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Last week saw the Democratic Party save the Affordable Care Act, a remarkable victory for an out-of-power party. Members celebrated in the traditional Democratic way tumbling into pointless and repetitive infighting, prodded happily along by people(like me) in the media. Watching the latest round of this, I had a question that cut against some of my reportorial interests:

Why do Democrats keep falling for this stuff?

Start with the abortion litmus test fight,which is on at least its third iteration since March. It's the same every time a Democrat (Tom Perez/Nancy Pelosi/Ben Ray Lujn) is asked whether the party will make support for abortion rights mandatory for its candidates. Of course not, a Democrat says as Rep. Ben Ray Lujn (D-N.M.), chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, put it, You need to make sure you have candidates that fit the district. This comports with our current version of reality, in which the DCCC dutifully spends money every two years to send antiabortion Democratic Reps. Collin C. Peterson (Minn.) and Daniel Lipinski (Ill.) back to Washington.

Continue with the Pelosi Question the nagging, obvious issue that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) will become Speaker of the House if Democrats win next year. McClatchy's Alex Roarty finds, as I have found, that Democrats running in swing districts including districts Hillary Clinton won last year can rarely bring themselves to say whether they want Pelosi to be speaker again. Like Roarty, I have tossed this question into every interview with an aspiring Democratic member of Congress; hardly ever has one indicated, without qualification, support for Pelosi.

In both cases, I keep wondering why Democrats can't find the escape hatch. Republicans have had similar problems with messaging very recently, and to a great extent, they've figured them out.

In a word: They pivot.

They start with the shared notion that the media's questions are meant to hurt them, and they find ways to spin the question around.

The Republican version of the Pelosi Question was (and still is) the Trump Question. In 2016, vulnerable Republicans handled questions about their explosive nominee by saying that he had his flaws, but their opponents would be puppets of Hillary Clinton.

It baffles me that no 2018 Democrat can do something similar. Pelosi is unpopular; they can acknowledge right away that they disagree with her. But they never pivot to say that their opponents back Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), whose favorable numbers have tumbled to Pelosian levels, or Donald Trump, who's tumbled even further. Seriously, I've never heard a Democrat do this they've just internalized that Pelosi is unpopular, so they curl up as if hiding from a hungry bear.

The Republican version of the abortion question? It's asked all the time: Do they support a total ban on abortion, even in cases of rape and incest? After 2012, when two Republican candidates blew winnable Senate races by using the question as a cue to ramble about pregnancies that result from rape, Republicans (led by the antiabortionSusan B. Anthony PAC) actively trained their candidates to pivot. The new answer: Why, exactly, were Democrats so extreme? In 2014, multiple Republicans turned the question around, daring the media to ask Democrats, as Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) put it, When is it okay to kill a seven-pound baby in the uterus?

Democrats should know by now that they'll be asked whether they have abortion litmus tests for candidates. In almost every case, they can redirect the question by pointing out that even antiabortionDemocrats refuse to defund Planned Parenthood; refuse to make the Hyde Amendment permanent (as we saw in a House vote this year); refuse, in other words, to sign onto scores of unpopular antiabortion measures.

Republicans had to lose a series of elections to figure out these pivots; they got lucky with Trump. As a reporter, I benefit tremendously when politicians can't figure a way out of a question. But I'm surprised every time.

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One weird trick Democrats could use to stop stumbling over Pelosi and abortion questions - Washington Post

Florida Power Couple Divorcing Over Trump

Interrogation Expert: Look at the Pattern of White House Leaks

A lifelong Democrat who voted for President Trump in November pushed back against claims that Trump Democrats are as mythical as unicorns.

"Do you believe in mermaids, unicorns and fairies? If so, you may have taken interest in a new mythical creature that appeared during the 2016 election: the Trump Democrat," wrote Dana Millbank of the Washington Post last week.

Ohio forklift driverGeno DiFabio said he knows many fellow Democrats who turned out to vote for Trump, including many in his Democratic county.

"I was always told the Democrats' are for the working man," he said. "All of a sudden the Democrats are the party for the working man."

DiFabio slammed what he saw as Democrats' abandoning coal miners in West Virginia.

"Those people work for generations on their bellies and their backs digging coal," he said. "And when it was politically expedient for the Democrats to throw them away, they vilified them."

President Trump invited DiFabio up on stage at a rally in Youngstown, Ohio last month.

"With everything against him, he's still doing what he set out to do," DiFabio said.

Dershowitz: Being Black Doesn't Give You a License to Call People Racist

Australian Cafe Charges 'Man Tax'

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Trump Democrats Are Real, One of Them Assures - Fox News Insider

Do Democrats in Congress want a future without Nancy Pelosi as face of the franchise? Fort Worth Star Telegram Replacing Nancy Pelosi as the leader of the Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives is a subject that Fort Worth Congressman Marc Veasey may be exploring. I think that for this particular Congress that Nancy is going to be the minority leader ... and more »

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Do Democrats in Congress want a future without Nancy Pelosi as face of the franchise? - Fort Worth Star Telegram

Late last month, Congressman Luis Gutirrez (D-Ill.), introduced the American Hope Act, H.R. 3591, with 116 co-sponsors, all Democrats.

