Liz Cheney takes questions from the press during a campaign appearance in Casper, Wyoming, Wednesday, July 17. Cheney, the elder daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, announced on Tuesday her GOP primary challenge to Wyoming's senior incumbent Sen. Mike Enzi. (Matt Young/AP)
Why Liz Cheney may be riding for a fall in Wyoming Senate race
Is Liz Cheney a lock to win a US Senate seat in Wyoming in 2014? Or is she riding for a fall in the Cowboy State?
After Ms. Cheney announced her plans to mount a primary challenge to GOP incumbent Sen. Mike Enzi, we judged it possible that she’s already the favorite in the race. Her ex-veep dad, Dick Cheney, is a state icon, remember. She’ll be able to raise lots of money from her national connections.
But we’ve received some pushback on this judgment from folks who know a lot about Wyoming politics, so we’re going to reconsider the matter. They say Cheney the daughter has no idea what she’s getting into, and people who think otherwise have spent too much time riding the range of carry-outs on Washington’s Capitol Hill.
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First, there’s the possibility that money does not really matter so much in a state that's so thinly populated it has no major media markets. It’s true that Senator Enzi does not have much campaign cash in the bank, but you don’t need much to buy airtime in Cheyenne and Caspar.
Second, given that ads can’t reach everyone in the state, there’s still no substitute for campaigning in Wyoming’s vast number of small outposts. Enzi, born in Thermopolis and former mayor of Gillette, has met with local business groups, weekly editors, and party activists for decades. Liz Cheney lived in suburban D.C. until recently.
Cheney has served as a high State Department official and helped run a national security group called Keep America Safe, but those credentials may not resonate with Wyoming voters.
Republican strategist Ed Rollins said this week that Cheney may be seen as “a housewife who’s kind of bored who moved back to Wyoming after a long time to run for the Senate.”
Finally, as Mr. Rollins noted above, there’s the carpetbagger issue. Voters in New York and California may not care how long candidates have lived in their states, but Wyoming is not New York or California.
Many Wyoming voters might judge that Cheney has not moved to the state yet. That’s because she has bought a home near Jackson, the Wyoming town that serves the ski resorts of Jackson Hole. Jackson is a well-off tourist town with an airport that whisks private jets in for the weekend. Much of the rest of the state views it as separate territory. It’s as if Cheney had moved to Aspen to run for a Colorado Senate seat, or were trying for governor of Massachusetts from her adopted home island of Nantucket.
In Washington, Republicans may see the Cheney versus Enzi race as a rising star versus a low-key party stalwart. That’s how Philip Terzian describes it Friday in the Weekly Standard, in any case.
“Republicans in Wyoming have a difficult decision,” Mr. Terzian writes.
It’s indeed possible that’s how GOP primary voters in the state will feel when they go to the polls next year. It’s also possible they’ll have a different framework here, and see the race as a true Wyoming resident versus a newcomer.
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State Sen. Wendy Davis applauds the crowd gathered in Fort Worth, Texas, to support the Stand With Women tour last week. The group spoke about the lack of statewide hearings on a tough abortion bill. (Ron T. Ennis/Star-Telegram/AP)
Wendy Davis goes to Washington: Did Texas abortion fight create a new star?
There are rare cases when a local politician bursts onto the scene with such gusto that he or she manages to captivate a national audience and, almost overnight, inspire talk of a career on the rise. Barack Obama, with his 2004 Democratic National Convention address, did just that, setting him on a rapid ascent from Illinois state senator to US senator to becoming the nation’s first black president.
But just as often, those lawmakers tend to stumble somewhat on the way up – think Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida during his Republican Party response to Mr. Obama’s State of the Union address or Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean's cringe-inducing primary night scream in Iowa in 2004.
Texas’ Wendy Davis – the telegenic state senator who captured the hearts of many Democrats across the country as the pink-sneakers-wearing Lone Star State mama who filibustered Republicans’ initial attempt to enact one of the strictest abortion laws in the nation – is the latest star in the making. Even after the Texas Legislature subsequently passed the bill she had worked so hard to sink, she is garnering national attention for her efforts.
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Senator Davis is headed to Washington for fundraisers and meet-and-greets. Her visit later this month reinforces talk that she’ll launch a gubernatorial bid. And with Gov. Rick Perry (R) announcing earlier this month that he won’t run again, Davis is potentially primed for a 2014 battle for an open seat in a state that isn’t always friendly to liberals.
She has already raked in almost $1 million in donations; her campaign released a statement indicating that during the last two weeks in June, she received 15,000 individual donations. A nice windfall by the standards of most campaigns, but especially for a state senator who hasn’t yet declared her intentions to run for anything else.
