Progressive Breakfast

MORNING MESSAGE: Obama Has Political Capital

OurFuture.org's Richard Eskow: [1] "So, let’s get this straight: A Republican President is re-elected in 2004 with 284 electoral votes and the pundits say he has the 'political capital' to push an extreme right-wing mandate. A Democratic President gets re-elected in 2012 with 303 electoral votes, and they’re telling us he needs to 'unite a divided country.' Nonsense. This election was a clear and unequivocal victory for the populist positions the President took on the campaign trail."

Biden, Boehner Begin Budget Dance

Biden asserts tax mandate. HuffPost quotes: [2] "There was a clear, a clear sort of mandate about people coming much closer to our view about how to deal with tax policy."

Boehner's conciliatory tone does not necessarily mean a new GOP position on taxes. W. Post: [3] "Boehner and Republicans have long promised to enact comprehensive tax reform that would curb tax exemptions as long as that reform lowered tax rates instead of raising them. He’s also long said he’s open to more revenue so long as it comes from a stronger economy rather than higher taxes. Again, nothing new there. That’s classic supply-side economics, and most Democrats and most economists doubt it applies to the current tax code. So there’s no deal if that’s what Boehner is proposing. But Boehner’s final sentence is interesting: 'Because the American people expect us to find common ground, we are willing to accept some additional revenues, via tax reform.' That sounds like he’s accepting some version of the Simpson-Bowles approach to tax increases, in which you close tax breaks and deductions and use some of the money to lower rates and some to reduce the deficit."

Democrats not taking Boehner's bait. TPM: [4] "...their hopes rest on a vague suggestion that they’ll concede higher revenues in a future tax reform agreement with Obama, so long as he drops his demands for higher tax rates and agrees to cut entitlement spending. This sounds familiar because it’s broadly speaking the same deficit cutting deal Republicans spent most of this past Congress pursuing — one that raises little, if any revenue, let alone revenue from high earners. And early signs indicate that Democrats won’t bite."

Signers of Grover Norquist's anti-tax pledge fare poorly. ThinkProgress: [5] "... at least 55 Republican House incumbents or candidates who signed the pledge — and 24 Republican Senators or hopefuls — lost on Tuesday. Linda McMahon (R-CT), Senator Scott Brown (R-MA), Treasurer Josh Mandel (R-OH), Secretary of State Charles Summers (R-ME), former Gov. Tommy Thompson (R-CA) all signed the pledge and were attacked by their Democrats opponents in face-to-face debates over the issue. All five were defeated in their Senate bids."

National People's Action launches 25-city grassroots push for a "Fair Deal": [6] "Either Congress and the President will ensure that corporations and the richest 2% pay their fair share or the rest of us will pick up their tab and face devastating cuts ... We're taking this message to our senators and representatives: if you want to get our economy back on track we need to focus on additional investments in jobs and services that rebuild our economy."

Values Over Demographics

President Obama's pollster stresses election about "values" not "demographics" in NYT oped: [7] "The president’s victory was a triumph of vision, not of demographics. He won because he articulated a set of values that define an America that the majority of us wish to live in ... 89 percent of those surveyed agreed that 'for my children to have the economic opportunities I’ve had, we need to make real investments in education, creating world-class schools and making college more affordable.' Mitt Romney’s negative drumbeat about the president’s record and his insistence that our economic agenda was failing were essentially tone-deaf, missing the mark with voters to such an extent that they undermined the central premise of his candidacy — his economic expertise."

Republicans ponder shifts on abortion and immigration to get in sync with modern America. Politico: [8] "West Virginia Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, who’s considering a Senate bid in 2014, said Republicans had to confront the reality that they’re 'not diversified like the country ... It’s a broader issue than women just being concerned about abortion. There’s a concern that people in the Republican Party want to intervene in the choices women have,' ... Republican State Leadership Committee President Chris Jankowski, whose group supports GOP candidates in non-federal elections, put it this way: 'We ran into what I would describe as a buzz saw of Democrat-driven Hispanic turnout that was all about the top of the ticket but it caught us down ballot.' To get past that obstacle, Jankowski said Republicans need 'the immigration debate … to be addressed and settled in a way the Republican Party can live with.'"

Latino turnout was up. LAT: [9] "...Latinos represented a bigger share of the electorate this time. All told, Obama probably netted at least 1.4 million more Latino votes this year than in 2008, the exit poll data suggest. The increased vote provided his margin of victory in several states, including Colorado and Nevada, and also helped the Democrats win several close Senate contests. It gave Obama a similar margin in Florida, where he is leading but the result is still undecided. 'For the first time in United States history, the Latino can claim to be nationally decisive,' said Stanford University professor Gary Segura..."