Pelosi says she’s in
Current U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will be a candidate for minority leader as Democrats start thinking about handing control of the chamber to Republicans. Pelosi’s decision means there will be heightened drama when Dems pick new leaders. A number in the caucus, including Rep. Dan Boren, D-Muskogee, have said they won’t support Pelosi as leader. Blue Dog Rep. Heath Shuler, D-N.C., said he’ll challenge Pelosi if no other moderate else steps forward. The one to watch is current Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md. Hoyer is more moderate than the speaker, and their relationship is more professional than cordial. Hoyer might see this week’s election debacle as a signal it’s his time to be top banana. Current Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C., also might jump in.
Pass the tissues, please
What’s your take on presumptive House Speaker John Boehner’s tearful victory speech Tuesday night, after it was clear Republicans had picked up enough seats to control the chamber starting in January? Boehner, derided for his perpetual tan and Washington insider-ism, broke down at several points as he described his pursuit of the American dream. Boehner’s personal story is a classic tear-jerker: huge family, working all hours in his dad’s tavern, putting himself through school — just about everything except scrawling his sums on the blade of a shovel by firelight. OK, the shovel bit was gratuitously cynical. Seriously, although Boehner’s known around Washington as a chronic sobber, regularly choking himself up during big floor speeches, Tuesday’s display looked like the real deal. The Boehner speakership has yet to unfold, but it looks like he’ll be a stark contrast to President Obama’s clinical, professorial manner.
Campaign ’10 last gasps …
A little around the horn on Election Day eve …
Seen: Last Gallup generic ballot reading shows Republicans with a 15-point lead. In 1994, the last big GOP wave year, the generic ballot lead was something like seven points. Gallup says Republicans’ generic ballot lead is large enough that regardless of turnout they’ll win the House of Representatives. The pollster says historical models predict the GOP “could gain anywhere from 60 seats on up, with gains well beyond that possible.” Sounds like last winter’s forecasts for the Washington, D.C., area: “Accumulations of two feet or more are possible …”
Also seen: The number of Americans who think things are going badly is 75 percent in a CNN poll — higher than it has ever been on the eve of a midterm election since the question was first asked in the mid-1970s. Pretty tough if it happens to be your watch.
Heard: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s closing weekend ads focusing on opponent Sharron Angle as extreme, pathological and unhinged. Not exactly “Morning in America.”
Economy doesn’t bail out Dems
Friday’s economic news — 2 percent third-quarter growth — probably isn’t the “Hail Mary” so many Democrats across the country were hoping for heading into the final weekend of Campaign ’10. The figure is slightly better than the second quarter, but well short of what’s needed to favorably impact unemployment. “It’s the expected GDP number, which is mostly bad news for the economy,” economist Josh Bivens told The New York Times. “The growth rate is just nowhere near enough to put downward pressure on unemployment.” Consumer demand was relatively weak in the third quarter, experts said, and whatever good was produced by the federal stimulus bill is fading, The Times reports, with city and state governments cutting jobs. Again, not the evidence Democrats wanted as Americans prepare to render judgment on the majority party’s stewardship of the economy the past two years.
The O’Donnell feint
Finally, it has become clear: Republican Christine O’Donnell’s candidacy for the open U.S. Senate seat from Delaware was a clever feint — a “demonstration on the flank” as they say in military-speak — drawing fire from other races Democrats might have won, making it easier for the GOP to seriously challenge for Senate control. Think about it. Ms. O’Donnell, a well-meaning, virtuous sort, has been the obsession of the left-wing punditocracy since she upset RINO Mike Castle in Delaware’s GOP primary. Of course, there’s been plenty of 15- and 20-year-old video of her saying goofy things to fuel the foment. Now there’s scurrilous, made-up junk being alleged about O’Donnell’s private life. You’d think Delaware was going to be a nail-biter! But no: O’Donnell is anywhere from 10 to 20 points down in recent polls. Meanwhile, races where Democrats should’ve been competitive — such as Missouri and North Carolina — apparently aren’t. And Dem incumbents like Russ Feingold in Wisconsin, Patty Murray in Washington — even Barbara “Call me senator!” Boxer in California — might be turned out. Was O’Donnell sent out to take one for the team? Maybe not on purpose, but the result might be the same.
Dude!
How many caught President Obama on “The Daily Show” Wednesday night with Jon Stewart? Reviews Thursday are somewhat mixed but then, how much heavy lifting are you really going to do on a comedy show, right? One exchange, perhaps, was symptomatic. Asked by Stewart about his administration’s performance on the economy, Obama claimed credit for stabilizing the financial system, the stock market and the overall economy — all at less than half the cost (in terms of U.S. gross domestic product) of fixing the S&L crisis in the 1980s, which by comparison was smaller and more localized than the recent recession. “I’d say we’ll take that,” the president said confidently.