Davis will host two fundraisers on July 25. The first, a $500-per-person breakfast at Johnny’s Half Shell, will feature a host of Democratic lawmakers, including a half-dozen Democratic senators. The second event, held at the U Street haunt Local 16, offers tickets at prices ranging from $25 to $250.
These events are being reported by media outlets as a strong sign that Davis is moving toward a bid. And underscoring them, she penned an opinion article in The Washington Post this week outlining her reasons for filibustering. A clear introduction to the national set, it was headlined, “Why I Stood Up for Texas Women.”
In the column, she calls Texas “the greatest state in the greatest nation,” and asserts that “Texans – and women all over the country – deserve leaders that care, that listen and that work to protect their interests.”
“In the end, the filibuster was a means to continue the fight and stand up to Republican leaders,” she writes. “That fight is not a new one for me. As a senator from the only true swing district in the Texas Senate, I’ve been targeted by the GOP for my outspoken criticism of their extremist attacks on public education and voting rights, to name just two examples. My nearly 13-hour stand against the effort to deny women access to basic health care evolved into a people’s filibuster opposing a selfish and out-of-touch leadership that refuses to listen to real families with real hopes.”
With that paragraph alone, she's reframing herself as a centrist able to take on the GOP more broadly around a range of issues. She uses typical campaign buzzwords – she’s a fighter, she says, and a veteran at that.
If Davis takes a shot at the state’s top job, she could face Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott, who has announced his intention to run. He has a formidable campaign war chest – $23 million, according to NBC News.
Davis was a teen mother who became the first in her family to go to college – Texas Christian University, from which she earned a degree in English in 1990. She graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1993.
It’s been almost two decades since a Democrat won the Texas governorship. The last Democrat to serve was Ann Richards. She held office from 1991 to 1995. Perry has held that job since his election in 2000. Before him, of course, George W. Bush ran the state.
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Vice President Joe Biden and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, seen here in Washington earlier this year, could be rivals during the next Democratic presidential primary season. (Cliff Owen/AP/File)
Hillary who? Joe Biden says he still dreams of becoming president.
Lost amid the endless banter about Hillary Rodham Clinton’s White House intentions is the still real possibility that Vice President Joe Biden will toss his Phillies cap into the ring.
Mr. Biden, a two-time White House candidate, has not shied away from speculation that he’ll run. After serving in the Senate for more than three decades and now with a second term as President Obama’s No. 2 under his belt, he – like Ms. Clinton – has paid some dues. Still, the former secretary of State is the hot topic – and many in the chattering class hold the assumption that if she moves forward (as she seems to be), he’ll politely back off.
The thinking goes something like this: The Clintons have the machine, the power, the influence. And she’s earned it, personally, professionally. There’s still that glass ceiling just so many cracks from being smashed clear though, and it’s her chance, finally, to make history. Meanwhile, Biden is just Biden, always a few words from misstatement, the back-slapping, aviator-clad, behind-the-scenes workhorse isn’t really primed, even after all these years, to hold the top job.
But not so fast.
"I can die a happy man never having been president of the United States of America," Biden, 70, says in a GQ profile making the rounds Thursday. "But it doesn't mean I won't run."
No deference in those words. He tells GQ he’ll make his own calculation.
"The judgment I'll make is, first of all, am I still as full of as much energy as I have now – do I feel this?" he said. "Number two, do I think I'm the best person in the position to move the ball? And, you know, we'll see where the hell I am.
"And by the way, if you come in the office, I have two portraits hanging – one of Jefferson, one of Adams. Both vice presidents who became presidents." He told the magazine that he likes to look at their satisfied expressions. "I joke to myself, I wonder what their portraits looked like when they were vice presidents."
This does not sound like a man eager to step aside for a potentially history-making Clinton candidacy. Oh, how the Democratic establishment must vacillate between glee at the prospect of an easy route to the nomination for Clinton (especially with the GOP still in a post-2012 state of disunity and lacking real leadership) and terror at the thought of a Clinton/Biden faceoff, which is bound to draw into the contest more and younger hopefuls – namely New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, among other prospects. It would be a cluster – not uncommon, of course, for an open primary season, but unnecessary given the powerhouse potential in Clinton.
Easy would be nice for those Democrats still be smarting from the protracted 2008 nomination fight between Mr. Obama and Clinton. Another battle would be a bummer for the party when the Democrats are – assuming the economy doesn’t totally tank – nicely positioned to run strong in 2016.
Biden has held a dynamic portfolio as vice president, bucking the historical knock on the job that it’s the worst in Washington. With Obama’s blessing, he has handled fiscal issues (including the Economic Recovery Act), had a major role in foreign policy (the Iraq handover, in particular), and managed – though unsuccessfully – the White House’s push for more expansive background checks for gun purchases.
