Hey, let’s elect a new Speaker from outside the House

Ed’s headline in the Greenroom for this piece (written by the co-author of “The Republicans Are the Problem”) tells you all you need to know about what an unserious bit of trolling it is, but I’m oddly comforted to see it show up on WaPo’s op-ed page. It’s proof positive that even the most celebrated newspapers aren’t immune from having to scrounge for content in the news desert between Christmas and New Year’s. Coming tomorrow, presumably: “Let’s repeal term limits for Obama.”

Still, it’s worth writing about for two reasons. One: Conservative dissatisfaction with Boehner is real. We may well end up with a new Speaker on January 3. No harm in thinking about alternatives. Two: It’s a useful prism through which to consider the leadership void in the GOP right now.

What if Boehner doesn’t survive? Go to Article I, Section 2: The Constitution does not say that the speaker of the House has to be a member of the House. In fact, the House can choose anybody a majority wants to fill the post. Every speaker has been a representative from the majority party. But these days, the old pattern clearly is not working…

The best way out of this mess would be to find someone from outside the House to transcend the differences and alter the dysfunctional dynamic we are all enduring. Ideally, that individual would transcend politics and party — but after David Petraeus’s stumble, we don’t have many such candidates. It would have to be a partisan Republican.

One option would be Jon Huntsman. By any reasonable standard, he is a conservative Republican: As governor of Utah, he supported smaller government, lower taxes and balanced budgets, and he opted consistently for market-based solutions. As a presidential candidate, he supported positions that were in the wheelhouse of Ronald Reagan. But a Speaker Huntsman would look beyond party and provide a different kind of leadership. He would drive a hard bargain with the president but would aim for a broad majority from the center out, not from the right fringe in. He could not force legislation onto the floor, but he would have immense moral suasion.

Another option would be Mitch Daniels, the longtime governor of Indiana and a favorite on the right. Daniels has shown a remarkable ability to work with Democrats and Republicans, and he is a genuine fiscal conservative — meaning he does not worship at the shrine of tax cuts if they deepen deficits, and he would look for the kind of balanced approach to the fiscal problem put forward by Simpson-Bowles, ­Rivlin-Domenici and the Gang of Six.

Via: Hot Air
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UTAH: Mia Love leads Matheson by 12

With the presidential race so close, we haven’t had much of an opportunity to pay attention to Congressional races — but the race in Utah’s 4th District deserves a look today.  Mia Love looks poised to become the first African-American woman elected to Congress as a Republican, according to a new Mason-Dixon poll in her district, which puts her up by twelve points over six-term incumbent Jim Matheson (via Ladies Logic):

Matheson trails Republican challenger Mia Love 52 percent to 40 percent in a new poll conducted for The Salt Lake Tribune, a large margin in a race where, even a few days ago, both campaigns were predicting a tight finish. …

The Tribune poll, conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, found that the coalition of Democrats, independents, moderate Republicans and women that Matheson has united in past elections is failing to coalesce this time around, with just 9 percent of Republicans crossing over to support him.

That’s the key to this election.  The 2nd District has a Cook rating of R+15 [see update], which suggests that Matheson has benefited from an ability to look moderate, combined with the blessing of not having to face a charismatic and inspiring challenger.  Even the 12-point lead in this poll slightly underperforms the Republican advantage in this district, but that’s within the MoE and probably has more to do with Matheson’s status as an incumbent.  The Salt Lake Tribune also notes, though, that Love has done what other challengers couldn’t — match Matheson’s spending.

Matheson claims that his own poll shows him leading Love by two, and that 19% of Republicans support him.  He told the Tribune that he would release the poll “to all of his supporters,” which would be the first time Matheson made any of his internal polls public.  That sounds like a desperate attempt to mitigate the perception that his is a lost cause and not worth the effort on Election Day.  In a presidential election that kind of surrender seems rather unlikely — people will want to vote for President regardless of how Matheson’s doing — but the concern is still quite telling.

Update: I had forgotten that the 4th is a new district, and that the 2nd was Matheson’s old district.  There are no Cook Report stats for UT-04 that I could find.

Via: Hot Air

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Virtual tie in … Minnesota?

I’d be the first to tell people that my state is a quadrennial sucker bet for Republicans.  In 2008, no one thought we had a prayer, but in 2000 and 2004, Republicans actually thought they had a chance to break the Democrats’ presidential winning streak, as the state last went to the GOP in 1972.  I’ve been hearing Republicans get optimistic here again, but I’ve been highly skeptical of the prospects for Mitt Romney to even get close here.

Until now:

As the presidential race tightens across the country, a new Star Tribune Minnesota Poll has found that it is narrowing here as well, with President Obama holding a 3-point lead and Republican Mitt Romney making gains in the state.

The poll shows Obama with support from 47 percent of likely voters and Romney earning backing from 44 percent — a lead within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

Last month, Obama had an 8-percentage point advantage in the Minnesota Poll. Romney has apparently cut into the Democrat’s advantage among women since then and picked up support from Minnesotans who were previously undecided or said they would vote for a third-party candidate.

