First thoughts: Sotomayor, Day 2
Posted: Tuesday, July 14, 2009 9:19 AM by Mark Murray
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First Thoughts
From Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, Domenico Montanaro, and Ali Weinberg
*** Sotomayor, Day 2: Yesterday was all about the opening statements in Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Today, beginning at 9:30 am ET, come the more important questions and answers. Each senator will be allowed 30 minutes in this first round of questioning (and if past experience is a guide, some will not consume their full time allotments). Watching the Senate Republicans’ opening statements yesterday (save for Lindsey Graham’s), it seemed clear that -- at least politically -- they realize there's a bigger penalty being FOR Sotomayor than being AGAINST her. This is a non-election year, and any Republican seen defending her at this point might find themselves under siege from conservatives on talk radio or on TV. Of course, Democrats wonder if the Senate Republicans will go too far in their questioning (see Sessions vs. Sotomayor today), and whether that could cause pain at the ballot box next year. One Democrat even thinks the phrase, "and even voted against Justice Sotomayor" could be an effective TV or radio ad tagline. We'll see. Bottom line: We're watching Senate Republicans having to play base politics over Sotomayor in the same way Democrats felt pressure to do the same with Roberts and Alito.
*** Talkin’ about my education: President Obama heads today to Michigan -- a battleground state he won last year, 57%-41%, but which now has an unemployment rate of 14.1% -- to give a speech on the economy and education at 3:45 pm ET. In particular, per NBC’s Athena Jones, Obama will use the address to announce his plan to spend $12 billion over 10 years to boost the success of America’s community colleges. As he wrote in a Sunday Washington Post op-ed, “We believe it's time to reform our community colleges so that they provide Americans of all ages a chance to learn the skills and knowledge necessary to compete for the jobs of the future. Our community colleges can serve as 21st-century job training centers, working with local businesses to help workers learn the skills they need to fill the jobs of the future.”
*** Time to bring in the lefty: After making his pitch on the economy and education, Obama heads to St. Louis to make a pitch … at tonight’s Major League Baseball All-Star game. It won’t be his first ceremonial opening pitch; the White House tells First Read that Obama previously threw out a pitch at a minor league game in 2004 and at a White Sox playoff game in 2005. According to CBS Sports, Obama will be the fourth U.S. president to throw out the first pitch at a Major League All-Star Game, following Kennedy (in Washington in ’62), Nixon (in Cincinnati in ’70), and Ford (Philadelphia in ’76). By the way, baseball legend Willie Mays will travel with the president on Air Force One on his Michigan-to-St. Louis leg.
*** Sooner rather than later? After meeting with President Obama to discuss health care yesterday afternoon -- and also after Obama said not to bet against achieving reform this year -- House and Senate Democrats emerged with a renewed sense of urgency to pass a bill in each chamber before the summer recess, NBC’s Ken Strickland reports. "The urgency barometer is going up," Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus said. "Sooner rather than later." But with less than a month to go before recess, neither the House nor the Senate has a bill ready for votes in their respective committees, much less votes on the floor. Yet that changes today, when the House is expected to introduce its bill. "It won't be the finished product,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, per NBC’s Luke Russert. “It is a mark, to be marked up by committee to go to the next step."
*** Whatever it takes: There is a worry among some House Democrats that they will lose some moderate support if the Senate decides to go home for August without a vote. So they want to hear a public pledge, and key Senate sources tell us that public pledge is coming -- possibly as early as today. Also, Obama publicly reiterated his pledge that he will NOT raise taxes on households making $250,000 or less; that was something the White House believed congressional Democrats needed to hear. Moreover, sources tell First Read that Senate and House Democrats were reminded that the president is not a fan of taxing health-care benefits, and that they should be doing everything they can to avoid passing a plan that includes it. Bottom line: The White House has "cleared the decks" and is focusing almost exclusively on health care for the next three weeks -- or however long it takes -- to get separate bills through the House and Senate before the August recess.