And Biden hasn’t been afraid to say what he believes independent of where the White House might be positioned – remember that he got out front of Obama on the gay marriage issue, emphatically weighing in with his support.
“What this is all about is a simple proposition – who do you love?” he said on NBC’s "Meet the Press." “Who do you love, and will you be loyal to the person you love?”
If Clinton opts against a presidential campaign, surely Biden becomes the default front-runner. Except no matter the shape of the contest, one in, one out, or both vying, they each risk looking more like the past than the future. Already, the Republicans have toyed with a narrative about Clinton that emphasizes her age; the same could be said for Biden.
Both Democrats have long records to defend, too. And in Biden’s case, his gaffes, including that old plagiarism charge, which sank his 1988 campaign, could come back to haunt him. He has also certainly, as everyone knows, been a favorite of the late-night comedians.
But among the establishment in Washington – and this is one key reason why Obama selected Biden as his running mate – the vice president has bipartisan street cred and long and intimate relationships to mine while governing. In a polarized capital city and with national opinion of Congress at historic lows, that experience – a throwback to an earlier time – is a worthwhile and sellable credential.
"Joe Biden doesn't have a mean bone in his body," says Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican, in the GQ piece. "He's unique from the day he was elected before he was 30 years old. He's unique in that he's had some role in every major national-security crisis that his nation has faced in the last thirty-five years. I don't know anyone like him in the U.S. Senate. Look at the number of times he's been able to conclude agreements. I would say he's been the most impactful vice president that I've known – certainly in modern times."
And that includes Biden’s predecessor, Dick Cheney, who hails from Senator McCain’s own party and is widely viewed to have been deeply influential, domineering even, when President George W. Bush held office.
Biden reminds us in the GQ piece that, as we watch the Clinton faithful establish an organizational apparatus fit for a candidate, he isn’t ready yet to fold his tent. In fact, the profile, which includes a whirlwind tour of Biden’s childhood haunts in Delaware, is a long romp through lovable Biden turf. He’s just a regular guy! And he’s smart, not a cartoon, he seems to plead, over cheesesteaks.
The piece dubs him “the most misunderstood man in Washington.”
Understand this, though. When Biden addressed the Iowa Inauguration Ball in January, he misspoke in typical fashion. What he said drew laughter – but applause, too – from Democrats from this first-in-the-nation caucus state.
"I'm proud to be president of the United States," he said before correcting himself.
Liz Cheney addresses the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, Feb. 18, 2010. Cheney announced Tuesday, July 16, 2013, she will run against Wyoming's senior senator Mike Enzi in next year's Republican primary. (Cliff Owen/AP/File)
Liz Cheney run for Wyoming Senate seat: Is she a lock to win? (+video)
Surprise – Liz Cheney is going to run for a Senate seat in Wyoming next year. That’s where the Cheney family has roots, since dad Dick Cheney went to school there and was Wyoming’s lone representative before he became George W. Bush’s vice president.
But it’s not like Cheney the daughter has spent years building a network in the state and saluting the crowd at Cheyenne’s iconic Frontier Days. She just bought a house there last year after spending much of her recent life in the non-cowboy country of northern Virginia.
Plus, a Republican already occupies the seat Ms. Cheney wants, Sen. Michael Enzi. He’s in his third term and is Wyoming to the core: He grew up in Thermopolis and is a former mayor of Gillette.
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So does Cheney have a chance to knock off Senator Enzi in the GOP primary?
Yes. Yes, she does. At this point, she might even be the favorite.
“Cheney represents a major problem for Enzi,” judge Washington Post political analysts Chris Cillizza and Sean Sullivan.
Money is one reason. She’ll be able to raise all she needs to run in a thinly populated state where advertising is cheap. Her cash may come from out of state, because of the Cheney family’s national connections, but Enzi just won’t even be in the same league in terms of war chests. He’s clearly unprepared for a primary challenge, as at this point he’s got under $500,000 in his political accounts.
Then there’s the Cheney name. Enzi is famous for Wyoming, so the advantage here isn’t as clear as it seems from outside the state. But Mr. Cheney is still remembered by a significant portion of Wyoming voters as an alumnus, someone who rose from Casper to the highest level of US politics.
That counts for something.
Plus, it appears that Ms. Cheney will try to define Enzi as a go-along, someone who’s been content to work with party leadership and (gasp!) Democrats over the years. It remains to be seen how that plays in Wyoming as a whole, but it’s sure to get lots of attention and support from the tea party wing of the GOP and others who think the party’s problem is that it does not fight hard enough.