Independents, on the other hand, are leaning more toward Obama. Barely a third supported him last month, but that number has grown to 43 percent. Romney’s support among independents remains virtually unchanged, with 13 percent of that group remaining undecided.

Bear in mind that this is the Star Tribune’s Minnesota Poll, which has a long and (un)glorious history of leftward tilt.  Mitch Berg has long documented this trend.  One has to wonder whether we’ll need to send paramedics to his house this morning after he reads Rachel Stassen=Berger’s report from the survey.

Snark aside, this looks like a relatively solid poll.  The sample is D+5, with a D/R/I of 38/33/29.  In 2008 when Obama won by 10 points, it was D+4 at 40/36/22, and I suspect that Republicans are going to be more motivated this time around. Obama wins the core counties in the Twin Cities, but only by a relatively weak 57/35.  Romney wins the Metro suburbs with a majority 51/39 and edges Obama 46/44 in the rest of the state.

In 2008, Obama had a 19-point edge in the gender gap, +3 among men and +16 among women.  This time, Obama has only a +1 — he’s up 14 among women but down 13 among men.  Obama still leads by 6 among independents, which he won by 17 points in 2008, but he’s only got 43%.  Late breakers are not likely to flow to the incumbent at this stage of the election; if the were inclined to support Obama, they’d already be in his corner now.

That’s true of the overall number as well. If Obama can only get to 47% in the Star Tribune poll with nine days left to go before the election in Minnesota, which has gone Democrat every presidential election over the last four years, this state is in play — and that’s why both campaigns are suddenly starting to spend money here.

Via: Hot Air

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Team Obama raises $90 million in the first half of October

Earlier today, Team Romney (including Romney for President, Romney Victory, and the Republican National Committee) announced that, between October 1st and 17th, they raised a combined total of over $111 million, and still have about $169 million cash on hand — a pretty impressive haul no doubt aided by the general debate-watching public finally getting to meet Mitt Romney without all of the added negative noise from the Obama campaign.

This evening, Team Obama revealed via Twitter their own combined-total fundraising numbers for the first seventeen days of the month:

Barack Obama

• ✔

@BarackObama

In the first 17 days of October, 1,251,291 people came together to raise $90,500,000 for the campaign and combined committees.

25 Oct 12

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• Retweet
• Favorite

In the entire month of September, Team Obama outraised Team Romney with $181 million to their $170 million, but it looks like the debate season may’ve helped fuel a role-reversal from that trend. Either way, both campaign’s days of chic fundraisers are over and the donations are going to start petering out, and both sides will be looking to spend most of the money in their war chests in the next eleven-ish days. Ohioans — I do not envy you.

Via: Hot Air

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VP debate: An epic non-event?

Tomorrow night, the American electorate will watch another in a series of four debates intended to help voters decide who should be the next President.  In this event, however, neither presidential candidate will be present.  Instead, the two running mates will discuss and debate policies and issues on national television for 90 minutes.  While that will no doubt provide much entertainment for the pundit class, will it move the needle for the election?

Politico’s Jonathan Martin thinks it might:

Vice presidential debates typically matter as much as vice presidential picks — which is to say not a lot — but a convergence of factors is raising the stakes on this week’s faceoff between Paul Ryan and Vice President Joe Biden.

Looming most heavy over the clash in Kentucky is President Barack Obama’s remarkably weak debate performance last week, a showing that has given Republicans their first sense of hope in weeks and increased the pressure on Biden to get Democrats back on course. …

If “Gentleman Joe” took the stage four years ago, determined not to come off as patronizing or bullying Sarah Palin, it seems almost certain that Thursday will bring the appearance of “Scranton Joe,” the scrappy pol who’s never been afraid to throw a punch.

That’s probably true, although we’re a lot more likely to see Gaffemaster Joe, too — the one who helpfully explained that the middle class had been “buried the last four years,” while he and his boss occupied the White House.  Ramesh Ponnuru notes that while mainly discounting its impact, but predicts a walkover for Paul Ryan anyway:

The Democratic reaction to Obama’s debate loss may also point Biden in the wrong direction. Among liberals — and among some Democratic strategists, too — the prevailing view is that Obama lost because he didn’t call Romney on his outrageous lies, and especially because he didn’t draw a stark contrast on Medicare and Social Security. Obama even said the two candidates had a “similar position” on the second program. Democrats will be urging Biden to be more combative.

The vice president isn’t above demagogic attacks: In his convention speech, for example, he claimed “experts” had said that one of Romney’s tax proposals would create 800,000 jobs, “all of them overseas, all of them.” In fact, Biden was referring to a study by one expert, and it didn’t say what he claimed: It estimated 800,000 jobs would be created overseas, but it didn’t examine the impact domestically. Yet Biden also likes to be liked, and has tended to take his hardest shots before partisan audiences rather than in front of the Republicans he is criticizing.

And the consensus Democratic view that Obama was too passive and disengaged probably misunderstands why he lost the debate. The real problem was that he was less up to speed on the arguments and counterarguments than Romney was. If Biden internalizes the Democratic conventional wisdom, he will be more engaged than Obama was — but it won’t help unless he is also better informed. An amped-up yet inadequate response can come across as bluster.

Via: Hot Air

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