A look at public opinion on same-sex marriage and what drives party affiliation suggests that Cruz, Walker and the other candidates on the right may be risking the party’s appeal in the general election. The Republican Party’s opposition to same-sex marriage is one of the top positions that may have kept voters from identifying with and potentially voting for the GOP.
They cannot help themselves, and politically, they need to do it to win over the bigoted Republican base.
The conventional wisdom is starting to coalesce around my thought that President Obama is the best President of my lifetime. Benjy Sarlin published a piece on the Obama legacy last weekend:
“At the end of the day, we’re part of a long-running story,” Obama told the New Yorker’s David Remnick in one interview. “We just try to get our paragraph right.”
Now consider what the paragraph version of Obama’s presidency looks like as of now, with the key terms for next week’s social studies midterm highlighted in bold.
“The first black president, President Obama took office amid the Great Recession, stabilized the economy with a stimulus and auto bailout, passed universal health care and Wall Street reform over fierce opposition, and implemented a suite of regulations aimed at combatting climate change. The first president to embrace marriage equality, he presided over the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges decision legalizing it nationwide.”
Steve Benen thinks that’s a “pretty impressive paragraph that suggets Obama will be remembered as a great and important president.”
Vox’s Dylan Matthews agreed last week that “there’s no longer any doubt: Barack Obama is one of the most consequential presidents in American history – and he will be a particularly towering figure in the history of American progressivism.”
When you consider the [ACA] in the context of 100 years of progressive activism, and in the grand scheme of American history, it starts to look less like a moderate reform and more like an epochal achievement, on the order of FDR’s passage of Social Security, or LBJ’s Great Society programs. It is, to quote Harvard political scientist Theda Skocpol, “a century-defining accomplishment in the last industrial democracy to resist using national government to ensure access to health coverage for most citizens.” FDR failed, Truman failed, Nixon failed, Carter failed, Clinton failed – and Obama succeeded. He filled in the one big remaining gap in the American welfare state when all his forerunners couldn’t.
And of course, the Affordable Care Act was hardly Obama’s only accomplishment. He passed a stimulus bill that included major reforms to the nation’s education system, big spending on clean energy, and significant expansions of anti-poverty programs. He shepherded through the Dodd-Frank Act, the first significant crackdown on Wall Street’s power in a generation, which has been far more successful than commonly acknowledged.
Andrew Sullivan was right. Obama is our Reagan. We will be looking back to Obama over the next 40 years.
A succinct summary of the importance of President Obama’s release of a new rule expanding eligibility for overtime pay — and a good message point for Democrats — from E. J. Dionne, Jr.’s syndicated column: “To much bellyaching from Republicans and business groups, Obama is putting forward new rules that would make up to 5 million more American workers eligible for overtime pay. He’s doing this by ending a scam through which employers designate even relatively low-paid workers as managers to get around the law, which requires an overtime premium after 40 hours per week…Under the current rules, as Obama wrote this week in The Huffington Post, workers earning as little as $23,660 a year can be robbed of overtime by being given supervisory or managerial designations. The new regulation would raise the threshold to a more plausible $50,440 a year.”
Jeffrey M. Jones reports on new Gallup poll findings bearing good news for Democrats: “In the second quarter of 2015, Democrats regained an advantage over Republicans in terms of Americans’ party affiliation. A total of 46% of Americans identified as Democrats (30%) or said they are independents who lean toward the Democratic Party (16%), while 41% identified as Republicans (25%) or leaned Republican (16%). The two parties were generally even during the previous three quarters, including the fourth quarter of 2014, when the midterm elections took place.”
National Journal’s Josh Kraushaar sees Dems in good position to regain a Senate majority in 2016: “For this cycle, the map is difficult for Republicans, who are defending many more seats than their Democratic counterparts. Of the nine most-competitive Senate seats, seven are held by Republicans–and six feature sitting Republican senators. Eight of the races are being held in states that President Obama carried twice.” Kraushaar also argues that “Republican Senate candidates face the harsh reality that their party’s presidential nominees have a bigger impact on their reelection than their own campaigns.”
“He’s the nicest person I think I’ve ever met in politics. He is as good a man as God has ever created.” — Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), in an interview with the Huffington Post, on Vice President Joe Biden.