Senate
Lincoln and Specter: Insiders, Outside
With 14 days until their respective primaries, Blanche Lincoln and Arlen Specter are up with two new ads trying to encapsulate their candidacies in a concentrated dose and carry the bloodied incumbents into the general. Both Senators have flagging approval ratings, but are currently polling (plurality) leads against their primary …
Mitch Endorses
In an unusual move, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell today endorsed his long time protege Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson for forced out, er, retiring Jim Bunning’s Senate seat.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fdC3Fnx5z0&feature=player_embedded]
With two weeks to go before the Bluegrass State’s first …
Bob Corker and Resolution Authority: Is Financial Reform a Recipe for Bailouts?
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell came out in vociferous opposition to the current financial reform bill on Tuesday, arguing the legislation “institutionalizes… endless taxpayer-funded bailouts” that will ultimately allow the failed giants of Wall Street to escape accountability.
McConnell’s criticism comes at a pivotal …
GOP Party Like It’s 1994?
Not so much. Today, I look at five reasons why this cycle is different from 1994… so far.
KBH Is Staying Put
Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson had pledged to resign her Senate seat in her bid for Rick Perry’s governor’s mansion. She lost the GOP gubernatorial primary last month to Perry and today announced that, in fact, she will not resign — as first reported by Reid Wilson over at Hotline. She intends to serve out her term which expires in …
Deja Vu
If you happened to have turned on C-SPAN in the last half hour you may have noticed the Senate was full of senators but no vote going on. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid convened the upper chamber to try and get consensus on how to proceed after Senator Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican, objected to proceeding to a one-month extension …
Al Frumin’s Bad Day
In the middle of a meeting in the early evening Wednesday on – what else? – reconciliation, the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Terrance Gainer interrupted proceedings to speak with the Senate Parliamentarian. Though neither man would discuss what was going on, reports soon emerged: Tea Party protesters were planning to picket the …
Temper, Temper…
Yesterday I reported that the GOP storm on health care seemed to be subsiding. Indeed, reconciliation looks on schedule to go through by Friday, though Senator Tom Coburn says he believes he’ll be able to successful strip out certain provisions forcing the Senate to send the bill back to the House for final passage. It seems, though, …
The GOP Storm on Health Care Begins to Subside
With the help of TIME’s Katy Steinmetz:
The last few weeks Senate Republicans were all sturm und drang. “The American people are getting tired of this crap,” Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican told ABC’s This Week. “If [Democrats do reconciliation], it’s going to poison the well for anything else they would like to …
The Rand Paul Phenomenon
Here’s a story from me out of Kentucky, where I went a few weeks ago to look at the GOP primary for Jim Bunning’s Senate seat. It’s hard to say who’s running a worse campaign, Rand Paul who has no message discipline and lacks charisma or Trey Grayson who doesn’t even post his events on his website (I’m still scratching my head …
Make ’em Filibuster, Jobs Edition
The Senate is bracing for a possible all-nighter as leaders have thus far failed to reach an agreement on the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) Act. You may remember this as Harry Reid’s relatively small $15 billion jobs bill that he introduced after yanking the Baucus/Grassley deal. The House then passed an amended version, …
Be Afraid, House Dems, Be Very Afraid (or Not)
Not to beat a dead horse, but Republicans continue to write ominous memos and give cryptic quotes about the political danger House Democrats face if they pass the Senate health bill. They’re publicly naming names now in an effort to scare wavering or vulnerable House Democrats into voting against the bill. (Steve Driehaus and Nick …