Archive for March 16th, 2013

The Polling Report [3.16.13]

Filed in National by Delaware Dem on March 16, 2013 • 5 Comments

NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–2016–Quinnipiac: Former Sec. of State Hillary Clinton (D) 45, Governor Chris Christie (R) 37; Clinton (D) 50, Representative Paul Ryan (R) 38; Clinton (D) 50, Senator Marco Rubio (R) 34

With Chris Christie the only GOP candidate polled making it a race against Clinton, it really is a shame that he has as much chance of winning the Republican nomination as I do.

NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–2016–Quinnipiac: Christie (R) 43, Vice President Joe Biden (D) 40; Biden (D) 45, Rubio (R) 38; Biden (D) 45, Ryan (R) 42

NATIONAL–MARRIAGE EQUALITY–Quinnipiac: Support for same-sex marriage is inching up and now stands at 47% to 43%, including 54% to 38% among Catholic voters.

Said pollster Peter Brown on the surprising and ironic finding about Catholics: “Catholic voters are leading American voters toward support for same-sex marriage. Among all voters, there is almost no gender gap, but a big age gap. Voters 18 to 34 years old support same sex marriage 62% to 30%; voters 35 to 54 years old are divided 48% to 45% and voters over 55 are opposed 50% to 39%.”

And we have much more on the Pennsylvania and Michigan gubernatorial races and other Senate races inside…

Saturday Open Thread [3.16.13]

Filed in Open Thread by Delaware Dem on March 16, 2013 • 0 Comments

Roll Call points out that Paul Ryan is required by law and all that is holy to get down on his knees and praise President Obama and his policies, for without him and them, his budget plan would be nothing.

Ryan’s budget eliminates the deficit in 2023 not because of large new spending cuts relative to his past budgets, but because he’s keeping hundreds of billions of dollars a year of President Barack Obama’s own budget policies in place.

Ryan’s claim to a balanced budget rests entirely on the 2010 health care law, known in GOP circles as “Obamacare.” Ryan’s budget keeps the tax revenue from the health care law, as well as its $700 billion-plus Medicare trims and other cuts. Ryan included those Medicare cuts in his previous budget blueprints but campaigned against them when he joined Mitt Romney’s GOP presidential ticket last year.

Ryan’s budget also would not balance without the $600 billion-plus increase in taxes extracted by the president in the fiscal cliff deal.

What Ryan would repeal is the $1.8 trillion in new spending on the health care law, which primarily subsidizes the purchase of private insurance. That includes $263 billion in spending on the law in 2023 alone.

The Weekly Addresses

Filed in Delaware, National by Delaware Dem on March 16, 2013 • 4 Comments

The weekly addresses from President Obama and Governor Markell (who hands it off to Secretary O’Mara this week), as well as the West Wing Week video about this past week at the White House. And we also have a video of the Governor playing a charity ping pong game. I am not sure why he is shorts and a t-shirt for a ping pong game.

Empathy, or why liberals are better than conservatives.

Filed in National by Delaware Dem on March 16, 2013 • 16 Comments

There is a saying that a liberal is a conservative who has not been mugged yet, or has not paid taxes yet. You can really adapt it to whatever policy position you want. And now we liberals can modify it once more: A conservative is a liberal who has not been affected by what he opposes yet.

Yes, I am talking about Senator Rob Portman and his announcement yesterday that 1) his son his gay, 2) and because his son is gay, he has changed his mind about gay marriage.