Pryor (AR) is probably toast.
Landrieu will be also if Obama fails to go ahead with Keystone XL. One
could wait until after the LA primary, except that Louisiana's open
primary is on the same day as the general election day in all other
states, November 4th. If no one cracks 50 %, then they have a runoff
with the top two candidates a few weeks later. Which means that he would
have to bottle that recommendation up for about 10-11 months. I've heard
of procrastination, but that's a bit much.
And the delay would be spun as trying to save Landrieu's @$$. Obama's
popularity in the Bayou State? About 39 %, maybe lower.
David
"If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it
costs when it's free
"If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it
costs when it's free."*---P. J. O'Rourke*
On 2/2/2014 1:47 PM, [email protected] wrote:
The New Yorker
Comment
On the Trail
by Steve Coll
<http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/bios/steve_coll/search?contributorName=steve%20coll>
February 10, 2014
Last month, Colorado opened its first retail marijuana shops. At the
Colorado Springs airport, there are now bins to help departing
travellers remember to drop their pot before flying off to less
liberated states. The law legalizing marijuana in Colorado was the
result of a long grass-roots campaign that culminated, in 2012, in a
winning ballot vote, and was one of the most surprising
left-libertarian successes in recent years. But pot legalization
(Washington State has approved a similar law) is a difficult political
harbinger to categorize.
Colorado has a free-range-inspired history, and the new law might be
understood as the latest reimagining of frontier freedom. It has not
been a mellowing project, however. The campaign was fought amid a
series of bruising battles over social and economic issuesâEUR"gun
control, fracking, taxes, school reform, and civil unions for gay
couplesâEUR"that Colorado and its Democratic governor, John
Hickenlooper, Jr., have been engaged in during the years of President
ObamaâEUR^(TM)s Administration.
The stateâEUR^(TM)s unruliness can be explained in part by the
electoral math. Registered voters are almost equally split among
Democrats, Republicans, and independents. ColoradoâEUR^(TM)s political
statutes allow citizens to introduce ballot initiatives, a situation
that encourages populist campaigning on unconventional issues. A
rising Latino population has enlivened the immigration debate. And an
oil and natural-gas drilling boom has exacerbated long-running
arguments about land rights and environmentalism. The midterm
elections will likely be closely contested and fuelled by heavy
spending by outside interests, and the results may help to define
President ObamaâEUR^(TM)s electoral legacy. One of his greatest
political achievements has been to revive or solidify the Democratic
PartyâEUR^(TM)s standing in the West, particularly in Colorado,
Washington, Nevada, Oregon, and New Mexico. He was the first
Democratic Presidential candidate to prevail in Colorado since 1992,
and he did so twice. In addition to the governorship, Democrats now
hold both houses of the legislature and both U.S. Senate seats. During
the next two years, Democrats across the countryâEUR"not only the
presumptive Presidential favorite, Hillary Clinton, but many
candidates for the Senate and the HouseâEUR"will have to decide how
best to recast the PartyâEUR^(TM)s ideas and campaign narratives for
the post-Obama era, without giving up the political territory that he
has conquered. It is not at all obvious how they should go about that.
The task has been further complicated by the PresidentâEUR^(TM)s
approval ratings, which have been pulled down by the dismal Obamacare
rollout and, especially, by his inability to get anything through
Congress. As in 2010, the PresidentâEUR^(TM)s struggles in Washington
may undermine Democrats this year, too.
Some Democrats see promise in a bolder conviction politicsâEUR"in the
unabashedly progressive platform and rhetoric that lifted New York
Mayor Bill de Blasio to office in November, and in the pointed
critique of inequality offered by Senator Elizabeth Warren, of
Massachusetts. Obama and his allies in the Party leadership, however,
are charting a more cautious courseâEUR"no doubt with an eye on the
coming midterms. In last weekâEUR^(TM)s State of the Union address,
the President emphasized some populist ideas that poll well with
independent voters, such as raising the minimum wage and giving tax
breaks to companies that create jobs for Americans. Yet he said
nothing about Wall Street pay or union-organizing, and barely
mentioned gun controlâEUR"something that he championed last year,
after the elementary-school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, by
trying to push Congress to buck the gun lobby and pass modest
restrictions. It was a noble attempt, but it failed after a compromise
worked out by Senators Joe Manchin and Patrick Toomey couldnâEUR^(TM)t
attract enough votes, and the reality of that failure is that
Democrats in the West and the South must now run away from a reform
that the President once ardently promoted.
This year, in Colorado, Senator Mark Udall faces a difficult
reëlection fight. His race is one of some half a dozen that could
determine whether Democrats maintain control of the Senate as the 2016
Presidential primary campaigns begin. Whether UdallâEUR"or incumbents
in those other races, including Mary Landrieu, of Louisiana, and Mark
Pryor, of ArkansasâEUR"still regards the PresidentâEUR^(TM)s support
as an asset isnâEUR^(TM)t certain. After the State of the Union, CNN
asked the Senator if he would invite Obama to campaign with him. Udall
dodged. âEURoeColoradans are going to reëlect me based on my record,
not on the PresidentâEUR^(TM)s record,âEUR? he said.
Governor Hickenlooper has suffered whiplash on gun policy, too. Early
last year, he pushed through legislationâEUR"similar to the bill that
failed in the SenateâEUR"after Newtown and the 2012 mass shooting at a
movie theatre in Aurora. That legislation requires background checks
on buyers in private gun sales, and limits an assault rifleâEUR^(TM)s
magazine to fifteen rounds. These are hardly radical restrictions, but
gun-control advocates hailed the legislation as a template for how
courageous Democrats in rural and Southern states can defy the
National Rifle Association and enact new limits. Nevertheless, the
N.R.A. supported recall votes in Colorado that cost two state senators
who were allies of Hickenlooper their seats; a third resigned, fearing
defeat. âEURoeIâEUR^(TM)ve spent a lot of time trying to think about
how to do things differently,âEUR? the Governor remarked recently
about the backlash the legislation created. âEURoeI think we were
ahead of parts of the state.âEUR?
Hickenlooper also faces reëlection in November. His ambivalence about
his own gun bill reveals his capacity for political resilience; he is
an accessible and winsome candidate. And he, along with Democrats
across the country, will be helped by the Republican PartyâEUR^(TM)s
remarkably persistent self-destructive tendencies. According to the
polls, the candidate most likely to win the Republican gubernatorial
nomination in Colorado this year is Tom Tancredo, the former
congressman and anti-immigration campaigner who once called Miami
âEURoea Third World country,âEUR? because of its many Spanish
speakers. Hickenlooper defeated Tancredo in 2010.
The Democratic Party is hardly leaderless or adrift. Yet it is the
type of experimentation that Hickenlooper conducts in his reëlection
bid that will shape the PartyâEUR^(TM)s evolution. In 2008, then
Senator Obama accepted the nomination for the Presidency in
DenverâEUR^(TM)s Mile High Stadium. A crowd of eighty-four thousand
waved âEURoeChangeâEUR? signs. Washington, as we all know by now,
proved substantially intractable. Democrats will be watching Colorado
again this year, hoping that it will show them another path to
victory. â^(TM)¦
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