“Mike Enzi is a fine Republican, but he is not putting points on the board for conservatives.... We need less rudderless Republicans who shuffle around at the direction of their leadership and lobbyist friends,” conservative pundit Erick Erickson wrote Tuesday at RedState.
Of course, Cheney will have to handle the carpetbagger issue if she’s going to win. Enzi probably will try to define her as someone who’s running only because of personal ambition. It’s not like Enzi is a Northeastern moderate, like New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R). He’s already one of the most conservative senators.
Enzi’s best course of action may be to charge that Cheney is “too extreme” for Wyoming. She’s embraced her father’s neoconservative foreign-policy views, which included advocacy for the Iraq war and other interventionist actions. She’s charged that President Obama is “working to preemptively disarm America.”
According to Enzi, she broke her word when she entered the Senate race.
“She said that if I ran she wasn’t going to run, but obviously that isn’t correct,” Enzi said Tuesday.
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Protesters rally in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the Trayvon Martin trial in the Brooklyn Borough of New York, July 14. President Obama called for calm on Sunday after the acquittal of Zimmerman in the shooting death of unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin, as thousands of civil rights demonstrators turned out at rallies to condemn racial profiling. (Keith Bedford/Reuters)
How much has Obama influenced public debate on Trayvon Martin? (+video)
As Americans digest the outcome of the Trayvon Martin murder case – a “not guilty” verdict for shooter George Zimmerman – some are also looking back to the role that President Obama’s early remarks played in shaping public sentiment about the event.
Mr. Obama, who for the most part has maintained painstaking caution on topics of race, waded early and with conviction into the national dialogue on the killing.
“When I think about this boy,” he told reporters in the White House Rose Garden after the crime was committed but before Mr. Zimmerman was charged, “I think about my own kids.” If he had a son, Obama said, he would look like Trayvon.
But now, in the wake of a jury decision that has generated rage in some corners and relief in others, the president has dialed back his language, urging calm reflection of how we can all do more to facilitate dialogue on these complicated issues – to “widen the circle of compassion and understanding in our own communities,” as he said in a statement released Sunday.
“I know this case has elicited strong passions,” Obama said in his paragraph-long comment. “And in the wake of the verdict, I know those passions may be running even higher. But we are a nation of laws, and a jury has spoken.” The only mention of something policy-oriented was his plea to “ask ourselves if we are doing all we can to stem the tide of gun violence that claims too many lives across this country on a daily basis.”
For this tonal pivot – politically necessary, some say, even responsible – he is garnering some criticism, from conservatives especially. They say that he shouldn’t have engaged in the issue from the get-go, that he elevated tensions and turned a local legal matter into a divisive national debate.
"President Obama politicized this at the beginning of it, I believe, unfortunately, by injecting himself into it," said Karl Rove, former political adviser to President George W. Bush.
Rep. Steve King, an Iowa Republican, struck a similar theme, saying the president turned the Florida killing "into a political issue." Rove and King both spoke on “Fox News Sunday.”
Of course the same could be said of the president’s critics. Who can claim with validity that Obama was really a key driver of the gavel-to-gavel coverage of this trial?
More generally, should the nation’s first black president not be expected to remark on a matter that has sparked a new conversation about race and justice in America?
It’s worth noting that Obama has rarely and reluctantly stepped directly into topical matters of race, and he has done so, historically, at his own political peril. In Philadelphia, during his 2008 campaign, Obama gave a heartfelt, and largely well-received, treatise on race as a response to growing concerns about his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Obama’s candidacy in the presidential primary race was in jeopardy at the time.
Less successfully, Obama suggested in 2009 that police “acted stupidly” in arresting Henry Louis Gates Jr., the Harvard scholar, outside his home in Cambridge, Mass. That led to an awkward gathering at the White House – over beers, no less – between Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Professor Gates, and the officer who arrested him.
Writing on CNN’s website, Abigail Thernstrom of the American Enterprise Institute suggests that Obama’s initial statements about Trayvon reflect a mistake in judgment. The president, she says, must distinguish himself from others fanning tensions. And he knows how to do so, she adds.
“People such as Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson see white racism as endemic and elevate what's wrong with America over all that is remarkably right,” Ms. Thernstrom says. “In his 2008 Philadelphia speech, Obama separated himself from activists of their ilk: the very people who today still hope to punish George Zimmerman. On the campaign trail, Obama understood the sensibilities of the American people on these questions; in office, Obama seems to have lost that touch.”
But Obama has said nothing more since that restrained Sunday statement, and his silence speaks volumes – especially as the Justice Department continues its own investigation of the case.
“I don’t have anything to add,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said Monday when pressed to answer if Obama felt justice was served in the Zimmerman trial.
