Saturday Open Thread [9.26.2015]

Jonathan Chait says Conservatives hated Boehner because he did not get rid of Obama.

LOL. Petulant Children, the lot of them.

To understand the pressures that brought about Boehner’s demise as an ideological split badly misconstrues the situation. The small band of right-wing noisemakers in the House who made Boehner’s existence a living hell could not identify any important substantive disagreements with the object of their wrath. […] The source of the disagreement was tactical, not philosophical. Boehner’s tormentors refused to accept the limits of his political power. […] The usual band of irreconcilables in the House have recently demanded that Republicans shut down the federal government to force President Obama to agree to zero out funding for Planned Parenthood. Boehner and the party leadership have resisted not because they agree with funding Planned Parenthood, but because this tactic has no chance of success. The irreconcilables have tried to pressure him into yet another futile gesture by openly threatening, once again, to depose him. […]

Three quarters of Republicans believe, incredibly, that their party leadership has not done enough to oppose Obama. Three fifths feel “betrayed” by their party. “In the last seven years Barack Obama has successfully recruited, or corrupted, or hijacked — however you want to describe it — John Roberts of the Supreme Court; John Boehner, speaker of the House; Mitch McConnell, Republican leader in the Senate; and, some might even say, the pope,” ranted Rush Limbaugh the other day.

This discontent runs much deeper and wider than Boehner. It has driven much of the support for Donald Trump, whose “conservatism” rests in his affect, radiating power and contempt for Obama, rather than in his policies, which actually lie to the left of the party platform overall. Boehner had the misfortune of leading, or attempting to lead, his party in an era when it had run up to the limits of crazy, where the only unexplored frontiers of extremism lay beyond the reach of its Constitutional powers.

Boehner didn’t open impeachment proceedings (no matter the lack of any grounds to do so). Boehner didn’t organize a military coup. Boehner did not go to the White House one night and kill Obama with his own hands. That is what conservatives expected. Because how dare that black usurper hold office when the Presidency is the God-given property of the Republican Party.

Kevin Drum translates Jeb! Bush for us:

What Jeb Bush said this morning:

Everybody freaks out about the deficit….But if we grow our economy at a faster rate, the dynamic nature of tax policy will kick in….I’m more optimistic.

What he meant:

We should freak out about the deficit only when a Democrat is president. I’m a Republican. When Republicans are president we don’t worry about the deficit. We just cut taxes on the rich.

John Boehner’s resignation will not save the Republicans (or us) from themselves if he doesn’t spend the next month productively. Brian Beutler:

But no matter who comes next, the question is whether they’ll immediately confront the same tawdry dynamic that ultimately felled Boehner, or whether Boehner takes it upon himself to bring some stability to the chamber.

If he takes the path of least resistance, the next speaker will have all the same problems Boehner had, minus his years of experience. That path would end with a brief continuation of government funding—just enough to hand the same political mess over to a new leadership team. It would leave the government no less vulnerable to a shutdown, or another debt limit crisis, or a lapse in highway funding, and the party no less vulnerable to bearing responsibility for a crisis in the middle of election season. Call it Boehner’s curse.

Boehner probably can’t end the vicious cycle that hobbled his speakership. But he could plausibly clear the deck for his successor for long enough that the big issues Republicans want to fight over can play out in the election, rather than in the throes of governance. He could place legislation on the floor that funds the government for a year, extends the debt limit through 2016, and replenishes the highway trust fund, and allow Democrats to supply most of the votes required to restore calm. If Boehner were determined to make the next speakership less volatile than his own, and to be end his own speakership on a note of responsible stewardship, he almost certainly could. What remains to be seen is whether he has one last fight left in him.

Marin Cogan says Boehner’s resignation is bad for everyone. There is a bad moon rising.

[Y]ou should not be happy about Boehner’s resignation. Yes, he was very conservative (even if his colleagues didn’t always think so), but he was one of the last of the old-guard Republicans who tried to keep the party on the right side of sanity. He wanted to stop his party’s most destructive elements from taking over. His leaving will open up a leadership vacuum. The next person in line for the job is Kevin McCarthy, who became majority leader only a year ago and has struggled in the role. But there will probably be a scramble for the gavel, and whoever gets it will likely be even more precariously positioned than Boehner was. Last weekend, Boehner described to Politico how he was able to move forward with so much dysfunction in his party with his usual candor: “Prisoners learn how to become prisoners, all right?” They do. The question now is, who else will be willing to put up with that kind of confinement?

