USNEWS & WORLD REPORT–THOMAS JEFFERSON STREET BLOG

Nada.

A Republican-controlled Senate isn’t likely to deliver the immigration reform we need.

An issue that isn’t going away.

By Peter FennSept. 25, 2014 | 3:00 p.m. EDT+ More

This is an LOL moment. Republicans are now arguing, six weeks before the election, that a Republican takeover of the U.S. Senate would result in serious immigration reform. In fact, they have the gall to contend that there is a better chance that Congress will overhaul the immigration system with the Republicans in charge than the Democrats.

Hello? Who could possibly not see through this outrageous claim? Is this supposed to entice Hispanic voters? Is this supposed to give Hispanics confidence that everything the GOP has done to scuttle immigration reform for the past decade will magically – presto chango! – change if Republicans win the Senate majority?

[SEE: Cartoons on Immigration]

To call this a cynical ploy would be a gross understatement.

The Democratic Senate, led by the bipartisan “gang of eight,” passed a very reasonable reform bill that included many things the Republicans wanted on enforcement: 40,000 border agents, a 700-mile fence and verification of employees’ legal status. It also included a compromise path to citizenship. What did the House do under total GOP control? Not a darn thing. No vote. No debate. No alternative legislation. Nada.

So, sure, we will really get things moving when Republicans have total control of Congress.

Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, may believe, as he says, “It needs to be fixed … the sooner we do it, the better off the country would be.” But, under intense pressure from his caucus, he deep-sixed reform when he had the chance.

Of course, the real question may be what the meaning of “reform” is?

[SEE: Cartoons about the Republican Party]

For a large number of Republicans, a comprehensive bill is dead on arrival. For those who cry “amnesty” their definition of reform is to shut down the border and deport as many people as possible. Some Republicans say we should do this piecemeal: Dribble it out, bill by bill. Nothing comprehensive. It is hard to imagine that would solve the problem. It would probably only make it worse and anger the Hispanic community and those who truly want to see a solution.

So it is a mystery, sort of, why Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., says: “I think the likelihood is better if Republicans take the Senate.” As a leader on the issue of immigration reform, Diaz-Balart surely knows the strength of his own party’s vehement opposition. He couldn’t get a discussion or a vote in the GOP-controlled House of Representatives.

Sadly, this claim of the clouds opening and the sun shining on immigration reform with a Republican Senate just doesn’t pass the laugh test.

http://www.myfoxdc.com/clip/10617622/political-headline-airstrikes-targeting-isis

This Isn’t Your Father’s Midterm Election

In the past, the Democrats’ current poll numbers would spell doom, but no longer.

Turnout will be key.

By Peter FennSept. 16, 2014 | 4:15 p.m. EDT+ More—-USNEWS & WORLD REPORT, THOMAS JEFFERSON STREET BLOG

If this year’s midterm elections, with their current polling numbers, had been held 15, 20 or even 30 years ago, the Democrats would be toast. Any incumbent who was polling near 40 percent in a matchup – with a president whose job approval was also in the low 40s and where the mood of the country was abysmal – would be dead, done, stick a fork in ‘em. The election would be called for the Republicans and barely after Labor Day.

But times have changed. Turnout models have changed. The amount of money in politics has changed. Voters’ expectations for their office holders have changed. Campaign dynamics have changed.

In the past, if you were tied with your challenger in September, it was probably over. If you weren’t at 50 percent going into Election Day, it was doubtful you would get there.

[GALLERY: Cartoons on the 2014 Congressional Elections]

Now the situation is vastly different. There is no question Democrats are at a distinct disadvantage – having to protect seven vulnerable seats in states that 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney carried – but consider the following: Republican negatives are as high or higher than Democrats’. There is no positive “change” message for the Republicans as there was in 1994 with the “Contract with America” slogan; there seems to be only a message of gridlock. Most of the current Senate races are not organized around a national movement as they were in 1980 but are individualized. Issues like Obamacare are in the rearview mirror.

Democrats still own issues like equal pay for equal work, birth control access, gay and lesbian rights, the minimum wage, college affordability and the middle-class squeeze. But there is a lot to play out in the next month and a half. Lots of ads, lots of money, lots of campaign time and, of course, lots of polls. And, in 2014, turnout will be key for these races. Can Democrats upend the traditional predictions of a Republican advantage in off-years?

If I were looking at the current poll numbers in the 1980s and 1990s, combined with the high “depression index” of many Americans now, I would declare a whole host of Democratic senators DOA in 2014. But that’s not how we assess these kinds of races any more, and the campaigns are still playing out with a fight to the finish. The old political rules have been altered, and the old-style campaigns no longer exist.

Fasten your seat belts. It’s going to be a wild seven weeks.

http://www.myfoxdc.com/clip/10568651/political-headlines-jim-innocenzi-amp-peter-fenn

http://www.myfoxdc.com/clip/10543048/political-headlines-jim-innocenzi-amp-peter-fenn-talk-midterm-elections