Charles Ogletree, a Harvard law professor and friend of the president, suggests that Obama’s statement Sunday might be the last we hear from him on the matter.
"Barack Obama is a lawyer and I think his legal sense is that he should do nothing that would interrupt or disrupt any future matters involving George Zimmerman," Professor Ogletree told the Los Angeles Times.
Does that mean Obama learned a lesson from his earlier candor? Or instead, does the brevity and tone of his most recent remark more simply serve to guide an American public to a place of more peaceful discourse? A conversation guided, perhaps, by their neighbors and friends and rooted in their communities, rather than steered by politicians and television personalities.
Abdul Kebbeh holds a sign at Westlake Park on Sunday, in downtown Seattle. Hundreds of people gathered at Westlake and marched to the United States Court House to protest the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the fatal shooting in Sanford, Fla., of Trayvon Martin. (Joshua Trujillo/Photo/seattlepi.com/AP)
Will George Zimmerman now face federal charges? (+video)
Will George Zimmerman now face federal civil rights charges? That’s what some activists are urging in the wake of Mr. Zimmerman’s acquittal of murder and manslaughter charges in the death of unarmed black teen Trayvon Martin.
Al Sharpton, for instance, quickly called upon the US Justice Department to file a suit alleging that Zimmerman’s racial profiling of Trayvon led to the latter’s death. The NAACP’s website crashed over the weekend due to the number of people trying to sign its online petition for the government to open a civil rights case.
“The most fundamental of civil rights – the right to life – was violated the night George Zimmerman stalked and then took the life of Trayvon Martin,” reads the petition.
Justice officials said Sunday they are reviewing the evidence in the Zimmerman trial as well as their own open investigation into the killing of Trayvon, which had been on hold while the state of Florida pursued its own case against neighborhood watch volunteer Zimmerman. It’s possible that Attorney General Eric Holder will shed some light on the government’s intentions on Tuesday, when he addresses the NAACP annual convention in Orlando, Fla.
There is precedent for the US to follow a high-profile acquittal in a racially charged case with a prosecution of its own. In 1993, the Justice Department filed civil rights charges against the four Los Angeles policemen who had been found not guilty of excessively beating African-American construction worker Rodney King after a high-speed car chase.
Unlike the L.A. policemen's state trial, the federal trial featured a racially mixed jury. Federal prosecutors excluded witnesses whose testimony had backfired in the first effort. Two of the four defendants were found guilty of violating Mr. King’s rights and sentenced to jail terms.
“This verdict provides justice,” said Justice Department Attorney Barry Kowalski at the time.
However, Justice Department officials would have to clear fairly high legal hurdles to win a similar conviction of Zimmerman.
First of all, Zimmerman is a private citizen. Unlike the L.A. policemen, he was not acting as a representative of any government entity. And as Attorney General Holder himself has said, prosecutors would have to show that Zimmerman had the “specific intent to do the crime with the requisite state of mind." In other words, the feds would need to prove that Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon primarily due to Trayvon's race.
But Zimmerman’s defense team would surely claim that the Florida trial produced evidence otherwise. State prosecutors themselves said they did not believe the case was about race.
That leads some legal analysts to predict that the Justice Department will decline to press further charges.
“In the end, I expect the Justice Department to demur. While Holder may make additional comments stressing the importance of this case and the seriousness with which federal officials are looking into possible federal crimes (as he has before), I think the Justice Department will decide it isn’t worth making this a federal case,” writes Jonathan Adler, a Case Western Reserve University law professor, on the popular “Volokh Conspiracy” legal blog.
But Mr. Adler adds that Zimmerman remains vulnerable to civil charges filed by Trayvon's family. Civil cases have lower thresholds of proof than federal civil rights cases or criminal murder charges.
And other analysts aren’t so sure the Justice Department will walk away here. As in the Rodney King case, the feds could learn from the state’s mistakes to mount a successful civil rights prosecution.
“If Trayvon Martin had been born white he would be alive today.... If he had been white, he never would have been stalked by Zimmerman, there would have been no fight, no funeral, no trial, no verdict. It is the Zimmerman mindset that must be found guilty – far more than the man himself,” wrote Michelle Alexander, a civil rights advocate and an Ohio State University associate professor of law, in a Facebook post reacting to the Zimmerman verdict.
DREAMers (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) and parents take an oath in a mock citizenship ceremony during a 'United we Dream,' rally on Capitol Hill in Washington, last Wednesday, July 10, sending a signal to the House of Representatives' GOP leadership as they go into their meeting that afternoon to discuss immigration reform with their caucus. (Alex Brandon/AP)
On immigration reform, more Americans hew to the Democrats' stance
With immigration reform legislation hanging in a perilous balance in Washington, its fate in the House in question, a new poll shows that more Americans relate to the Democratic Party’s position on the issue than to the Republican Party’s.
