Tuesday Open Thread [12.23.14]

First, we have a new ABC News/Washington Post poll that finds Hillary Clinton is still leading the Democratic primary by wide margins. Clinton leads with 61%, followed by Joe Biden at 14% and Elizabeth Warren at 13%.

“Still, Clinton’s support has slipped from 69 percent in June, down by 8 points, while support for Warren is up by 6 points – not remotely enough to make it look competitive at this stage, but movement nonetheless. Biden has held essentially steady.”

Every slip of Clinton’s polling support is going to be treated as CLINTON SUPPORT PLUMMETS!!!!! CRISIS!!!! Let’s take a ride in my time machine to December 2006, which is exactly the comparable time period in the Democratic Primary of 2008 and that of 2016. Here are how the polls had Clinton and Obama and everyone else’s support at:

NBC News/Wall Street Journal–Hillary Clinton 37%, Barack Obama 18%, John Edwards 14%, John Kerry 11%, Joe Biden 4%, Evan Bayh 3%, Bill Richardson 2%, Tom Vilsack 0%
ABC News/Washington Post–Hillary Clinton 39%, Barack Obama 17%, John Edwards 12%, Al Gore 10%, John Kerry 7%, Joe Biden 2%, Bill Richardson 2%, Evan Bayh 1%, Wesley Clark 1%, Tom Vilsack 1%, Christopher Dodd 0%
USA Today/Gallup–Hillary Clinton 33%, Barack Obama 20%, Al Gore 12%, John Edwards 8%, John Kerry 6%, Joe Biden 3%, Wesley Clark 2%, Bill Richardson 2%, Evan Bayh 1%, Christopher Dodd 1%, Tom Vilsack 1%, Dennis Kucinich 0%
CNN/Opinion Research–Hillary Clinton 37%, Barack Obama 15%, Al Gore 14%, John Edwards 9%, John Kerry 7%, Bill Richardson 2%, Joe Biden 2%, Wesley Clark 2%, Tom Vilsack 1%, Evan Bayh 1%, Unsure 10%
Fox News–Hillary Clinton 33%, Barack Obama 12%, Al Gore 11%, John Edwards 8%, John Kerry 6%, Evan Bayh 2%, Joe Biden 2%, Tom Vilsack 2%, Wesley Clark 1%, Bill Richardson 1%

We like to think that back in 2006 and the run up to the 2008 primaries that Hillary was overwhelmingly favored and had this aura of inevitability about her, and certainly the media did think that. The truth is far from that though. Clinton was stuck in the 30’s and 20’s. Obama and Edwards were close behind. The primary was a close race from start to end. Sure, Clinton was the frontrunner with double digit leads, but that lead was no where near the lead she has now. And back then, Obama was actually running. Elizabeth Warren, the only candidate that might actually beat Clinton in a true race, is not running.

If conservatives really want to play the blame game over the murder of New York police officers, Kevin Drum says be careful what they wish for, for it is two way street:

I assume this means we can blame Bill O’Reilly for his 28 episodes of invective against “Tiller the Baby Killer” that eventually ended in the murder of Wichita abortion provider George Tiller by anti-abortion activist Scott Roeder. We can blame conservative talk radio for fueling the anti-government hysteria that led Timothy McVeigh to bomb a federal building in Oklahoma City. We can blame the relentless xenophobia of Fox News for the bombing of an Islamic Center in Joplin or the massacre of Sikh worshippers by a white supremacist in Wisconsin. We can blame the NRA for the mass shootings in Newtown and Aurora. We can blame Republicans for stoking the anti-IRS paranoia that prompted Andrew Joseph Stack to crash a private plane into an IRS building in Austin, killing two people. We can blame the Christian Right for the anti-gay paranoia that led the Westboro Baptist Church to picket the funeral of Matthew Snyder, a US Marine killed in Iraq, with signs that carried their signature “God Hates Fags” slogan. We can blame Sean Hannity for his repeated support of Cliven Bundy’s “range war” against the BLM, which eventually motivated Jerad and Amanda Miller to kill five people in Las Vegas after participating in the Bundy standoff and declaring, “If they’re going to come bring violence to us, well, if that’s the language they want to speak, we’ll learn it.” And, of course, we can blame Rudy Giuliani and the entire conservative movement for their virtually unanimous indifference to the state-sanctioned police killings of black suspects over minor offenses in Ferguson and Staten Island, which apparently motivated the murder of the New York police officers on Saturday. […]

David Waldman isn’t expecting Obama to win the approval of many Republicans in his last two years:

[P]artisan identification has sorted and sharpened, and people on both sides are even less willing to give the other side’s guy credit for anything. Bush’s approval among Democrats was in the single digits for most of the last three years of his presidency, and Obama’s approval among Republicans has hovered around 10 percent (sometimes even lower) since 2010.

What that means is that if Obama has a revival in approval, it’ll look not like the 65 percent Clinton had at the end of his term or Reagan had just before Iran-Contra, but more like 50 or 55 percent. That represents most everyone from his party, and a little over half of independents. There are actually very few true independents; most lean to one party or another. Obama won’t get approval from the Republican-leaning ones, but he can get the Democratic-leaning ones, and if things are going well, most of the true independents (who represent maybe 10 percent of the population). Add that all up and it’ll come out to something like that 55 percent number.

Republicans hated Clinton as much as they do Obama. I wonder why Clinton was able to get such high ratings then. There was hyper partisanship back in the 90’s too. Remember impeachment?

Nancy LaTourneau pushes back on the notion that Obama has rebounded and seized the narrative with several bold moves recently. She argues that each action has been in the works for over a year….

Every one of the things these pundits name as an example of the President’s newfound persona – executive actions on immigration, new EPA rules, climate change agreement with China, Russian sanctions, normalization of our relationship with Cuba – has been in the works for at least the last 1-2 years (during the time he was supposedly a listless, passive spectator). Back in January of this year, he announced his intention to implement the “pen and phone strategy” we’re all witnessing unfold.

President Barack Obama offered a brief preview Tuesday of his State of the Union address, telling his Cabinet that he won’t wait for Congress to act on key agenda items in 2014.

“I’ve got a pen, and I’ve got a phone,” he said at his first Cabinet meeting of the year. Outlining the strategy, Obama said he plans to use his pen to sign executive actions and his phone to convene outside groups in support of his agenda if Congress proves unable or unwilling to act on his priorities.

It’s true that President Obama might have a new lightness in his step. But that could just as well be because he’s finally off for a much-needed vacation in Hawaii with his family. Anyone who has really watched this President operate knows that he plays the long game.