Delaware Dem

Friday Open Thread [5.15.15]

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%.

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Thursday Open Thread [5.14.15]

Former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D) slammed House Republicans who voted to cut funding for Amtrak a few hours after a deadly train accident in Philadelphia, TPM reports. Said Rendell: “Here, less than 12 hours after seven people died, these SOBs, and that’s all I can call them, these SOBs didn’t even have the decency to table the vote.”

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Wednesday Open Thread [5.13.15]

GOP Presidential hopefuls were asked who they thought where the greatest living President was. They all answered Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan died in June of 2004, eleven years ago. He is no longer living. Or so we thought. We have been joking about it for years, but maybe they really did reanimate the dead corpse of Ronald Reagan.

The reality is they all have to say Reagan because the living Presidents currently stand at Carter, Bush, Clinton, Bush and Obama. They can’t say Carter, Clinton and Obama. And if they say either Bush, it will look like a plug of Jebbie Bush, or self serving if you are Jebbie Bush.

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It will be a close vote, but at least it is getting one…

During the last session of the General Assembly, the Senate passed the repeal of the Death Penalty 11-10, only to have House Judiciary Committee Chair Rebecca Walker bottle up the legislation in her committee, refusing to even consider the legislation table the legislation in committee. This year, repeal again passed the Senate in a close bipartisan vote, 11-9. But this time, at least the bill will get a public hearing may get a vote a vote.

[DD: It seems my memory is faulty. Drew Volturo contacted me and said that the Repeal Bill did get a public hearing last session but it was tabled in committee due to lack of votes to release it.]

The bill’s House sponsor, Rep. Sean Lynn (D-Dover), is not optimistic about the bill’s chances in committee, but he has a Plan B ready.

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Tuesday Open Thread [5.12.15]

Jonathan Cohn on what this means for the GOP if the Court does strike down the subsidies:

“Republicans keep saying they’ll be ready to act if the Supreme Court upholds the big legal challenge to Obamacare, thereby wiping out financial assistance for millions of people in two-thirds of the states. With the clock ticking down to a ruling, it’s gotten awfully hard to take the GOP’s vows seriously.”

And that is because the choice on health care is more basic than everyone is willing to admit. President Obama passed the market-based conservative Healthcare plan. Obamacare is actually Republicancare. But because a black socialist muslim was proposing it, it had to be opposed until death. And most in the Republican party are fine with that because most really do believe that having health insurance and thus the resultant health care is a privilege for those who can afford it (i.e. the rich), and not a right.

So really the reason there is not Republican alternative is because 1) Obamacare is the Republican alternative and 2) they don’t care if millions can’t now afford health insurance, because if you cannot afford it it means you were not supposed to have it.

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The Vote Tracker for the Week of May 5-7, 2015

Last week, we had the Governor sign HB 56 (Wilmington Charter School Moratorium) into law. We saw the House unanimously pass Senator Townsend’s SB 47, the Public Defender Reform bill. We saw the Senate pass Rep. Jaques’ HB 58 (allowing NCCo Vocational & Technical School District to levy taxes), 17-2. Rep. Heffernan’s E-Cig Indoor Ban bill passed the House, as did Kowalko’s Opt Out Bill and Bryon Short’s Employee Social Media Privacy Bill. Come inside to see how everyone voted.

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Monday Open Thread [5.11.15]

First Read: “There are at least four reasons why the GOP candidates are focused so heavily on foreign affairs — more so than at this time in the 2012 presidential cycle. One, the economy has improved (223,000 jobs were created last month, and Obama’s economic handling is up to 49% in the latest NBC/WSJ poll), while the deficit has decreased. Two, there’s the rise of ISIS. Three, there’s the Iran deal that the Obama administration is racing to finalize by next month. And four, there’s the GOP recognition that focusing on foreign policy is maybe the best way to go after Hillary Clinton’s record as secretary of state.”

The first is the most important reason. If this election is about the economy, it will be a Clinton landslide.

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