comes off as the manager who fired them, or who cut their wages—the “Richie Rich” know-it-all. Obama’s demerits with these voters are different, but a general election race between the two would leave a large number of those voters up for grabs.