The Gallup survey, released Monday, indicates that 48 percent believe the Democratic Party’s policies on immigration and immigration reform are closer to their own, while 36 percent said the same of the Republican Party.
It is the demographic breakdown within the poll, however, that provides a caution for the GOP, as members consider whether to nix legislation providing a path to citizenship for certain illegal immigrants or to get on board. As Republicans more broadly assess how to reposition their party nationally in advance of the open 2016 White House contest, aiming to shake loose the Democrats’ hold on vote-rich minority constituencies, the immigration issue has grown in political importance.
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Some 70 percent of blacks and 60 percent of Hispanics surveyed by Gallup more closely aligned with the Democrats, with 14 percent and 26 percent, respectively, identifying with the Republican Party. Whites are split – 41 percent say Democrats’ views come closer to their own, while 42 percent were with the Republicans.
In its analysis, Gallup notes that the percentage of Hispanics indicating a preference for Democratic immigration reform policies is higher than the 51 percent found during the 2012 contest to generally identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party.
Hispanics were a crucial voting bloc in the past two presidential campaigns, giving strong margins to President Obama over his Republican rivals, Sen. John McCain of Arizona in 2008 and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in 2012. Their backing helped Mr. Obama win in key battleground states, including Florida, Virginia, Nevada, Colorado, and New Mexico.
To see Hispanics moving with marginally more strength toward the party that currently holds the White House should give pause to Republican opponents of immigration reform – especially those considering a future national campaign. The issue has fragmented the GOP, with some conservatives – namely Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and his state’s former governor, Jeb Bush – pushing for reform that includes some kind of a path to citizenship. Others, including Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ted Cruz of Texas, have dug in on the issue, voting against legislation that was passed by the full Senate last month.
Senator McCain, who represents a heavily Hispanic state but who is also aware of the political importance of the voting bloc, was, of course, part of the so-called Gang of Eight who crafted the legislation and backed the bill.
Meanwhile, another voting group that helped carry Obama to victory in both cycles – young people – narrowly favors the Democrats’ approach on immigration reform. Gallup shows that among white Americans between the ages of 18 and 49, 44 percent line up with the Democratic Party’s immigration policies and 39 percent choose the Republican Party. Whites 50 and older flipped – 46 percent named the Republicans and 39 percent the Democrats.
It’s worth noting that while the Democrats have an advantage with Hispanics and young voters, independents – another coveted group come the nation’s quadrennial contest – were split, with 37 percent choosing the Democrats and 35 percent identifying with Republicans. Those with strong Democratic Party or Republican Party identification tend to side with their own parties on immigration reform.
Those polled who favor tightening border security and requiring employers to check immigration status of their workers, two signature Republican issues, are "about equally likely to name the Democratic or the Republican Party as the one they more agree with on immigration," according to Gallup.
House Speaker John Boehner has said his chamber will not take up the Senate’s bill, suggesting instead that his members might craft a separate plan that emphasizes stronger border controls. His Republican members are divided about how to tackle the nation’s undocumented residents. So it’s not clear if the House will move on any legislation tackling the matter; agreement on the best steps forward has so far been elusive.
This past weekend, though, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R) of Kentucky advised his House colleagues against inaction.
“I'm a big fan of what legal immigration has done for our country,” Senator McConnell said, mentioning that his wife, Elaine Chao, was born in Taiwan and served as US Labor secretary under President George W. Bush. “I hope, even though the Senate bill in my view is deficient on the issue of border security, I hope we can get an outcome for the country that improves the current situation. I don't think anybody is satisfied with the status quo on immigration, and I hope the House will be able to move forward on something.”
Gallup’s results were based on a poll of 4,373 US adults; the survey was conducted between June 13 and July 5. The margin of error is 2 percentage points for the full survey. Due to weighting methods, it is 3 percentage points for results pertaining to non-Hispanic whites, 5 percentage points for results on non-Hispanic blacks, and 6 percentage points for Hispanics.
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State Sen. Wendy Davis (D) sits at her desk after the Texas Senate passes an abortion bill Friday in Austin, Texas. Davis opposed the bill, which will require doctors to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals, only allow abortions in surgical centers, dictate when abortion pills are taken, and ban abortions after 20 weeks. (Eric Gay/AP)
Texas abortion uproar: Could backlash turn Lone Star State blue? (+video)
Texas legislators last week passed a suite of antiabortion laws that, according to critics, would result in the closure of all but five of the state's 42 abortion clinics.
With state Sen. Wendy Davis (D) making herself a statewide celebrity through her efforts to forestall the bill – including an 11-hour filibuster – there is a line of thinking that suggests the abortion debate could become the beginning of a blue avalanche across the Lone Star State.