*** Boehner’s rebuttal: Meanwhile, with Obama heading to the Detroit area today, GOP Reps. John Boehner and Dave Camp pen an op-ed in the Detroit News criticizing Obama on health care. “[O]ur plan gives middle-class families and small businesses better access to affordable health care without job-killing tax hikes and mandates that will deepen our economic crisis, leave more Americans out of work, and keep quality care out of reach for far too many. If the president is serious about true health care reform, he'll urge congressional Democrats to scrap their costly government takeover and work with Republicans on better, bipartisan solutions.”
*** Sarah Palin as Charles Krauthammer? So we now know why Sarah Palin is resigning her job as Alaska governor later this month: to write more op-eds criticizing the Obama administration. All kidding aside, her op-ed today in the Washington Post -- on her favorite topic of energy -- is perhaps the clearest sign yet that she’s trying to position herself as a national opponent to the president and his policies. (Focusing on energy is something fans of hers have been advising her to do for months, only now she appears to be taking the advice.) “I am deeply concerned about President Obama's cap-and-trade energy plan, and I believe it is an enormous threat to our economy,” she writes. “It would undermine our recovery over the short term and would inflict permanent damage.” The conclusion to the piece: “Can America produce more of its own energy through strategic investments that protect the environment, revive our economy and secure our nation? Yes, we can. Just not with Barack Obama's energy cap-and-tax plan.”
*** Hillary in the news: We haven’t talked about this in a while, but Secretary of State Clinton raised something we mentioned plenty earlier this year: vetting issues. "The clearance and vetting process is a nightmare, and it takes far longer than any of us would want to see. It is frustrating beyond words," Mrs. Clinton said. "I mean, it is ridiculous. Some very good people just didn't want to be vetted." In fact, there are a lot of little Clinton-related nuggets out there today. Politico is playing up a speech she's giving this week, saying it's a sign she wants to "reassert" herself. (But don't get too heated up over it as some sort of Clinton-vs.-Obama sign; it's no different than speeches Tim Geithner and Larry Summers have given to key groups that care about financial issues.) And is Lanny Davis hurting his credibility with his friends in the Clinton State Department by lobbying on behalf of the current Honduran government, which ousted the president in what some in the Obama administration and the Clinton State Department worry looked too much like a coup?
*** Morning Joe recap: Earlier this morning on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Liz Cheney continued to speak out against Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democrats in the wake of reports about a secret CIA program to capture and kill Al Qaeda leaders. Cheney decried the “political” nature of Pelosi’s comments that former Vice President Cheney ordered the CIA to hide information from Congress. She asserted that “this is not a partisan issue.” Cheney continued to defend her father against Democratic criticism stating, “For the Democrats to politicize this … strikes me as incredibly irresponsible.” After defending her father’s intelligence practices, Cheney responded to claims that she is currently weighing a political bid. When asked if a political run is in her future she replied hesitantly, “It is something I might do down the road.”
*** Christie up 10 In NJ: Republican gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie “has a ten point lead” over Governor Jon Corzine (D), according to a new Quinnipiac University poll. Christie leads Corzine, 50% to 40%, among likely voters. Clay F. Richards, assistant director of the university’s Polling Institute, said Corzine must focus on the “19 percent of Democrats who are voting for Chris Christie, Christie’s 24-point edge among independents, and the 44 percent who say the Governor is not honest and trustworthy.” *** CORRECTION *** We published the results from an earlier Quinnipiac poll. The latest Q poll has Christie up 12 points, 53%-41%.
*** All about Chu: Finally, if it's Tuesday, it's Election Day somewhere in America. And that somewhere this week is in Los Angeles for a special congressional election to replace Hilda Solis, who vacated the job to become Obama's Labor secretary. The favorite is Democrat Judy Chu.
Countdown to Palin Stepping Down: 12 days
Countdown to Election Day 2009: 112 days
Countdown to Election Day 2010: 476 days
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