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Cake day: June 9th, 2023

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  • As usual, Rep. Jeff Jackson (D, NC) offers an insightful take on how this will play out in congress:

    The government won’t shut down.

    Instead, we’ll play our familiar game.

    In round one, the right-flank will demand various poison pills in the government funding bill in exchange for their support. The Speaker will pretend to agree with them. He’ll even do TV interviews where he loudly tells us how much he agrees with them. He really has to sell how much he agrees with them… because of what he’ll do in round two.

    Round two is the Speaker throwing his right-flank under the bus and saying no to all their demands.

    There are a few ways he can do that, but the most likely path is that he’ll let their version of a funding bill pass the House and then become dead-on-arrival in the Senate. At which point, he’ll turn to his right-flank and say, “Guys, you know I tried. You watched me try. I did all those interviews where I agreed with you. But it looks like we’re outta moves here, so unfortunately I have to remove your excellent suggestions from the budget bill. Really sorry about that.”

    Round three is the right-flank pretending to be upset and going on TV to blast the Speaker for his “weakness” - but in reality, losing this fight works well for them.

    Why?

    Because pretending to be upset on TV is their favorite thing to do, so they won’t be genuinelyupset with the Speaker because he’s giving them an excuse to do it. As I’ve seen many times, this is a group that would rather accept a policy defeat that opens a political opportunity than give up a political opportunity to achieve a policy victory.

    So don’t buy the hoopla. Things will get super contentious leading up to September 30th (when the money to fund the federal government runs out), but we’ll get it done.

    Source








  • When Biden was still running RFK appealed to some voters as a more youthful alternative. The Kennedy name recognition also goes a really long way.

    Generally the more people learn about him the less they like him, and Harris becoming the nominee pulled back a lot of the “he’s too old” voters. So RFK’s voter base draws more from Republicans than Democrats now. But it used to be more evenly split.

    Additionally, there are still some Democrats (or Dem leaning independents) who like RFK’s antivax nonsense. Before Republicans elevated antivax theories to the party’s platform in 2016, that used to be something most commonly associated with the fringes of liberal communities.


  • Curiously, this article doesn’t explain why RFK tried to claim NY residency on his ballot application. It’s an odd oversight since the AP is usually pretty good about providing context.

    There’s effectively a constitutional requirement that a president and VP be from different states. The electoral college doesn’t allow a state to award its electors to candidates for president and vice president from the same state. Since parties want both of their candidates to be elected, they make sure to pick candidates from different states.

    Since RFK’s running mate is also from California, he is trying to claim NY residency because he has long ties to the state. However it’s pretty obvious that he doesn’t actually live in NY.




  • It would never be Porter because she’s from California, the same state as Harris. Technically the 12th amendment says the president and VP must be reside in different states, though I’m sure Harris has established residency in DC by now. The more salient issue is that the democrats will want to use the VP choice to help win a swing state, or lock in a state they consider necessary for electoral math.

    Whitmer was supposedly on the short list, but she said she would decline an invitation to be VP.