Take a Bow, Mr. Speaker

October 17, 2013Danny Vinik 5 Comments

Speaker John Boehner

Last night, Congress passed the McConnell-Reid plan to reopen the government and avoid a default. It also includes an income verification requirement for Obamacare and sets up a bicameral committee that will attempt to come to a large budget deal by December 13th. In return for a 16 day government shutdown and debt ceiling brinksmanship, Republicans received a cosmetic change in Obamacare that does nothing substantial.

It’s easy to look at that and lament the wasted time and needless suffering that was caused by it. It’s easy to wish that John Boehner had decided on September 30th to break the Hastert Rule and pass a clean continuing resolution and clean debt ceiling increase. It’s easy to look for blame and settle on the speaker. But it’s wrong.

It’s wrong, because it ignores the internal political dynamics that exists in the Republican House conference and it holds Boehner to a standard that no politician should be held to. If Boehner had brought to the floor a clean CR and clean debt ceiling bill, he would’ve faced a revolt amongst his members. They would’ve lambasted him in the media and challenged his speakership. It would’ve been ugly.

But it wouldn’t end there. It would have created a deep fissure in the GOP. Anyone who voted for those bills would’ve faced a primary challenge. It would’ve pitted any conservative in favor of a quick retreat against those wanting to fight. The Tea Party would have gone to war against the establishment. It would eliminate any chance that the House could pass legislation until 2015. It would also put the Republican House majority in jeopardy. Imagine a year of Republican-on-Republican attacks, nasty primaries and voters choosing to stay home. This is what journalists are asking Boehner to do when they ask him to cut the Tea Party loose. They are asking him to tear his party in half.

For Boehner, this was never about defunding Obamacare or extracting policy concessions from the White House. He knew the first was never going to happen and the second was highly unlikely. The White House was looking to end debt-ceiling hostage taking and wasn’t going to negotiate. Boehner wasn’t going to let the U.S. default so he always knew he was going to surrender.

Instead, this was all about party unity. The longer Boehner postponed the day of surrender, the more he could keep his conference unified. The Tea Party can’t survive without the Republican Party and the Republican Party can’t survive without the Tea Party. Over time, the extreme tactics of the Tea Party may disappear as the political and policy consequences of their actions slowly build, but that take elections. It takes establishment candidates defeating Tea Party candidates in primaries. A Republican civil war reduces the power of both. It’s easy to see why liberals would love that outcome – it would give Democrats immense control of the legislative process. But it would be terrible for the Republican party.

This is political dynamic that John Boehner has to deal with. He must lead members that vary widely across the conservative political spectrum, who are overeager to make an impact and are willing to use extreme tactics to get what they want. He must deal with a newly invigorated grassroots base that attempts to undermine and replace him at every turn. And he faces all of this in a time when the speakership has fewer powers than ever before.

The past three weeks were his greatest challenge. He had to build up as much credibility with the Tea Party as he possibly could, knowing he would have no choice but to betray them in the end. That meant listening to them and letting them guide his actions. His strategy was to do whatever the Tea Party wanted. His moderate members were always going to support him and have his back when the debt ceiling vote came. The right-wingers were the ones he had to court.

After the deal last night, the results are in: His strategy was a huge success.

His members gave him a standing ovation during their conference meeting Wednesday – the same meeting where he announced that he was surrendering. One supporter of the #DefundObamacare movement said that Boehner’s speakership is “more secure than ever.” Rep. Raul Labrador, one of the most conservative members of the House, said he’s “really proud of Speaker Boehner.” Another hard-line conservative, Rep. Phil Gingrey, said yesterday “Speaker Boehner’s got more courage in his little finger than most of us do in our entire bodies.” These are the same members who would have challenged his speakership if he attempted to pass a clean CR and clean debt ceiling bill.

This is Boehner’s greatest accomplishment. He kept his party unified in the face of overwhelming odds. The fact that they split on the vote yesterday is meaningless. The Republican House stands as one, even if it doesn’t always vote that way. Anyone who thinks this was an easy feat for the speaker hasn’t been watching the internal dynamics of the Republican conference. John Boehner has the toughest job in politics and he’s performed it masterfully.

Take a bow, Mr. Speaker.

Ted Cruz’s 2016 Presidential Hopes Take a Hit

October 16, 2013Danny Vinik Leave a comment

Pew is out with a new poll today that confirms that Sen. Ted Cruz’s #DefundObamacare strategy was viewed favorably by the Tea Party and horribly by all other Republicans.