Charles Pierce says the inmates are officially running the asylum.

Welcome to the monkeyhouse, America. The prion disease afflicting the Republican party finally has devoured the last vestiges of the Republican party’s higher functions. I had as many problems with Boehner as Speaker as anyone did, but, dammit, he at least believed that the government should keep running. And, as much as the Times wants to believe it, this has nothing to do with the “challenges of divided government,” and everything to do with the fact that the modern Republican party, especially in the House of Representatives, is completely demented.

(By the way, if I were any of the Republican presidential candidates, with the possible exception of Ted Cruz, I’d be terrified by this development. If the House goes completely mad, if there is (as I suspect) a wild and bloody battle over the next Speaker, that’s going to be what the eventual nominee has to deal with every day on the campaign trail.)

Jeb! Bush completes his transformation into Mitt Romney, promises to not give black people free stuff.

The crime rate in America is half it was 25 years ago.

Rick Klein: “His rivals are smelling something – whether or not that’s coming out of his … whatever. Three new national polls show Donald Trump’s lead softening, with his fellow outsiders and even some – gasp – elected officeholders rising. Scott Walker left the race with a cry for help in dumping Trump. Trump is now at war with just about anybody in sight – Fox News, Carly Fiorina, Jeb Bush, and now Marco Rubio, his critique of whom includes his youth and his propensity to perspire. It suggests a potential inflection point in a GOP race Trump has owned virtually from the moment his got on that escalator. The frontrunner looks vulnerable – and, perhaps oddly, it’s not his policy positions or political history that matter in this equation. It’s his very Trump-ness that has him now in this position, with rival campaigns seeing signs that its novelty is wearing off.”

LOUISIANA–GOVERNOR–JUNGLE PRIMARY–Public Policy Polling: John Bel Edwards (D) 28, David Vitter (R) 27, Scott Angelle (R) 15, Jay Dardenne (R) 14

LOUISIANA–GOVERNOR–RUNOFF–Public Policy Polling: Bel Edwards (D) 50, Vitter 38;
Bel Edwards (D) 40, Angelle (R) 40; Dardenne 42, Bel Edwards 40

Key findings: “Vitter has become quite unpopular, with only 34% of voters rating him favorably to 51% with a negative opinion of him… A year ago Vitter looked like a clear favorite but he’s become very unpopular in the time since, and now it appears that there is a very good chance he will be defeated this fall.”

So we are rooting for Vitter to finish in the top 2, so he can lose horribly to Bel Edwards.

NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–REPUBLICAN PRIMARY—Reuters/Ipsos: Trump 30, Carson 18, Bush 10, Fiorina 8, Rubio 6, Cruz 5, Christie 3, Huckabee 3, Kasich 3, Paul 2, Gilmore 2, Jindal 1, Santorum 1, Graham 0, Pataki 0

Interesting, this poll asked who Republicans would vote for if the primary came down to a race between Jeb Bush, Donald Trump and Ben Carson: Trump 37, Carson 35, Bush 25. That is outright doom for the GOP Establishment. Horror.

NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY—Reuters/Ipsos: Clinton 40, Sanders 30, Biden 15, Cuomo 2, O’Malley 2, Gillibrand 0, Webb 0, Chafee 0.

Not sure why they polled Cuomo and Gillibrand, but whatever. And they also polled who would win if the race came down to a three way race between Clinton, Biden and Sanders, which is odd, because that is what it is anyway, but: Clinton 40, Sanders 32, Biden 19.

Amy Walter: “Trump and Carson are currently leading in the anti-establishment/cultural warrior group, but most GOPers see Cruz as the one to ultimately emerge. As the campaign wears on, Cruz has the combination of experience, money and infrastructure to survive the slog. The longer Trump and Carson sit under the microscope and the pressure, the less appealing they look.”

Indeed. As I have always said, your 2016 GOP Nominee will be Ted Cruz. I keep reminding you because I want credit when it happens. I’ve been saying it since 2013.