This morning the media, across the board, have Obama losing to Romney.
Last night either the "heat" or the "thunder" won. Locally, it was thunder (and welcome rain). When the subject of heat and thunder came up the other day, I finally asked the friendly manager of the pit-stop at the end of town who the "heat" and "thunder" are. She looked puzzled. I asked again, "What game?" "Basketball," she said, her eyes narrowing as though she were waiting for the punchline. "I don't have TV," I explained. No response.
Basketball? In summer? Life's gotten weird out there in Teeveelandia.
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This is the second time in a week or so that Juan Williams makes sense.
The Democrats have a nuclear option in this political game if the high court throws out the healthcare law as unconstitutional.
That blowup-the-system button, not pushed since FDR’s attempt to stack the court with Democrats during the New Deal, is for Obama to use the bully pulpit of the White House, and the national stage of a presidential campaign, to launch a bitter attack on the current court as a corrupt tool of the Republican right wing. ...The Hill
Exciting! More heat and thunder!
It is a move that could energize Democrats and independents even as Republicans celebrate a major legal victory.
Some Democrats, sensing a political windfall, can’t wait to start the offensive. ...The Hill
And the payoff.
Obama told reporters that if the court overturns “a duly constituted and passed law,” the justices will be guilty of “judicial activism.” With words that sounded like a threat he added: “I’m pretty confident that this court will recognize that and not take that step.”
The hardball political fact is that attacking the court will help the president’s campaign and it will damage the court for years to come.
A CBS News/New York Times poll released last week shows most Americans already believe the ruling on healthcare reform will be based on justices’ personal and political views. According to the survey, 55 percent of Americans believe the justices’ political ties will play a role in the healthcare decision.
An earlier CBS/New York Times poll from this month found an overwhelming majority of Americans, 76 percent, said the personal and political views of the Supreme Court justices influence their decisions in all cases — not just healthcare. The same poll found that 60 percent of Americans now believe that lifetime appointments for Supreme Court justices are a “bad thing.” ...The Hill
A righteously enraged president would be a nice contrast to the sea of crud in which our bickering Republicans want us to swim with them.
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An enraged president might even change the voting habits of an important voting group, one that switched to Republicans when they felt deserted by Democrats.
... Just as the white working class is now a smaller share of the electorate, Republican margins in this cohort have been getting larger, compensating for the decline in group size. In the five congressional elections of the 1990s, the Republican Party won an average of 52.3 percent of the House vote; in the six elections from 2000 to 2010, Republicans won 58.7 percent.
The defection of these voters was crucial to the ability of the Republican Party to enact legislation – especially tax laws – that favor the affluent; working class support gave the Republican Party protection from charges that it advocated only for the rich and for the material interests of corporate America.
At the same time, the loss of white non-college voters has diminished pressure within the Democratic Party to address the dislocations resulting from globalization and automation, especially the loss of low-to-medium-skill jobs that paid high wages to workers without college degrees.
The result is that the Democratic Party has failed to develop a coherent or consistent set of policies to address what is now the dominant issue of the day, the violent restructuring of the American economy, which can be seen from many angles: in the continuing after effects of the financial collapse of 2008; in the rise of inequality; in the decline of social and economic mobility; and in the devastating $49,100 drop in average family wealth, from $126,400 in 2007 to $77,300 in 2010, a 39 percent drop of net assets in just three years. ... Thomas Edsall, NYT
A Democratic party that effectively challenges the elitist, corporatist (and now detested) Supreme Court -- and who manages to put in place a coherent, comprehensive and fair health care system -- would restore well more than 39% of faith in our ability to govern ourselves. Which, of course, is just what worries Republicans.
