Democrats are counting on regaining support from older voters who switched to the GOP in 2008 and 2010 by attacking Republican plans to revamp Medicare. But Mitt Romney is proving to be a formidable competitor in this battle. Visit link: Both Parties Wooing Seniors
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Both Parties Wooing Seniors
It’s time to stand up for a friend. For 18 years, Mark Davis has been a talk radio staple in North Texas. Over the last several, he has regularly filled in for Rush Limbaugh and had an ever-widening influence over the conservative movement. Through it all, he has been a faithful friend to conservatives, effectively articulated what we stand for and championed the TEA Party movement from day 1. As of this week, Mark is off the air at WBAP . Cumulus bought the station and the parties were unable to reach an agreement on a new contract. While most of his listening audience assumes that he’s on vacation (since no formal announcement was made), Mark is left hanging in the wind. Cumulus has a reputation in the talk-radio community for being cheap when it comes to salaries and they are trying to gut Mark’s now that they own the station. It also appears that station owners think that Americans are tiring of conservative talk radio and specifically of the style that Mark delivers. I’ve been a loyal listener of Mark’s show for the majority of my life and have kept my dial tuned to WBAP in large part because of his influence. Even when we disagree on issues or candidates, Mark has always been kind, articulate and principled. He’s exactly the kind of man we need on the air, reinforcing conservatives and spreading our message. Mark has been standing with us for 18 years and it’s time that we stand up and let his station owners know that we want Mark back on the air. I hope that you will sign our petition to get Mark back on the radio at WBAP ! We will be sharing your comments online and forwarding them to the station owners. With your help, I hope we can communicate an idea of the influence that Mark has had over the conservative movement and how badly we want him back on the air. Visit TXAction.com to sign the petition and you can share our “ Bring Back Mark” graphic on Facebook through our page . Make no mistake, this is an attack on conservative talk radio as a whole. Today it’s Mark Davis. Who knows who it’ll be tomorrow. We need to make a concerted effort to fight for those who so eloquently champion our cause. Whether you’re in Texas or not, it’s time that we stand up for one of our own!
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Bring Back Mark Davis!
With America so evenly split politically, compromise would seem to beckon. For policy, it offers possible solution to long festering problems. For politics, it offers the prospect of seizing the center on which victory appears to balance.
Oral arguments for day one of the Obamacare lawsuits have ended; the subject of today’s argument was whether the individual mandate counts as a tax for the purposes of the Anti-Injunction Act. If it does, the Court can’t rule on its constitutionality until the mandate goes into effect in three years. Neither the Obama administration nor the parties challenging the law believe that the Anti-Injunction Act applies, but a lower court ruled that it does, so the Supreme Court assigned a lawyer to argue for that position. Reporters who were there say that the questions suggest that we’ll get a substantive ruling one way or another this year. From the right, Phil Klein tweets : “Oral args over. No merits today, but justices seemed broadly skeptical of idea that mandate is a tax.” And : “Ginsburg: ‘this can’t be a rev raising measure, bc if it’s successful, there won’t be any rev raised.’” And : “Breyer: ‘they called it a penalty and not a tax for a reason.’” And : “But Roberts skeptical that mandate can be separated from penalty: ‘Why would u have a requirement that is completely toothless?’” From the left, Jonathan Cohn has a similar reaction : “SCOTUS oral arguments over. Insta-rxn: Justices seemed skeptical of tax argument, and argument that anti-injunction act should block case…” And : “Breyer, Ginsburg were among those asking tough questions about why mandate penalty counts as a tax” We shouldn’t read too much into the Justices’ questions — they aren’t always predictive of the ruling — but the commentary does suggest that they’re leaning strongly against the Anti-Injunction Act argument, as both sides urged. Phil speculated this morning that this might have significant beyond this discrete issue: Though this morning’s arguments don’t concern the underlying merits of the challenges, in order for the Anti-Injunction Act to apply, the mandate would have to be seen as a tax. Thus, there is some overlap with one of the key defenses the Obama administration is offering for the mandate – that it is a constitutional exercise of the taxing power. So we may get some clue as to the justices’ thinking on the tax issue. I’m skeptical that we can read very much into the justices’ views on the individual mandate — the subject of tomorrow’s arguments — from their questions today, but take that for what it’s worth. UPDATE: Here’s Phil’s more detailed write-up of the morning. UPDATE: The audio and transcript of the morning’s arguments is
I say “threatened” because if the NY state legislature doesn’t come to a deal by Wednesday, this is the map that is very likely going to be the one to get used: …and there’s going to be several Members of Congress who will be very unhappy if that happens. Including Steve Israel of the DCCC. Compare this map to the current one and the first thing that leaps out: the districts are a lot more straightforward, especially outside of NYC. That should be the first indication that the lines weren’t actually drawn by politicians, of course. As to the most obvious details: Representatives Hochul, Buerkle, and Turner will be playing the parts of Major Sacrificial Lambs (Turner has reportedly already decided to run for the US Senate instead ). But there’s more subtle stuff going on below the surface; for example, as David Nir of dKos* noted but did not address , Charlie Rangel now has a Latino-majority seat. Frankly, that probably means that Rangel is on his last, or second to last, term. There’s little flourishes like this, scattered throughout the map; it, in fact, comes across as being somewhat hostile to New York politicians in general. Given that it was created because the state legislature is too busy fighting both itself and the governor over redistricting, this should hardly be surprising. Moving along… below are a list of the incumbents that I think are most in trouble with this map. The data comes from Red Racing Horses (H/T: @ CTIronman ): This chart needs a little explanation: ‘BO’ & ‘JM’ represent the popular vote totals for Barack Obama & John McCain in 2008; and ‘Dem’ & ‘GOP’ are likewise the partisan numbers. ‘Bush’ & ‘Lazio’ ask if either candidate won that area in the 2004 and 2000 elections, respectively. Green represents a candidate whose district went for both the opposite Presidential/Senatorial candidates in 2000 & 2004; yellow represents a candidate where the new district went for one, but not the other. So, looking at those numbers… pretty much explains why people consider Bishop, Buerkle, Owens, and Horchul at considerable risk: they’re now in districts that are historically hostile to their parties. And that’s also why people aren’t talking so much about Hayworth or the rest of the freshmen Republicans; 2008 may have been bad for the GOP in NY (and more or less everywhere else), but the historical numbers are good and they are, after all, incumbents. Finishing this up: note that the above numbers represent voting percentages as they would have occurred if the districts had existed in that form back then. To give an example: current DCCC Chair Steve Israel is currently in NY-02, which went for 56/43 Obama/McCain and 53/45 for Kerry/Bush . He will be running in NY-03, which would have gone 54/46 Obama/McCain and 52/48 Kerry/Bush. Which is why he’s on the list above, actually (Lazio won what would later be NY-03 in 2004)… and why this entire map is a not-very-subtle hint to the legislature that they have run out the clock on this particular game. Moe Lane ( crosspost ) *Gimme a break, it was a decent if admittedly Democratic-partisan analysis.
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The THREATENED NY Congressional District map.
