Mandate for President's Second Term Priorities

     That word again, but it's pretty clear. As we saw in the previous post, there is in fact a huge groundswell-that is, a mandate-for gun control Measures, especially universal background checks.

     Can you say mandate?    

    http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2013/01/this-is-what-mandate-look-like.html

     Talking Points Memo listed 3 top priorities for Obama: gun control, immigration, and climate control. Not too much has been talked about with climate control yet, but gun control has been front and center with the tragedy in Sandy Hook. Obama has already made it clear he's doing immigration soon.

      Here too, there's a mandate. Indeed, this is the one area where even lots of Republicans  say they want to do something. Macro Rubio recently made some proposals. Last night Bill O'Reilly gave a thumbs up to them:  

     "Add Bill O’Reilly to the list of conservative media personalities experimenting with immigration reform. The Fox News host told Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) on Wednesday that the senator’s plan, which closely resembles President Obama’s immigration framework, sounded reasonable."
    "Rubio’s proposed solution, although still vague, would give undocumented immigrants legal status and an eventual path to citizenship provided they meet a series of criteria that are mostly consensus benchmarks among immigration reform advocates."
 
“You have to come forward, you have to be finger printed, background checked for national security and crimes, you have to pay back taxes, you have to pay fines, you have to have been here for a significant period of time, know English and be assimilated,” Rubio told O’Reilly, who has been highly critical of illegal immigrants in the past on his show. “And if you do all of those things, what you get is a work permit, basically. A legal status, not a green card, to allow you to be in this country legally and to work.”

     http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/01/bill-oreilly-tells-marco-rubio-immigration-reform-sounds-pretty-fair.php?ref=fpnewsfeed

    O'Reilly explains his conversion:

    "Look, you may know this, and I’ve been very tough on this issue and border security but it is getting better,” O’Reilly said. “The stats show it is getting better. I think they have a handle on it now, and I like your program. I think it’s fair. So, I want you and President Obama to get on the phone and get this thing so it doesn’t turn into a bloody mess.”

     "O’Reilly and other conservatives appear to be performing a careful dance around Rubio on immigration, offering him cover with the tea party wing by framing him as a right-wing antidote to radical immigration reformers in the Democratic party. A piece in the Wall Street Journal this weekend portrayed Rubio’s ideas as a bold break from the left, writing that his plan “won’t please either the blanket amnesty crowd or the Minutemen.” But as reform opponent Mark Krikorian at the Center for Immigration Studies put it to the Miami Herald, his suggestions are essentially “the Rubio-Obama immigration plan” so far. White House press secretary Jay Carney said Wednesday in his daily briefing that Rubio’s recent statements “bode well” for reform and that he hopes other Republicans follow suit."

     It's all about the Kristol Premise-elections have consequences. He's right and despite what you here it's clear that the President is well positioned to get a lot of his priorities done during this term. I'll go out on a limb and say I think he'll get both immigration and gun control. As for the debt ceiling I've long said he'd get that.

    The playbook is clear. Legislation starts in the Senate collaborating with the White House which then is rammed through the House with minority Republican support and very large Democratic support.

    It's been suggested that there are now three parties in the House: Democrats, Republicans and the Tea Party. What we have is the alliance no one would ever have foreseen: a tacit Boehner-Pelosi alliance.

    Now we have a notable conservative calling for ending the Hastert Rule-that no legislation passes without majority Republican support:

    "House Republicans are huddling right now to strategize and soul search at their annual retreat, in Williamsburg, VA. Presumably over the next two days they’ll settle upon a strategy for confronting President Obama over the debt limit and the need to fund the government at the end of March.
If you’re wondering where John Boehner comes down on these questions, I think this is a decent clue."

     "That’s Boehner’s deputy chief of staff David Schnittger promoting an article by former Denny Hastert spokesman John Feehery. Supposedly RTs don’t equal endorsements on Twitter, but Feehery’s advice won’t sit well with House conservatives.

I think John Boehner won’t have much of a choice in these first several months of the 113th Congress. He has to get stuff done. He had to schedule the vote on the tax vote extension. He had to schedule a vote on Sandy relief if he was going to maintain any credibility for the GOP majority. And he will have to extend the debt limit.None of this is pleasant for the Speaker or for his majority. But my guess is that there are plenty of his colleagues who are more than happy to see all of these things pass and are just as happy to be able to vote against them.
I think the Speaker should give the President his debt limit extension, without any additional spending cuts included. But he should let the Democrats pass it on their own and have enough of his colleagues take a walk or vote present to let it get a majority.
I would recommend that the Speaker also send another debt extension with all kind of spending cuts included, but I am not sure that would pass the House.
The Speaker doesn’t have much room to maneuver. His conference is in no mood to compromise, nor in much of a mood to vote for anything that resembles responsible governance.
But as Speaker of the whole House, he has no choice but to schedule things that keep this country from defaulting on its debts and stay open.
The Hastert rule worked pretty well for Denny Hastert, but for the next couple of years, John Boehner might have to think more like Tip O’Neill if he wants to survive with his reputation intact.
 

     http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2013/01/former_hastert_spox_abandon_hastert_rule.php?ref=fpblg

     See I agree with this mention of Tip O'Neil. Boehner and the GOP will have to go along with Obama's priorities on many things as the Democrats back in the 80s had to go along with Reagan's. Again, it's the Boehner Premise.