National

Ed Kilgore suspects that if the GOP does real well in 2014 (i.e. winning the Senate), then they will become overconfident in 2016 and nominate someone who cannot possibly win:

In both 2008 and 2012 the GOP managed to nominate presidential candidates with relatively moderate images and demonstrated swing-voter appeal. In both cases, the nominations were in no small part fortuitous following a demolition derby of more ideologically rigid rivals. The odds of the “most electable” candidates winning a third straight GOP nomination have been diminished by the relatively low popularity of Chris Christie (damaged significantly by “Bridgegate” and already controversial for supporting a Medicaid expansion in his state), Jeb Bush (headed for a direct collision with conservative activists for his championship of Common Core education standards) and Marco Rubio (more distant from conservative sentiment than ever as the prime Senate sponsor of “amnesty” legislation).

Personally, I think no matter how well the GOP does this year, the dye is already cast for 2016. The radical tea bagger base of the Republican Party already thinks that they lost in 2008 and 2012 because the Establishment forced them to nominate two liberals. And of course they lost because their candidate was not conservative enough.

So President Obama will take some kind of executive action pursuant to both his executive authority and laws already passed by Congress to address the immigration problem later this summer. Whatever he does, it will be the basis for impeachment proceedings this fall. Greg Sargent, in one of his latest columns, talked to experts about the limits of executive power. One of those experts was attorney David Leopold, who was the “former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association and immigration reform advocate who has consulted with the White House on immigration law.” The upshot is, the President has all the authority he needs under existing law to do what he wants to do. But the GOP will impeach him for it anyway. We also have a lot of polling goodness inside...

My Delaware season tickets should be coming soon. I better check on that. Especially since Delaware seems to be on the cusp of becoming a Division I school. Over the next few years, they are scheduling more games with the ACC, including games against Virginia Tech, Wake Forest and Pittsburgh. Ed Kilgore:

The only thing funnier than those who (despite widespread mockery) continue to support the Green Lantern Theory of Presidential Leadership is the phenomenon of the same people freaking out when the president assumes “leadership” to address a big problem. Nobody is a bigger Green Lanternist than National Journal’s Ron Fournier, for whom the president, like God, is held responsible every time a sparrow falls to the ground. He’s now warning Obama not to take unilateral executive action on immigration policy. The Prospect’s Paul Walman skewers Fournier for blaming the “polarization” that might ensue on Obama alone; we abundantly know by now that savage GOP opposition to Obama will be at maximum levels no matter what he does or does not do.

President Obama: Governor Markell:

Larry Sabato looks at his Crystal Ball:

"2014 is no 2006. The [2006] electorate had turned off to George W. Bush and would never again turn on. The Iraq War and Hurricane Katrina were two principal reasons. The full Democratic wave emerged in the fall, after some GOP congressional scandals, but even at this point in 2006, we were just debating how high the Democratic tide would rise." "2014 is also no 2010. All of the energy was on the Republican side four years ago, as Obamacare bombed, the Tea Party arose, and the poor economy that helped elect Obama lingered. The building GOP wave was so impressive that the Crystal Ball was able to predict a House switch from Democratic to Republican control by Labor Day even though Democrats held about a 75-seat majority at that time."

No, 2014 will be most like 1998, where the incumbent White House party upends conventional wisdom and picks up seats in one or both Houses of Congress, mostly due to the overreach of the opposition party. And if the GOP goes full bore on impeachment, I am ready to predict that the Democrats will retake the House.