Friday Open Thread [5.15.15]

Hillary Clinton told a group of her top fundraisers “that if she is elected president, her nominees to the Supreme Court will have to share her belief that the court’s 2010 Citizens United decision must be overturned,” the Washington Post reports.

“Clinton’s emphatic opposition to the ruling, which allowed corporations and unions to spend unlimited sums on independent political activity, garnered the strongest applause of the afternoon from the more than 200 party financiers gathered in Brooklyn for a closed-door briefing from the Democratic candidate and her senior aides, according to some of those present.”

Keep it coming, Hillary. I love it.

Marc Ambinder: “Republican presidential candidates have a major media problem on their hands, and it has nothing to do with partisan bias. Between the day they announce their candidacy and the night their debates begin, they will draw little to no media attention unless they blunder.”

“Blunders — be they bursts of anger at interviewers or interpretative gaffes about the Iraq War — will be the central organizing principle of media coverage. There will of course be plenty of excellent journalism committed along the way, but it will be read by people whose minds are already made up, and it shall generally be forgotten.”

“House Republicans’ objections to a nonbinding immigration measure upended debate over the annual defense policy bill Thursday, in the latest example of intractable GOP divisions over the party’s thorniest issue,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“Conservative Republicans revolted over a measure from Rep. Ruben Gallego (D., Ariz.) encouraging the Pentagon to review whether to allow some immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children to enlist in the military… The debate over a ‘sense of the House’ provision that even Mr. Gallego said had ‘no teeth’ underscored the level of GOP opposition to even narrow immigration measures.”

Keep it up, Republicans. Your racism is showing and Latinos are noticing.

Charlie Cook: “The field for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination is as flat as any in modern memory—pretty remarkable for a party that usually has a fight but almost invariably ends up nominating whoever’s turn it is…”

“The flatness of this field combined with a system awash in money — with just a single billionaire able to keep a candidate in the race—should make for an exceedingly volatile Republican campaign, one that is absolutely impossible to predict.”

Amy Walter on why Hillary needs Obama: “Every presidential election is a response to the current president, even when the current president isn’t seeking re-election. If people don’t like the guy in the White House, it’s almost impossible for a member of his party to be elected to succeed him. Even when voters are happy with their incumbent president, it’s not always a guarantee of success for the party’s nominee. Voters are often looking for a change in style as much as substance (see: Bush v. Gore, 2000). This is why we should spend as much time checking in on President Obama’s job approval ratings as we do the polling data of the potential presidential candidates.”

“The magic number for Obama – and ultimately Hillary’s chances – is somewhere around 47 percent. If Obama’s job approval rating is above that, a Democrat has a decent to a good chance of winning in 2016. Below that number, especially if Obama is in the 45 percent range or below, it will be hard for a Democrat to gain entry to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”

President Obama’s job approval is currently at 48%.