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OK, people, that was a good half. We made some mistakes, we took some hits, but at the end of the half, we put five field goals up on the board. That's good enough for a first half, but we've got to score some touchdowns in the second half, or we're just not going to win this thing.
I say this because Obama has stopped his slide in the polls. The downward slope of his approval numbers came to a screeching halt, and instead began hovering above (but never dipping below) the 50 percent mark. Since then, they have wavered in the 50-55 point range -- not trending clearly upwards, but at least not trending clearly downwards, either. Better news for Obama fans is the fact that his disapproval numbers did actually reverse course, after hitting a mid-month peak, and have settled downwards from that point on.
Democrats may be blindsided by the whole debate, unless they start thinking about it now. Because they can be out there saying "things are great!" but unless they prepare for an onslaught of a perennial Republican refrain ("tax-and-spend Democrats!"), then Democrats run the risk of appearing all over the map on the tax issue at precisely the time when voters are making up their minds whether to send them back to Washington or not. The smartest thing they can do, at this point, is to keep calling them the "Bush" tax cuts, to remind everyone of what they did to the economy. But next year, whether they like it or not, Democrats are going to actually have to take a stand on higher taxes for rich people. If they don't figure that out now, they're in for a rude surprise next year.
"Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party."
Of course, this really should be (in today's inclusive society): "Now is the time for all good men and women to come to the aid of the party." But what it really should say is something more like: "Now [...]
How time flies. This column marks its second anniversary today, by the calendar if not the Volume number. For the second straight year, we only produced 47 columns, but by the calendar we've gone two full years and a few odd days. Actually, now that I think of it, more than just a few odd days. Ahem.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
We speak today not of Valerie Plame Wilson's husband Joseph, but instead a different "Joe Wilson" in the world of politics. This particular Joe is a representative from South Carolina. This Joe was rude to the president last night during his speech in the House chamber by yelling out: "You lie!" There were other similar grumblings and outright heckling from the Republican side of the aisle last night, but none of the rest were as loud and clear on the microphones as Wilson. By his volume and clarity, he elected himself poster boy for the disrespect shown by members of Congress for the president. The other voices in the crowd will likely be swept aside, as everyone in the media and in politics focuses on Joe as the designated heckler of the night.
President Obama's speech to a joint session of Congress on healthcare reform needed to be a game-changer of a speech. That, it seemed was just about the only thing everyone could agree upon before the speech. Everyone -- even conservatives -- were saying Obama had to either take control of the process or watch it slip away from him. Of course, after the speech, we'll all go right back to disagreeing with each other about whether (or how much) the game was changed, and whether the changes are good things or bad. Such is the nature of politics.
Would the Democratic Party, and Senate Democrats in particular, be better off if current Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid loses his re-election bid next year? This is a provocative question, but it is now one that needs consideration, since Reid's poll numbers in his own state remain so dismal. The possibility of Reid becoming only the second Majority Leader since the 1950s to lose his own seat (Daschle was the other one) is looking more and more like the safe bet (to put it in gambling-friendly Nevada terms, as it were). Which leads to the question of what impact this will have on the Senate, what impact on the Democratic Party, and what impact on the country at large.
The White House has, of late, been quietly expressing a bit of confidence that the economy is going to pick up in the last two quarters of this year. They aren't shouting it from the rooftops, exactly, but they have been publicly predicting that the recession will officially be over in the next six months or so. Which raises the question -- since the Republicans have pretty much doubled down on Obama's failure, what are they going to do if the economy gets better next year? When the midterm congressional election season gets under way in full force, what are they going to run on if people are happy with Obama's policies at that point?