First thoughts: The Green Mile
Posted: Tuesday, May 19, 2009 9:19 AM by Mark Murray
Filed Under:
First Thoughts
From Chuck Todd and Mark Murray
*** The Green Mile: In covering this young Obama administration, the news never seems to stop, does it? A day after President Obama discussed Iran and Middle East peace with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, he today will unveil new regulations on auto emissions and fuel-efficiency standards at 12:15 pm ET. Per NBC’s Anne Thompson, Obama will announce that car fleets must average 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016; the current fleet average is 25 miles per gallon. Breaking that down, Thompson adds, that means a standard of 39 miles per gallon for cars, and 30 miles per gallon for trucks. Standing at Obama’s side today will be Michigan Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm (will the two also talk SCOTUS today?), California Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, and industry and union leaders. As the Washington Post writes, the proposed regulations represent “a compromise among the White House; the state of California; and the auto industry, which has long sought national mileage standards and has waged an expensive legal battle against the California waiver. The industry will get its national standard, but at the price of one that approximates California's targets. Industry officials said they would drop all related lawsuits.”
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Video: The Obama administration pushed up the deadline for automakers to produce higher gas mileage and lower emissions by 2016, as California agreed to delay its plan to impose a separate state environmental standard for cars. NBC Chief Environmental Affairs correspondent Anne Thompson reports.***
California Dreamin’? By inviting Schwarzenegger to the White House today and giving him a victory on fuel standards, it appears that Obama did a big favor for Arnold. Why? Because
in California today, voters today are expected to defeat Schwarzenegger-backed ballot measures written after the state's budget deal in February. Polls show that five measures -- 1) which would establish a rainy day fund and cap state spending; 2) which would fund schools; 3) which would allow the state to borrow from its lottery funds; 4) which would transfer child-development money to the state’s general fund; and 5) which would transfer mental-health money to the state’s general fund -- are likely to lose. (The one measure that’s expected to pass would freeze pay for state lawmakers if the state is running a deficit.) If that happens, Schwarzenegger’s allies say the state’s budget shortfall will be much larger. Ironically, the budget situation and the governor's approval rating (at about 33% or 34%, per recent polls) aren't much different than they were when Gray Davis was governor. Which raises this question: Is California ungovernable? It’s worth asking when you consider the state’s property-tax laws, its overloaded ballot-initiative process, its term limits for state lawmakers, and the fact that it takes a supermajority vote to pass budgets or tax increases. Meg Whitman, Steve Poizner, Jerry Brown, Gavin Newsom -- you really want to be governor?
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Hillary vs. Barack isn’t over: It’s exactly three weeks until Virginia’s Democratic gubernatorial primary, and the candidates are fighting over … Hillary Clinton vs. Barack Obama. That’s right, Brian Moran began running a
radio ad in African-American areas reminding these voters that McAuliffe campaigned for Hillary over Obama during the primaries. The McAuliffe camp responded with a
Web video detailing the Macker’s support for Obama after the primary season was over, as well as with a statement from Tom Daschle, who said that McAuliffe “worked tirelessly to unify our party around Barack Obama and get him elected president.” All of this is a reminder of just how much McAuliffe is desperately trying to straddle the fence between Obama and Clinton supporters (and remember that many in Virginia voted for Obama in that Feb. 12 primary. The other candidate -- Creigh Deeds, who hails from rural Virginia -- is probably scoring best with actual Clinton voters.
*** Democrat vs. Democrat: Speaking of Democrats going after their own… Labor unions AFSCME, NEA, and UFCW are airing a radio ad (at a buy of $60,000) in Oregon against Sen. Ron Wyden’s (D) effort to tax health-care benefits as a way to pay for health-care reform. “Finally, Congress is working to fix health care,” the narrator says in the ad. “They should start by making insurance affordable for families and businesses… The last thing we need is to pay more. But Sen. Ron Wyden would TAX the health care benefits we get at work, as if they were INCOME. Taxing health benefits? That doesn’t make sense. Tell Sen. Wyden that Oregon families want quality, affordable health care -- not taxes on their health care benefits.” This radio ad comes as the lead Washington Post editorial criticizes Obama for not embracing taxing health-care benefits as a way to pay for reform. Indeed, Obama seems caught between a rock and a hard place: Does he stick to his campaign promise (against taxing benefits) and risk turning away a huge revenue stream to pay for health care?
*** Turning the page? After a respectable performance on “Meet the Press,” RNC Chairman Michael Steele is once again the spotlight, as he delivers remarks at 1:00 pm ET to the party’s state chairmen meeting taking place today and tomorrow in the DC area. According to excerpts of his remarks, Steele will say that the GOP isn’t going to dwell anymore on past mistakes. “The era of apologizing for Republican mistakes of the past is now officially over. It is done… We have turned the page; we have turned the corner… From this point forward, we will focus all of our energies on winning the future.” He also will announce that Obama’s honeymoon is over. “Candidate Obama was very moderate in his views, but President Obama could not possibly be further to the far left… We are going to take this president on with class; we are going to take this president on with dignity. This will be a very sharp and marked contrast to the shabby and classless way that the Democrats and the far left spoke of the last president.”
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Video: Meet the Press’ David Gregory asks RNC Chairman Michael Steele how the GOP intends to overcome the possibility that Democrats are consolidating power.***
Name-calling is always productive! Speaking of class and dignity, the RNC tomorrow will consider a resolution tomorrow to call the Democratic Party the “Democrat Socialist Party.” Steele said on “Meet” that while he opposes the label, he can’t unilaterally stop party members from voting on that resolution. “You have legitimate activists in both parties who have very strong passions and feelings,” he
told NBC’s David Gregory. “And that's great, and we have a process in which that can be expressed.”
*** Meet Kim Wardlaw: In our latest profile, we take a look at Kim McLane Wardlaw, who currently serves on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco; Bill Clinton appointed her to that position in 1998… If selected and confirmed, would become the Supreme Court’s first Latino justice; her mother was a child of Mexican immigrants… Was a player in politics before her appointment to the bench: helped elect Richard Riordan as L.A. mayor; raised money for Dianne Feinstein’s Senate campaign in 1992; was a delegate to the ’92 presidential convention; and served on the Clinton administration’s Justice Department transition team… Her husband maxed out in contributions to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, but wrote a $2,300 check to Obama in August ’08… Has been described as having “empathy.” “She displays a deeply personal sensitivity to the problems of women and people of color,” Emma Coleman Jordan, who headed up Clinton’s transition team at Justice, told the Los Angeles Times… Despite her ties to Democratic politics, a legal publication described her rulings on the Ninth Circuit as “unpredictable.”
*** More Wardlaw bio: Before her job on the 9th Circuit, served as a federal district judge (nominated to that position by Clinton in 1995)… Worked in private practice at the firm O’Melveny & Myers from 1980-1995… Clerked for California federal judge William P. Gray… Received both her law (1979) and undergraduate degrees (1976) from UCLA… During Clinton’s presidency, she and her husband slept overnight in the White House’s Lincoln Bedroom. “Bill slept,” she told the Los Angeles Times. “I was so struck by the sense of history, I stayed awake all night.”… Her husband ran Richard Riordan’s mayoral campaign in 1993… Conducted a 2004 interview with a blog called “Underneath Their Robes.” The interview said Wardlaw was named “the #2 Superhottie of the Federal Judiciary.” Also in the interview, Wardlaw said “yes” when asked if she was a “judicial diva.”
Countdown to NJ GOP primary: 14 days
Countdown to VA Dem primary: 21 days
Countdown to Election Day 2009: 168 days
Countdown to Election Day 2010: 532 days
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