First thoughts: The race to 218
Posted: Friday, November 06, 2009 9:12 AM by Domenico Montanaro
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First Thoughts
From Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, Domenico Montanaro, and Ali Weinberg
*** The race to 218 -- or more: Tomorrow night, the House is expected to vote on the Democrats' health care bill. And from now until then, Speaker Nancy Pelosi's goal -- as well as President Obama’s -- will be this: getting at least 218 votes. The next 48 hours are going to be wild, but considering the country’s focus on the tragedy to Ft. Hood, the battle will take place mostly behind the scenes and out of the media spotlight. President Obama heads to Capitol Hill tomorrow to convince on-the-fence lawmakers. Democrats currently have 258 members, and since we’re expecting zero GOP votes, that means Democrats can lose 40 members. Yet there are Dems concerned about the public option, abortion, and immigration (Congressional Hispanic Caucus members say they will vote against the measure if it prohibits illegal immigrants from being able to purchase insurance in the exchange). While we expect the House to pass the bill, it’s important to note that Pelosi has pointedly NOT said she has the votes. Why? Because she doesn’t have the votes yet. Everything we hear is that Dems have about a little more than 200 votes. Also, the goal isn’t really 218 -- but rather 225, so that there isn't one vote that decides this. You can just picture the TV ads if the bill passes by one vote, right?
*** How Saturday will go: House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer explained yesterday on the House floor how Saturday will go, according to NBC’s Luke Russert. "My expectation is that on Saturday we will convene at 9:00 am in the morning. After one-minutes, we will then go to the rule on the health-care bill, and it is my expectation that we will have consideration of the healthcare bill and the Republican substitute. If we proceed a pace and come to vote and disposition on that piece of legislation, we would then adjourn at whatever hour we complete our work and the adjournment would be till the 16th of November.” Hoyer later added, “Again I want to clarify and make sure everybody understands it is our intent to finish the healthcare bill, sometime Saturday night or early Sunday morning, it would be my expectation that there would be no further business till the 16th."
*** Passing the 10% mark: Well, the White House knew it was coming, and now it’s here: The unemployment rate has topped 10% -- the first time since 1983. Per the AP, “The Labor Department says the economy shed a net total of 190,000 jobs in October, less than the downwardly revised 219,000 lost in September.” But the unemployment rate increased, from 9.8% in Sept. to 10.2% in Oct. It only took about five minutes for Republicans to pounce on the numbers.
*** Brooks vs. Krugman: Interestingly (but not necessarily surprisingly), David Brooks and Paul Krugman offer the White House contradictory advice. Brooks says that Obama needs to play to the middle. “[T]hese voters are not turning to government for support. Trust in government is at its lowest level in recent memory. Over the past year, there has been a shift to the right on issue after issue. According to Gallup, the percentage of Americans who believe that there is too much government regulation rose from 38 percent in 2008 to 45 percent in 2009. The percentage of Americans who want unions to have less influence rose from 32 percent to a record 42 percent.” On the other hand, Krugman argues the White House hasn’t been aggressive enough. “President Obama came into office with a strong mandate and proclaimed the need to take bold action on the economy. His actual actions, however, were cautious rather than bold. They were enough to pull the economy back from the brink, but not enough to bring unemployment down.”
*** Stepping on the NY-23 narrative: Turning to Tuesday’s elections, Republicans have had two very good stories to talk about (New Jersey and Virginia) and one they really don’t want to discuss (NY-23). So what did some of their leaders do yesterday? They stepped right on the NY-23 narrative. First was the thousands-strong Tea Party rally/protest/press conference on Capitol Hill -- attended by GOP congressional leaders -- which only furthered the perception (true or not) that the GOP has become captive to its conservative base. Next came RNC Chairman Michael Steele’s apparent warning shot to moderate Republicans who supported the stimulus or health care. “We’ll come after you,” he relayed to ABC. (An RNC spokeswoman told First Read that Steele was referring only to House members, and not a single House Republican voted for the stimulus, and not a single one is expected to back health reform.)
*** Da Club targets Crist: Further stepping on the NY-23 narrative, the Club for Growth is running its first TV ad targeting Charlie Crist. The spot ties the Florida governor to Obama. By the way, a Crist-vs.-Rubio contest all seems to hinge on whether Rubio is the real deal. Somehow, Crist has to make Rubio seem either unelectable or someone who isn't ready. That's not a good place for Crist to be, because he suddenly doesn't have complete control of his destiny. He may have to win in the worst way and then that could make him vulnerable in a general, though many Republicans are extremely confident that Dem nominee-in-waiting Kendrick Meek is beatable by either Republican. The bar for Rubio as a candidate is lower than Crist's. It's going to be a LONG none months between now and the primary for Charlie Crist.
*** Others say David Paterson has been an awesome governor: Well, it doesn’t look like very vulnerable Gov. David Paterson (D) is going to bow out of his race anytime soon. Yesterday, his campaign released two TV ads that will begin airing statewide today. The first takes aim at some of his critics. “Some say I shouldn’t be running for governor,” Paterson says to the camera, singling out state legislators, union leaders, and corporations (but he leaves out the Obama White House, which doesn’t want him running, either). The other ad is a biographical spot. New York’s CBS affiliate also notes that Paterson has hired Harold Ickes for his campaign.
*** Things you might not have known about the VA contest: As it turns out, Creigh Deeds (D) lost the female vote to McDonnell (R), 46%-54%, despite making women’s issues a central part of his campaign; in fact, he was the first statewide Democrat to lose the VA female vote since 2000… Deeds also narrowly lost Fairfax County in Northern Virginia, 49%-51%; by comparison, Obama won it last year, 60%-39% and Tim Kaine won it in 2005, 60%-38%... In addition, Deeds underperformed Kaine in Loudon County and Virginia Beach (which, of course, happens when you lose a race by 18 percentage points)… And turnout was about 1.9 million -- which was equal to the ’05 gubernatorial race, but down from 2006 (2.4 million) and 2008 (3.7 million).
*** Things you might not have known about the NJ contest: Sorry, Bruce, this one’s gotta hurt: If one of us were still working for Asbury Park Press, the daily paper of the Jersey Shore, and home to Springsteen, our headline might be something like this -- “Shore propels Christie to victory.” That’s because Monmouth and Ocean counties, the two counties that make up the Press’ readership, were Christie’s top two vote-getting counties and saw the biggest increases in total vote for the Republican from ’05 to ’09 (+27,000 in Monmouth and +30,000 in Ocean). And the combined vote margin that Christie won by in the two counties over Corzine -- 134,367 -- accounted “for more than his margin of victory,” as the Press wrote yesterday… Corzine also got fewer votes in EVERY single county in the state than he did in ’05, and Christie got MORE votes out of every county than Doug Forrester ’05… Basically, when you look at the entire state, Corzine got destroyed in the suburbs, and although he held margins in traditionally Democratic Counties around New York City and Philadelphia, he got fewer votes out of them. Even though overall turnout was about the same as 2005, it was down in Democratic ones and up in Republican ones.
Countdown to MA Special Primary: 32 days
Countdown to MA Special Election: 74 days
Countdown to Election Day 2010: 361 days
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