Republicans bet the House on staying on offense

Winning the House for Democrats still seems like a far fetched dream….picking up 25 seats… but the GOP majority could be a lot less next session… and the Republican spending so far indicates a belief in a replay of 2010… going on offense on Democratic Districts… instead of securing their own…

Republicans bet the House on staying on offense:

 

Posted by Aaron Blake on October 1, 2012 at 1:56 pm

 

If the GOP’s House majority is in jeopardy, somebody forgot to tell the National Republican Congressional Committee.

The NRCC, the committee charged with keeping Republicans in control of the House, is spending nearly as much on offensive opportunities as on defense so far this cycle. That’s despite Democrats’ predictions that they could take 25 seats from Republicans and regain the majority.

Rep. David Loebsack (D-Iowa) is one of several House Democrats targeted by a Republican party that’s playing offense in 2012. (David Greedy/Getty Images)

To this point, the NRCC has spent about 39 percent of its money pursuing Democratic-held districts and 47 percent defending Republican-held districts, according to a Fix review of reports from the committee’s independent expenditure arm, which spends nearly all of the money going to individual races.

Democrats, by comparison, are playing more than twice as much offense as defense, spending 62 percent of their funds in GOP-held districts and 28 percent defending their own districts.

It was clear from the beginning of this election cycle that the 2012 race would be fought largely on GOP terrain; Republicans took 63 seats from Democrats in 2010 and have their biggest majority in six decades, so most of the traditionally competitive districts are held by a Republican.

But Republicans have played a surprising amount of offense, and that could wind up looking like either a stroke of genius or a huge mistake.

Read more...

The Next Congress.

While the odds for the WH are pretty stable at 70% win for Democrats, and possibly growing after the Ryan pick – the Congress is more of a tossup:

GOP House, Tossup Senate.

The House looks decided with 229 solid or leaning Republican, majority is at 218.

The Senate is close with 47 solid/leaning Dems and 46 solid/leaning Republican. The seven tossup states are Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, Virginia and Wisconsin.

The most media-friendly races might be Maine after the resignation of Olympia Snowe and a three-way race, the big battle in Massachusetts with Scott Brown vs. Elizabeth Warren, Virginia after Jim Webb, and Wisconsin as the home state of Paul Ryan and Gov. Scott Walker.

In short: Most likely another deadlocked Congress with no super-majority in the Senate.

Read more here.

Tax Pledge waning

The political cost of refusing all sorts of increase in federal revenue seems to grow. House Reps are now starting to walk away from the infamous Tax Pledge from private citizen / lobbyist Grover Norquist.

And what kind of authority does this document have anyways? Some seem to treat it like it’s above democracy and the Constitution.

Full story.

Congress back to work.

Recess is done tomorrow – with Senate getting back to work Tuesday and The House on Wednesday.

Schedules are not fully prepared due to Labor Day Weekend(!), but anyways, here are the prepared House businesses on Wednesday from 2-6pm:

1. H.Con.Res. 67 – Authorizing the use of the Capitol Grounds for the District of Columbia Special Olympics Law Enforcement Torch Run (Rep. Norton – Transportation and Infrastructure)
2. H.R. 2061 – Civilian Service Recognition Act of 2011 (Rep. Hanna – Oversight and Government Reform)
3. H.R. 2832 – To extend the Generalized System of Preferences, and for other purposes (Rep. Camp – Ways and Means)

And, of course, Thursday Sept 8th is the big speech on jobs in front of a Joint Congress. No huge surprises expected – no great consequence expected.

We need jobs, yes. By cutting minimum wage, safety regulations, marginal taxes, no. What? That’s communism!

Y’all know the rest.

Final Passage vote in the House approx 6pm ET.

Boehner bill dies on the spot - or gets killed in the Senate.

Both sides are debating in the House at the moment.

Then the final vote at 6pm, then over to Harry who wants to kill it before the day is over.

If it passes. 23 GOP nays is the limit – 25 have already declared defection.

But we’ll see.

 

Update. Vote is postponed. Maybe they’ll rather wait for Reids bill and kill that in the House. Or maybe Boehner didn’t get the votes – and wanted to avoid public failure.

More updates coming up..

Anthony Weiner – I LOVE this guy.

House Mouse Senate Mouse.. this is priceless..

More..

You reap what you sow.

Boehner’s assesment of the game of chicken:

Speaker John Boehner is warning his Republican colleagues that Democrats would “win” a government shutdown and the GOP would suffer a political catastrophe if the federal government runs out of money at the end of this week.

“The Democrats think they benefit from a government shutdown. I agree,” Boehner said during a closed-door, 90-minute meeting on House Republicans on Monday night, according to several lawmakers who attended the session.

More..

Lose-lose for Boehner.

The burdens of power..

Sen. Schumer is now slamming the House Speaker straight in the face – framing the budgetcut endgame as a simple choice between compromise or shutdown. Both will be an enormous disappointment and loss of face for the GOP and the House Leadership, in large part because Mr. Boehner himself previously condemned the whole concept of “compromise” as a weakness and a “sell-out”.

From the statement by Chuck Schumer today:

A compromise on the budget is right there for the taking, assuming the Speaker still wants one. We take it for granted that because of the intense political pressure being applied by the Tea Party, the Speaker needs to play an outside game as well as an inside game. As long as he continues to negotiate, it’s OK by us if he needs to strike a different pose publicly. Since last week, the two sides have made steady progress on a package of $33 billion in cuts. This is an historic level of spending cuts, it is the halfway mark between the two sides, and the Speaker has already agreed to this number privately. Differences may remain over where exactly the cuts should come from, but the only real question left is whether the political will exists to buck the Tea Party. At this point, we are so far down the road towards an agreement, and so little time remains before Friday’s deadline, that it would be a dramatic about-face for the Speaker to suddenly let things devolve into a shutdown, as many in the Tea Party are urging. As a result, we remain hopeful a deal will be reached.

Take that.

More.