He should’ve stopped while he was ahead. In the next breath, trying to credit his former economics adviser, Obama teed up a line no professional funny man could miss if he tried: “Larry Summers did a heckuva job …” As the studio audience started cracking up, Stewart pounced, deadpanning: “You don’t wanna use that phrase, dude!” Obama tried to yuk it off as an intended pun, but inadvertently comparing his performance on the economy to President Bush’s on Hurricane Katrina — using the same word to reference an ineffective underling — surely wasn’t the objective in what was supposed to be a friendly sit-down with Stewart.
Hello, Anita?
OK, so here’s a follow-up question to reports Virginia Thomas, wife of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, left a voice message on the office phone of Anita Hill, urging Hill to apologize for accusing the justice of sexual harassment during his 1991 Senate confirmation hearing: Did Mrs. Thomas staff that one by Justice Thomas?
The story almost certainly will generate a buzz for at least a few days, mostly because it’s just so bizarre — the kind of publicity the quite-private justice could do without. He’s been on the court nearly 20 years and probably wishes the Anita Hill controversy had stayed in the rear-view mirror. So, what possessed his wife to call Hill, now a professor at Brandeis University in Boston, and assert that Hill should “consider an apology” and a “full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband”? Mrs. Thomas’ message (which she confirms leaving) said Hill should prayerfully consider apologizing and concluded with a sunny, “OK, have a nice day.”
Hill, born in Oklahoma and a former University of Oklahoma law professor, thought the message was a prank at first and then turned the recording over to campus police. She said she has nothing to apologize for and said that while Mrs. Thomas claims she meant no offense, she considers the call offensive and accusatory. Lots of people probably figured they’d heard the last of the Hill-Thomas controversy. Obviously not.
Fire the communications staff!
You see it all the time in politics: Whenever things aren’t going well for a president or a party, they blame poor communications. “Voters didn’t understand our message,” is the familiar refrain. President Obama is playing that tune right now. In a New York Times Magazine piece due out Sunday, Obama reportedly says White House inattention to message and the public’s perceptions is the reason his administration has struggled in recent months. No surprise. Obama has to point to the message, PR and the voters themselves. Otherwise, the president would have to blame his policies. And politicians don’t do that.
But guess what: It is the policy. A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released this week showed 55 percent of those surveyed don’t agree with Obama on the issues, compared to 42 percent who agree. Perhaps to underscore the point, the same poll showed 59 percent say Obama has the personality and leadership skills a president needs. People like Obama; it’s his policies they can’t stomach. That’s not a problem with message or with the communications staff. It’s a policy problem.
What he meant was …
From the “My Collar Feels a Couple of Sizes Too Small Dept.”: Illinois Democratic Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias, on Sunday’s “Meet The Press,” trying to explain loans from his family’s bank to underworld figures. Three times NBC’s David Gregory asked Giannoulias whether he knew crime figures were getting loans from his bank, and three times Giannoulias offered dissembling answers. Twice the candidate said he and other bank officials didn’t know the extent of the loan recipients’ “activities.” Gulp! That sounds like Giannoulias knew these folks were crooks but didn’t know how crooked, and thus extended them loans. Stay tuned.
Not a witch
Republican Christine O’Donnell has her work cut out in her run for Delaware’s open U.S. Senate seat. Democrats make up about 47 percent of the state’s registered voters, Republicans just 29 percent. Barack Obama captured about 62 percent of Delaware’s votes in 2008. So what is the message in O’Donnell’s first major ad buy of the campaign? That she’s not a witch.
Now, there’s a reason for that. Since winning her party’s nomination last month, O’Donnell has been bedeviled by video of herself from years ago, including a 1999 spot where she’s talking with cable host Bill Maher about “dabbling” in witchcraft when she was a high schooler. So, in a spot produced by Fred Davis, whose uncle is U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe, O’Donnell tries to put the witch thing behind her. “I’m not a witch,” O’Donnell says, looking straight into the camera. She says she’s “nothing you’ve heard,” alluding to opposition spin that she’s extreme, nutty or extremely nutty. “I’m you.” The 30-second ad tries to focus voters on what she would do as a senator — fight waste, runaway spending and conventional politics. The ad’s best line will resonate with voters sick of Washington — in other words, the likeliest of voters this fall: “I’ll go to Washington and do what you’d do.” Hard to say if it will it be enough to get O’Donnell back into the race with Democrat Chris Coons. But it is effective.