The bill would provide conditional permanent resident status for undocumented aliens who were brought to the U.S. before their 18th birthday, which would permit them to live and work here legally for three years and put them on a path to Legal Permanent Resident status and citizenship.

Such bills are referred to as DREAM Acts, an acronym for Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act.

It might be more accurate, however, to call this bill The False Hope Act.

What about DACA?

On June 15, 2012, former president Barack ObamaBarack ObamaOvernight Tech: Senate panel approves FCC nominees | Dem group invests in progressive startups | Tech groups rip Trump immigration plan Russian PM: New sanctions amount to 'full-scale trade war' America's divisions: The greatest strategic vulnerability of our time MORE established a program to offer temporary lawful status to undocumented aliens who were brought here as children, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

The DACA application process required them to admit alienage, concede unlawful presence, and provide their addresses, which puts them at risk if an enforcement-minded president decides to deport them.

Also, ICE officers may check the immigration status of family members when they arrest DACA participants, which could result in entire families being deported.

Threat to DACA

In a letter dated June 29, 2017, eleven state attorney generals asked U.S. Attorney General Jeff SessionsJefferson (Jeff) SessionsKelly called Sessions to assure him job is safe: report Overnight Regulation: Senate confirms Trump pick to labor board | Court lets states defend ozone rule | Regulator seeks input on changing 'Volcker Rule' US attorney fired by Trump sends well-wishes to new FBI director MORE to phase out the DACA program. They warned him that if he does not agree to do this by September 5, 2017, they will amend a pending lawsuit in a Federal District Court to include a challenge to DACA.

Even if Sessions rejects the request to phase out the program, the administration apparently does not intend to defend DACA in court if it is included in the Texas lawsuit.

American Hope Act

Gutirrezs bill last month would allow undocumented aliens to apply for conditional permanent resident status if they:

Why hasnt a DREAM Act bill been enacted?

No one knows for sure. I think it is due mainly to the fact that the number of undocumented aliens who would benefit from such legislation could get quite large. Also, the fact that they are innocent of wrongdoing with respect to being here unlawfully does not make it in our national interest to let them stay. This is particularly problematic with respect to the American Hope Act. Section 4 of this bill includes a waiver that applies to some serious criminal exclusion grounds.

Although estimates for the number of undocumented aliens who could be impacted are not available yet for the American Hope Act, they are available for similar bills that were introduced this year, the Recognizing America's Children Act, H.R. 1468, and the Dream Act of 2017, S. 1615.

The Migration Policy Institute estimates that potentially 2,504,000 aliens would be able to meet the minimum age at arrival and years of residence thresholds for the House bill and 3,338,000 for the Senate bill. However, some of them would need to complete educational requirements before they could apply.

Trump is supporting a revised version of the RAISE Act which would reduce the annual number of legal immigrants from one million to 500,000 over the next decade. It does not seem likely therefore that he will be receptive to a program that would make a very substantial increase in the number of legal immigrants.

Not merit-based.

The American Hope Act would treat all immigrant youth who were brought here as children the same, regardless of educational level, military service, or work history. Gutirrez said in a press release, We are not picking good immigrants versus bad immigrants or deserving versus undeserving, we are working to defend those who live among us and should have a place in our society.

This is inconsistent with the skills-based point system in the revised version of the RAISE Act that Trump is supporting. It would prioritize immigrants who are most likely to succeed in the United States and expand the economy. Points would be based on factors such as education, English-language ability, age, and achievements.

Thus, Democrats American Hope Act as presently written is very likely to suffer the same fate as the other DREAM Acts.

Success requires a fresh, new approach, and the approach taken by the revised RAISE Act might work by basing eligibility on national interest instead of on a desire to help the immigrants. Certainly, it would be more likely to get Trumps support.

Nolan Rappaport was detailed to the House Judiciary Committee as an executive branch immigration law expert for three years; he subsequently served as an immigration counsel for the Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims for four years. Prior to working on the Judiciary Committee, he wrote decisions for the Board of Immigration Appeals for 20 years.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.

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Democrats introduce another 'false hope' act to immigrants - The Hill (blog)

Jeffrey Kuhn, chair of the Democratic Committee in Bethlehem, is appealing Tuesday's decision on candidates his committee has endorsed.

Jeffrey Kuhn, chair of the Democratic Committee in Bethlehem, is appealing Tuesday's decision on candidates his committee has endorsed.

Bethlehem Democrats appeal decision on candidates

BETHLEHEM The town's Democratic Committee's picks for highway superintendent and town council are appealing last week's court decision which disqualified them from the primaries.

Candidates Daniel Coffey and Giles Wagoner along with committee chair Jeffrey Kuhn and member Pamela Skripak appealed Albany County Judge Michael Mackey's Tuesday ruling that invalided their Board of Election petitions, clearing the way for rival candidates George Harder and Daniel Morin to run in November on the Democratic line.

The Albany judge ruled that the petitions for their candidacies were not signed properly and thus invalid.

The Appellate Court will hear the case at 10 a.m. Thursday, Aug. 24.

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Bethlehem Democrats appeal decision on candidates - Albany Times Union