Before the shutdown, 47% of the Tea Party viewed him as favorable, compared with just 10% who didn’t. Not surprising, he’s even more popular now. He’s gone from a +37 favorable to a +66. He’s clearly a Tea Party hero, but he already was a Tea Party hero. He didn’t need to choose a futile strategy, shut the government down, piss off the Republican establishment and surrender without accomplishing anything. Ted Cruz failed mightily, but the Tea Party is very happy with him for putting up the fight.

The rest of Republicans? Not so much. His unfavorables nearly doubled and he went from a +10 to -6 in net favorables. That’s really bad.

So, did Cruz help himself or hurt himself for his 2016 chances?

There are two different schools of thought. One is that he first needs to win the primary and that will require Tea Party support. In that regard, his plan was a huge success. The other school of thought is that he will need money and the backing of the Republican establishment as well. Clearly he has failed there.

The reason that this has been such a disaster for him is that he already was a Tea Party favorite. If he hadn’t gone on this wild goose chase, his favorables wouldn’t have improved, but they probably wouldn’t have fallen either. No one else was going to use this strategy. If the Tea Party reacted negatively to congressional Republicans not using the government budget and debt ceiling to fight Obamacare, they would’ve taken it out evenly on all the 2016 GOP candidates (at least those in Congress). The blame would have been shared equally so it wouldn’t have put Cruz at a disadvantage. There wasn’t much of an upside or downside to not using the #Defund strategy.

On the other hand, there wasn’t much of an upside to using the strategy. Cruz became a Tea Party cult hero, but he already was well-regarded. There’s only so much he can improve. However, there was a large downside. The establishment found out who it doesn’t want in 2016. And that’s Ted Cruz. They hated every bit of this and are not going to forget quickly. These are the people who Cruz needs to fund his campaign and support him. They are also the people that he hadn’t convinced to support him in 2016. After the #Defund plan, they are all but certain to find a different candidate. That trumps any gains he made amongst the Tea Party. It’s a big setback for his 2016 presidential ambitions

The End of Debt-Ceiling Hostage Taking

October 16, 2013Danny Vinik 9 Comments

Greg Sargent had a good post yesterday explaining why Democrats are so adamant that they will not give any concessions for raising the debt ceiling:

Democrats, by contrast, don’t believe this constitutes acceptable governing. They don’t believe budget negotiations should proceed under these conditions. They are not making an argument about what the House majority can legally or Constitutionally do; they are making an argument about what they believe the House majority should and shouldn’t do, about what does and doesn’t constitute good governing. They are making an argument about governing norms. The Dem argument is that this practice should be renounced by both sides. Dems believe making concessions under these conditions now will legitimize the GOP demand for negotiations to happen under them, making default later all but certain, because this sort of standoff will happen again and again, ultimately leading to miscalculation and disaster.

Bingo. The key here is that Republicans only have leverage to extract concessions out of Democrats if they really are OK with breaching the debt limit. There are some who are, but the House GOP leadership isn’t. That’s been abundantly clear for weeks now as Boehner has repeatedly commented that the U.S. cannot default on its debts. It’s even clearer if you look at how House Republicans have ramped down their demands.

After Boehner’s plan fell apart in the House yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell stepped back in and quickly brokered a deal that would stave off a default. It funds the government until January 7 and raises the debt ceiling until February 15 while strengthening the income verification requirements in Obamacare. It does not include a delay of the reinsurance fee, of the medical device tax or a ban on the Treasury Department’s use of extraordinary measures. It also sets up a bicameral conference committee with the goal of coming to a budget agreement by December 13. Make no mistake: this is a Republican surrender. The income verification condition is simply an enforcement of current law. The rest is a clean CR and clean debt ceiling hike, exactly what President Obama and Democrats have been calling for the past month.

Due to parliamentary rules, a single senator (cough Ted Cruz cough) could drag out the Senate bill so a vote doesn’t take place until Saturday or Sunday. If all senators agree by unanimous consent to forego debate on the bill, it can be voted on today and head to the House, but that requires the agreement of all senators. If the bill originates in the House and is passed, the Senate can take it up and vote on it soon after. Thus, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is pushing Boehner to bring it to the floor to speed up this entire process. No matter what though, it looks like the speaker will allow a vote on the bill, which will then pass with mostly Democratic support.

There is a more important point here: This is the end of debt-ceiling hostage taking.

It’s over. Boehner and Co. capitulated completely, because their entire strategy was a bluff. This deal proves that Republicans aren’t willing to breach the debt limit. If Boehner ever threatens to do so again in the future, no one should take it seriously. He no longer has the credibility to make those threats. The debt limit is not an extortion device. A minority party cannot use it to extract a policy concession from the majority. This is the new governing norm.