Tuesday Open Thread [9.29.2015]

Josh Marshall games out Boehner’s resignation and what comes next:

One is that Boehner’s resignation effectively ended talk of a government shutdown. In part this is because the fire-breathers in the House have no cudgel over him now. He’ll avoid a shutdown with Democratic votes if he needs to. Threatening to depose him if he does doesn’t really cut much now. But on a broader level – and the second point – House right wingers seem basically okay with this or resigned to it. Because dethroning Boehner is a far bigger scalp or accomplishment than yet another shutdown. Finding out precisely what went into Boehner’s decision to jump now is largely beside the point. The House hardliners wanted him gone and he’s gone. Their power has gone up dramatically.

And why was it so important for Boehner to go (and McConnell, too, as they’re now demanding)? The answer is as clear as it is disconnected from reality. Because in their minds it was Boehner who was preventing them from getting a clean shot at President Obama. This take is even echoed in DC echo chamber publications like The Hill which says that even though Boehner’s departure avoids a shutdown, “it will almost certainly complicate life for President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky).”

This is a basic misunderstanding of the dynamics of the situation, actually a fundamental one – based again on the assumption that the only thing standing in the way of the House “Freedom Caucus” and right wing glory is that they haven’t shut the government down enough, or haven’t voted to repeal Obamacare enough. Was John Boehner really running interference for President Obama, shielding him from the ferocious fury of the right wing of the House caucus or was he frequently bending over backwards to find ways to avoid House nutballs from inflicting even more damage on the party’s national standing? […]

So in terms of headaches and high-wire acts and legislative hostage taking, Boehner’s departure may create some more work for the Obama White House. But if you expand your field of vision out beyond the Washington Beltway, the picture looks rather different. And here’s where we get to point three. If the right wing of the House GOP caucus really gets to run the show in the House and begins doing things that overwhelming majorities of the public are against, that’s actually not a good thing for the GOP. That’s especially so during a presidential race since presidential candidates will inevitably get drawn into bidding wars over how much they support the latest quixotic primal scream from the House Republicans, which will in term give them extra baggage to carry into the general election. […]

In other words, the focus is on the 2016 election. By that measure, while Boehner’s departure may not be good for the country, it is quite good for Democrats. Because it leaves the folks focused on maximizing the self-inflicted injuries to the GOP in charge of the show.

Stan Collender: “The Boehner resignation makes it hard to develop a realistic scenario that results in a government shutdown when the fiscal year begins this Thursday. If everything goes as expected, after the Senate adopts a clean CR early this week and sends it across the Capitol, Boehner will bring it up for a vote and the House will pass it easily, thanks to substantial support from Democrats. As a result, the government shutdown that looked so likely a week ago will be averted.”

“But it will be a very different story when this soon-to-be-passed CR expires in December. All the factors that make a shutdown this week so improbable will make it far more likely to happen near the end of the year.”

Excellent. The closer to the primary elections and caucuses the better.

NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–CLINTON V. GOP–NBC News/WSJ:

Clinton 49, Trump 39
Fiorina 45, Clinton 44
Clinton 45, Bush 44
Carson 46, Clinton 45

NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–CLINTON V. GOP–NBC News/WSJ:
Biden 56, Trump 35
Biden 47, Fiorina 41
Biden 48, Bush 40
Biden 49, Carson 41
NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–SANDERS V. GOP–NBC News/WSJ:
Sanders 52, Trump 36
NATIONAL–OBAMA PRESIDENTIAL APPROVAL–NBC News/WSJ: Approve 47, Disapprove 47

Jonathan Capehart analyzes a potential Keven McCarthy speakership:

That House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) could become the chamber’s next speaker should give everyone pause. Neither he nor the nation will be freed from the passions of the far-right whose incessant revolts and “unrealistic” expectations forced Speaker John Boehner to gleefully choose to spend more time with his family. […] As I’ve said before, that there have been so many legislative failures should call into question not only McCarthy’s ability to count, but also whether he had Boehner’s best interests at heart.

A must read from Norm Ornstein:

Trying to show that Republicans could govern responsibly, without another government shutdown or debt-ceiling showdown, [Boehner] faced a nearly unprecedented motion from his own ranks to vacate the speakership, with a strong chance that he would be ousted from the post unless Democrats—at a price—bailed him out. That would have left him in a weakened and embattled state for a miserable 15 months remaining in the 114th Congress. The day after the high point of his tenure—the appearance of the Pope at his side for a joint session of Congress—he decided it was no longer worth it.

There is a bigger backstory. Since 1994, when Newt Gingrich led his party tribe from 40 years of wandering in the desert of the minority to the promised land of House majority, Republicans have become more stridently anti-government and anti-Washington. They have also, when in the majority, become less interested in trying to find policy solutions across party lines. Their desire to act like a parliamentary majority, maintaining rigid discipline and working only internally, became known as the “Hastert Rule” under Gingrich’s successor.

Perfect party discipline continued when Republicans, in the minority, faced Barack Obama in his first two years—unity that translated into reflexive opposition to everything Obama wanted to do. It was part of a broader strategy to delegitimize Obama and Democrats; to cultivate anger and unhappiness as Gingrich had done in 1994 in the midterm elections in 2010; and to seize back majority status, undo the Obama program, and cut government dramatically.

The strategy was led by a group of younger House members who called themselves the “Young Guns”—Eric Cantor, Kevin McCarthy, and Paul Ryan.

Jonathan Martin:

Donald J. Trump was never exactly a happy warrior, but with some of his Republican rivals gaining on him, he is showing clear signs of discontent. Appearing here on Wednesday afternoon at what was billed as an African-American small business meeting, Mr. Trump used his remarks before a largely white audience to argue that his lead in the polls was not being sufficiently covered, repeatedly complained about the high temperature inside the Ronald Reagan Library at last week’s debate, and lamented that any attacks on Carly Fiorina would be depicted as sexist.

And he did so in a convention center ballroom in which about a third of the seats were unfilled.