“Texas voters came out in record numbers to oppose this bill every step of the way, and they will turn out in record numbers at the next election,” said Heather Busby, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Texas, in a statement.
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Latinos make up a growing share of the state population and are reliably Democratic voters, the thinking goes. Moreover, the new abortion bill, which would ban abortions after 20 weeks and make clinics meet tough new medical standards to survive, could shift a growing number of women voters to the blue column.
In short, some activists suggest the bill lays bare how the demographic and political forces that resoundingly swept President Obama to a second term in 2012 are even now knocking on the door of perhaps the nation's reddest state.
While the logic is sound, the data suggest that the idea of a "Blue Texas" is, for now, little more than wishful thinking on the part of liberals.
Changes are coming, and the rise of Latinos in Texas could put the state in play for Democrats by the middle of the next decade, according to some analyses. But three main points, in particular, are keeping Texas deep red and should continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
Latino voting rates. The demographics of the Lone Star State suggest irresistible change. The 2010 Census showed that 45 percent of Texans are white, 38 percent are Latino, and 11 percent are black, with other ethnic groups making up the remaining 6 percent. A decade before, the white-Latino split was 53 to 32 percent. White Texans, already no longer a majority, will soon no longer even be the plurality.
But that doesn't mean Latinos are having a proportionate impact on Texas politics. As in other states, Latinos typically pack less punch at the ballot box than the numbers suggest they should. One reason cited in an analysis by the Daily Kos, a liberal website, is that 10 to 15 percent of Texas Latinos are not citizens. The Latino population also trends much younger than the white population, meaning a larger share of Texas Latinos have not yet reached voting age.
The result is that, while a Latino plurality in Texas might not be far away, the political effects of that shift might lag significantly. The Daily Kos analysis concludes that, for Democrats, "Texas ought to be on the cusp of competitiveness by 2024."
Redistricting. Redistricting is the great political hammer in the hands of the political majority. In states that allow the Legislature to draw up the political maps every 10 years – as Texas does – the majority can solidify their hold on power by creating districts that tilt in their favor. Both parties do this, and for a time, redistricting can insulate a majority party somewhat from demographic changes.
Also in the special legislative session that saw abortion take center stage, Texas legislators passed new redistricting maps that Democrats say underrepresent Latinos. The main objective of the Republican majority "was to limit Latino voting strength," according to the office of US Rep. Pete Gallego (D) of Texas, as reported by politic365. "The right to vote is one of the fundamental pillars of our democracy. The process shouldn’t shut out entire communities."
Texas is still Texas. The fact is, at the end of the day, Texas voters are still some of the most reliably red voters in the nation. While change may be ahead, there is little sign that it has yet arrived – or even has begun to arrive. The last time Texas elected a Democrat to statewide office was 1994. Among the best performances by a Texas Democrat since then: Gubernatorial candidate Chris Bell lost to Gov. Rick Perry by 9 points in 2006, notes the Texas Tribune.
From there, it only gets worse.
Indeed, many have touted Senator Davis as a potential gubernatorial candidate in 2014. But she's been hesitant to declare any intentions, surely aware that any attempt to run for statewide office could mark an abrupt end to her political career.
For Democrats for now, it seems, politics in Texas remains a dead-end job.
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President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama wave from Air Force One before departing from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, July 2. (Jason Reed/Reuters)
Do media treat Michelle Obama like the new Jackie Kennedy?
Will history judge first lady Michelle Obama to be a social media pioneer? We ask that because either Mrs. Obama herself or someone on her staff is doing a good job using new networked forms of communication to create positive publicity that reflects back on the White House itself.
Case in point: On Thursday, the first lady’s FLOTUS Twitter feed joined in the popular meme #ThrowbackThursday and tweeted out an arresting photo of Michelle and Barack in their early days together. The pair is hugging; she’s staring directly at the camera, while he’s sort of squinting and looking aside, as if he’s thinking about stuff, like becoming president, or maybe how long it is 'til lunch.
Retweets piled up. The photo went up on her Instagram account, too, where it was a huge hit, with more than 50,000 “hearts” in a day.
Yes, Ann Romney Instagrams, too, and did so during the 2012 campaign. It isn’t as if Michelle Obama is the only spouse of a national politician to venture into the world beyond Facebook. But she works them all together, linking it up with her appearances on non-hard-news television shows such as “Ellen" to produce an overall media strategy that bypasses the traditional media filter.
