61% of Young REPUBLICANS Favor Same-Sex Marriage
61% of young Republicans favor same-sex marriage http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/03/10/61-of-young-republicans-favor-same-sex-marriage/ --On the ...
By: David Pakman Show
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The Senate playing field has shifted in Republicans' favor over the last several weeks thanks to recruiting successes in Colorado and New Hampshire, as well as a national political environment that looks increasingly treacherous for Democrats.
Elephants. (EPA/DAI KUROKAWA)
That shifting has led to rising confidence among Republican strategists about the party's chances of retaking the six seats the party needs to regain the Senate majority in 2014.
After the last two Senate elections, this will be the year Charlie Brown finally gets to kick the football," predicted prominent Republican pollster Glen Bolger. "Republicans have more opportunities than they have in the past, the terrible candidates are not catching the better general-election candidates napping like they did in cases like Christine ODonnell and Richard Mourdock, and the [National Republican Senatorial Committee] is doing a good job ensuring candidates have a stronger digital presence than GOPers have had in the past. And yes, in this analogy, Harry Reid is Lucy, crabby as ever.
Even Democrats have begun to acknowledge the problems in the fight for the Senate -- albeit privately.
"There is no doubt that the Senate outlook has deteriorated significantly in the past six weeks," admitted a prominent Democratic strategist. "Between the map and the [Affordable Care Act's] unpopularity in the states on the map, it has gone from being a jump ball to advantage Republicans."
Viewed broadly, there are now 11 Democratic-held seats in varying levels of peril -- and 12 if you consider the Virginia seat held by Sen. Mark Warner. (Republicans argue Democratic-held seats in Oregon and Minnesota belong on that list as well.) That is a significant expansion of the playing field from even a few months ago -- thanks largely to decisions by Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) and former U.S. senator Scott Brown (R-Mass.) to run in Colorado and New Hampshire, respectively. In each case, races that were not considered competitive immediately became so thanks to Republican recruits. (Something similar happened in Virginia, where former Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie's candidacy gives Republicans a credible and serious candidate -- although, unlike in New Hampshire and Colorado, there is almost no sign that Warner is in any trouble as of yet.)
That broader playing field matters for two big reasons. First, it gives Republicans a wider margin for error. They need a six-seat pickup and you'd much rather try to win six out of 12 than six out of six or seven. (Trying to run that sort of inside straight to the majority is where Republicans found themselves in 2012 -- and they wound up losing rather than gaining seats.) That means that even if Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D) wins in New Hampshire -- and most polling shows her with a comfortable edge over Brown -- Republicans have lots of other pathways to the majority. Second, a broader playing field -- particularly in expensive media markets like Boston's, which covers the southern half of New Hampshire, Denver and, possibly, Washington, D.C. -- means that Senate Democrats and their corresponding outside groups will have their dollars stretched as they attempt to retain the majority. Remember that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee's prime mission is to reelect its incumbents; so, if the committee has to spend money in New Hampshire, Virginia and Colorado, that means less money for, say, the open seat in Georgia or Alison Lundergan Grimes's challenge to Sen. Mitch McConnell in Kentucky.
And, it's not simply that there are more Republican opportunities on the board. It's that a closer look at the 11/12 competitive seats suggests that where and how the races are playing out makes the GOP's hand even stronger. In three states -- Montana, South Dakota and West Virginia -- independent handicappers like Charlie Cook and Stu Rothenberg rate Republicans as favorites to take over. If you accept that premise -- and we do, although Montana has the potential to be more competitive than the other two -- that means Republicans must win three out the following eight states to win back the majority: Arkansas, Alaska, Colorado, Iowa, Louisiana, Michigan, New Hampshire and North Carolina.
Of those eight states, Mitt Romney carried four of them -- Arkansas, Alaska, Louisiana and North Carolina -- in his unsuccessful bid for president in 2012. He won 45 percent in Michigan in 2012 and 46 percent in Colorado, Iowa and New Hampshire. In short, none of this octet of states are solidly Democratic. And, if Republicans were only to win the states that Romney carried in 2012 -- a reasonable prospect given the national political environment (more on that below) -- they will be in the majority come 2015.
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DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - Republicans in the Iowa Senate want legislative leaders to revive a measure that would ban the remote distribution of abortion-inducing drugs.
The bill cleared the Republican-majority House, 55-42, but has been declared dead since the Democratic-controlled Senate didnt take action prior to last weeks legislative deadline. In a news conference Monday, minority Republicans called on leaders in the Senate to bring the legislation to the floor for a vote.
We believe, with the help of leadership from both parties, that we can bring this to the floor, said Sen. David Johnson, R-Ocheyedan.
The measure would prohibit the use of webcams or teleconferencing as a means of dispensing abortion pills to patients in remote locations. Instead, women seeking an abortion would have to be in the presence of a physician when receiving the drugs.
Sen. Joe Bolkcom, D-Iowa City, said in a statement that such a measure would mean refusing health care to rural Iowans.
Im disappointed Iowa Republicans have launched a new front in the national so-called war on women by opposing affordable, safe access to health care for rural Iowans, he said.
But Sen. Nancy Boettger, R-Harlan, said the Republican effort is not a war on women. Its for women.
The Iowa Board of Medicine adopted rules last summer regarding the administration of abortion drugs, which were set to go into effect in November. These rules do not explicitly mention telecommunication services, but require the physical presence of a physician.
Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, which provides abortion pills at 12 remote locations throughout Iowa, challenged the regulations, and a judge ruled the organization could keep using video conferencing to distribute the drugs until the matter is resolved by the courts.
Johnson said legislative action is needed to affirm what the Board of Medicine deems good practice. He said banning the remote distribution of abortion pills would not interfere with other applications of telemedicine.
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hide captionFirst lady Michelle Obama at an Affordable Care Act event in March.
First lady Michelle Obama at an Affordable Care Act event in March.
Ever since Republicans began using the words "repeal and replace" back in 2010 to describe their intentions for the Affordable Care Act, they've faced a question: What, exactly, would they replace it with?
While there's currently no clear Republican alternative for the health care law, President Obama's signature domestic achievement, the House Republican leadership is signaling there will be one this year.
The signal came in the form of an interview The Washington Post's Robert Costa had with House Majority Whip Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the third-highest-ranking official in the House GOP's leadership.
The goal: give voters a clear way to distinguish the Republican and Democratic approaches as part of the GOP plan to bludgeon Democrats with the controversial health care law at every opportunity this midterm election year.
While there apparently isn't yet a detailed alternative to analyze, the concepts being considered as part of the proposed replacement are far from new. Indeed, they've been part of Republican alternatives from conservative think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation.
The final GOP package could include old standbys like health savings accounts, expanding state-run high-risk pools for the hardest-to-insure individuals, and the sale of insurance across state lines.
One immediate problem for Republicans is that these ideas don't exactly have buy-in from the insurance industry like, say, the individual mandate did, and without its backing, they would be hard to pull off.
Indeed, the insurance industry might be expected to fiercely lobby with its ample war chest against some, if not all, the GOP proposals.
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A Question for Black Republicans
Articles referenced http://politic365.com/2014/03/13/paul-ryan-inner-city-comments-had-nothing-to-do-whatsoever-with-race/ http://www.politicususa.com/2014/0...
By: New Possibilities
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