Ross Douthat on the most rerunny of rerunners.
The idea of yet a third Mitt Romney campaign for the presidency, once the idle dream of a few Romney bundlers and now apparently something embraced by the Man From Bain Capital himself, has been greeted by most Republicans with a mixture of horror, exhaustion and embarrassment. The polite ones sound like a girl before the senior prom who can’t believe that the stumblebum date who ruined her last school dance is in line first to ask her again: No, please, not this time. The rest sound like the characters in the third act of a horror movie, confronting a shambling revenant that just keeps coming: How do we kill this thing?
The New York Times reports that President Obama will call on Congress “to raise taxes and fees on the wealthiest taxpayers and the largest financial firms to finance an array of tax cuts for the middle class, pressing to reshape the tax code to help working families.”
“The proposal faces long odds in the Republican-controlled Congress, led by lawmakers who have long opposed raising taxes and who argue that doing so would hamper economic growth at a time the country cannot afford it. And it was quickly dismissed by leading Republicans as a nonstarter. But the decision to present the plan during Tuesday’s speech marks the start of a debate over taxes and the economy that will shape both Mr. Obama’s legacy and the 2016 presidential campaign.”
A new Democracy Corps poll shows that Hillary Clinton leads the third coming of Mittens 49% to 43%, while the former Secretary of State led Jeb Bush 52% to 40%. That shoud encourage Mittens and his donor base. The voters surveyed for this poll were very opposed to another Bush presidential candidacy as the former Florida governor had a 2 to 1 negative to positive approval rating.
Riding both an improving political context for Democrats and a more favorable demography in a presidential year election, Hillary Clinton opens with a six point lead over Mitt Romney and double that margin over Jeb Bush. Both parties are unusually consolidated at this very early point in the election cycle with 87 to 95 percent support for their nominees. But Clinton holds an early edge among Independent voters (44 – 39 percent combining Bush and Romney trial heats). More broadly, she builds her margin on strong support among ascendant voters including youth (67 – 25 percent in the combined measure), people of color (77 – 16 percent) and unmarried women (62 – 33 percent). There is a significant and predictable gender gap here (16 points). As has consistently been the case in recent presidential elections, the marriage gap among women is bigger (22 points).
The coalition that elected Obama in 2008 and 2012 remains in place, despite the setback in 2014. Along with Clinton’s impressive support among white college educated women (56 percent Clinton, 39 percent Republican candidate), this coalition is big enough to produce a national win in 2016. The key tactical issue now is whether Clinton can protect and grow this support, and if she can produce a large enough win to recover Democratic losses from the last cycle.
Some idiot potential assassin tried to kill Vice President Biden and his family last night by firing bullets towards the Vice President’s home on Barley Mill Road in Greenville. The Vice President and Dr. Jill Biden were in Washington, D.C. at the time.