BREATHING
FIRE
All of this assumes that the
GOP doesn’t exacerbate its problem with key voter groups in the
years ahead. For example, the immigration fight to come has some
Republicans openly worrying
that the strident anti-everything
voices in the House will do even
further damage to the party’s relationship with Hispanics.
“I’m concerned,” the Republican
operative told me. “It’s not like the
House Republicans are just going
to pass immigration and nobody’s
going to say anything stupid.”
For much of the fiscal cliff fight,
House Republicans were casting
themselves as the champions of
the rich who refused to allow taxes
to go up on people making $1 million a year or more.
“We are going to be seen, more
and more, as a bunch of extremists,” Rep. Steven LaTourette of
Ohio fumed to the National Journal on the night that House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) “Plan
B” bill — which would have extended the Bush tax cuts for everyone making less than $1 million a
year — failed to pass.
The leading 2016 prospects on
the Republican side have made
clear that they intend to start
steering the party away from the
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rocks. Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan
both gave speeches at the annual
Jack Kemp dinner in December
that were directed at the middle
class and the poor. Rubio, in particular, used his biography to connect with the powerless and those
struggling to make it. It was an
eloquent speech, but Rubio and
the others are fighting against a
dynamic years in the making. Even
after its recent shellacking, it’s not
clear what the Republican Party
wants its ideas to accomplish beyond the creation of profits.
As for the president, there are
fresh signs that he intends to try
to use the grassroots network his
campaign built as a tool during his
second term, something he largely
failed to do in his first. Four days
before Christmas, Obama responded in a video to an online petition
— made possible in September
2011 when the White House created such a system — requesting that
he act on gun control in the wake of
the Newtown, Conn., shootings.
“Hey everybody,” Obama began.
“Hundreds of thousands of you,
from all 50 states, have signed
petitions asking us to take serious
steps to address the epidemic of
gun violence in this country.”
“So I just wanted to take a moment today to respond and to let
you know,” Obama said.
“We hear you.”