Even headlines about her are acquiring a new media sheen. On Friday, Politico’s Jennifer Epstein wrote a piece titled “Michelle Obama’s YOLO moment." (That’s “you only live once," in Twitter-speak.) The story’s premise was that the first lady, with her husband reelected, was enjoying lots of seize-the-moment experiences, such as lunching with U-2 frontman Bono, scolding hecklers, and posting decades-old personal photos.
“For this first lady, the second term is YOLO territory,” writes Ms. Epstein.
Barack and Michelle. #ThrowbackThursday #TBT pic.twitter.com/c64XhRVBUd
— FLOTUS (@FLOTUS) July 11, 2013
But here’s another question: Is Michelle Obama able to do all this without real scrutiny because the media are too easy on her?
In this regard, Politico’s “YOLO” story may have been the last straw for some conservatives. They feel it symbolizes the light-weight and credulous approach of much coverage of Mrs. Obama and her activities.
“Has any First Lady since Jackie Kennedy received press coverage as worshipful as Michelle Obama?” tweeted the plugged-in, right-leaning Byron York, chief political correspondent of the Washington Examiner, on Friday.
Mr. York linked to a Politico slide show of first-lady magazine covers that showed Mrs. Obama in glamorous poses.
Others on the right grumbled about the uncritical reception of the first lady’s “Kids’ State Dinner” this week, where she entertained winners of a school lunch healthy recipe contest.
It’s one thing to cover an event where one category of winner seemed to be “lettuce cups," and another to ignore that many kids just don’t want to eat that stuff, in this view.
As a “Daily Caller” story noted earlier this week, one New York State school district has decided to withdraw from a first lady-backed national school lunch program because the nutritional guidelines resulted in hungry students.
"The high schoolers especially complained the portion sizes were too small, and many more students brought in lunch from home," said Nicky Boehm, food service manager for the Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake school district, according to the Daily Caller.
People ride the Luna Park Swing Ride as the supermoon rises on Coney Island, June 22. Two lawmakers are proposing a moon-based national park to preserve Apollo artifacts. (Carlo Allegri/Reuters/File)
A national park on the moon? Fire up the minivan!
Two US lawmakers have filed legislation that would establish a US national park on the moon.
No, we’re not making this up. Democratic Reps. Donna Edwards of Maryland and Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas are proposing a moon-based Apollo Lunar Landing Sites National Historical Park.
“As commercial enterprises and foreign nations acquire the ability to land on the Moon it is necessary to protect the Apollo lunar landing sites for posterity,” reads H.R. 2617, otherwise known as the “Apollo Lunar Landing Legacy Act.”
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Load up the minivan, kids! We’re skipping the Smoky Mountains this year. Go now – there aren’t many rest stops on the way.
Sorry. Getting back to reality, both lawmaker sponsors are members of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee. They say that setting up a moon national park would preserve artifacts left on the moon’s surface and provide for “greater recognition and public understanding of this singular achievement in American history.”
They’re proposing that NASA work with the Department of the Interior and the National Park Service to manage access to, provide interpretation of, and help historically preserve all areas where astronauts and instruments connected with the 1969-72 Apollo space program touched the lunar surface.
The bill would also allow the US to accept private and international donations to help pay for this huge project, and it would require the Department of the Interior to apply to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) for designation of the park as a World Heritage Site.
OK, we’ve got a few questions here.
DO WE OWN THE MOON? Don’t US national parks have to be, you know, on US territory? Last we looked the moon was not yet the 51st state, despite Newt Gingrich’s past efforts to make it so. (No, we’re not making that up either – then-Congressman Gingrich once filed a bill that would have allowed a moon base to apply for statehood.)
While the bill talks about moon landing sites, it appears to define the prospective park only in terms of artifacts left behind by astronauts, which presumably remain US property. Maybe it skirts the ownership issue via a technicality.
HOW WILL WE GET THERE? Talk about an Odyssey for your Honda – that’s a long way, the moon. Perhaps lawmakers will see this as a way to encourage a burgeoning commercial space tourism industry. It would be like the Dry Tortugas National Park, which is in the ocean 70 miles off Key West, Fla., and accessible only by private boat or charter. Only it would be 239,000 miles away, and accessible via private pressurized space vehicle.
WILL THERE BE SOUVENIRS? As any visitor to a national park knows – especially those with children – no trip is complete without a visit to the souvenir store. Many of these sell astronaut ice cream, so presumably that would be a big seller on the actual moon as well. Slogan T-shirts (“I swam in the Sea of Tranquility!”) are always hot. Maybe they’ll sell replicas of the number 6 iron Alan Shepard sneaked onto Apollo 14 to hit a few golf balls on the lunar surface.
“I’m gonna try a little sand trap shot here,” said Shepard at the time.
Come to think of it, a nine-hole moon golf course concession might pay for the whole park.
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