Peter Suderman:
I’m not sure where this goes, or how this ends. Republicans have repeatedly promised, in public, to move beyond repeal to replace, and privately many will even say that reform is more likely, but so far, work on plans that would do so has occurred largely at the margins. At least for now, we’re likely to see the holding pattern continue; the GOP is almost openly running a no-agenda strategy in the mid-terms this fall. Much will depend on how the second and third open-enrollment seasons go, the results of the 2014 election, the messaging and policy choices made by the party’s next presidential nominee, and the outcome of the race for the White House in 2016.
But it’s at least possible to imagine that the current convergence continues, and eventually results in a melding of the two party’s stances, leaving much of Obamacare’s basic infrastructure, including the exchanges, in place but altering them substantially and using them, in a kind of ju-jitsu move, as a vehicle to reform the rest of the entitlement system, which is ultimately a much bigger fiscal problem. That’s essentially what the Manhattan Institute’s Avik Roy has proposed in his recent health entitlement overhaul plan, which would deregulate the exchanges, end the individual mandate, transition Medicaid and Medicare to the exchanges, and, according to one estimate, could expand coverage even more than Obamacare.
The danger with that sort of plan is that no one will like it—that Republicans will see it as a concession to Obamacare, and Democrats as a fundamental attack on entitlements. Certainly it’s not something that the base on either side is willing to accept right now. But it’s also the sort of clever compromise that could eventually find backers on both sides of the aisle, especially as Obamacare settles in further.
Greg Sargent:
This gets right to the core of why it looks as if the politics of Obamacare are shifting. Some misinterpret the suggestion of shifting health care politics as equivalent to claiming the law’s approval is rising or that it is becoming a winner for Dems. But that isn’t the argument. Straight approval/disapproval on the law has essentially remained unchanged for years — with some fluctuations around the botched rollout — and it remains a net negative for Dems that must be treated gingerly in red states. Those of us who argue the politics of the law are changing don’t mean to suggest otherwise.
Rather, the point is that the fading of negative headlines — combined with mounting enrollment — are shifting the ways candidates in both parties are talking about the law, potentially allowing Dems to mitigate the damage they might otherwise have sustained from it and to fight it out on other issues.
There’s new evidence that this may be what’s happening.
More politics and policy below the fold.
Jay Cost:
While it is far too soon to say what will happen in November, we can already lay down a clear marker for evaluating the results. The Democrats’ position has unmistakably declined relative to this point in 2010. If Republicans cannot capitalize on that weakness, then they will have some serious soul-searching to do. If strong candidates like Joni Ernst and Cory Gardner cannot capture seats in purple states like Colorado and Iowa this year, how can the party hope to win the purple states in the presidential election of 2016? Moreover, if it cannot produce clear Republican majorities in states like Alaska and Louisiana, what will that say about the enthusiasm of conservative voters ahead of the showdown with Hillary Clinton?
The Republican party’s reputation has been dreadful for nearly a decade. No party can succeed for very long if three-fifths of the people dislike it. The GOP has been struggling for nearly a decade to hold together its historic alliance between business interests and grassroots conservatives, and to appeal to the swing voters who hold the balance of power. If it fails to win a strong victory this November, Republicans should take this as a sign that the health of the party is in critical condition.
This year, Republicans should do not only well, but very well. If they don’t, it will be the surest sign yet that something is very wrong with the Grand Old Party.
NY Times on the path to ISIS:
The Obama administration said on Friday it had formed a new international coalition of the willing to fight the marauding Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, as President Obama sketched the outlines of a strategy he said could ultimately defeat that organization and other extremist groups around the world.
In his most expansive comments to date about how the United States and its allies can destroy ISIS without putting American or other foreign troops on the ground in either Iraq or Syria, the president laid the beginnings of a war plan that replicates what the United States has done in Pakistan. That plan, as described by Mr. Obama, would rely on American airstrikes on ISIS leaders and positions, while strengthening the capacity of moderate Syrian rebel groups to reclaim ground seized by ISIS, which has proclaimed itself a monolithic Islamic caliphate that knows no borders and slays or enslaves its enemies.
“You initially push them back, you systematically degrade their capabilities, you narrow their scope of action, you slowly shrink the space, the territory that they may control, you take out their leadership,” Mr. Obama said. “And over time, they are not able to conduct the same kinds of terrorist attacks as they once could.”
He added that “we are going to degrade and ultimately defeat ISIL, the same way that we have gone after Al Qaeda,” using the acronym for a variant of ISIS’s name, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant.
Rebecca Leber:
On Friday, Rand Paul suggested he knows more about international security than a certain former Secretary of State. Paul thought Hillary Clinton’s strong remarks on the threats of climate change—which came during her speech at the National Clean Energy Summit in Nevada—suggested an ignorance about America’s true key threats.
“For her to be out there saying that the biggest threat to our safety and to our well-being is climate change, I think, goes to the heart of the matter or whether or not she has the wisdom to lead the country, which I think it’s obvious that she doesn’t,” Paul said on Fox News. He also said, “I don’t think we really want a commander-in-chief who’s battling climate change instead of terrorism.”
He missed the point that climate change, terrorism, and global stability are all related. Clinton’s point was that climate change and its impacts are “the most consequential, urgent, sweeping collection of challenges we face. No matter what deniers say.” And she’s completely right about that.
You don’t have to take my word for it, or hers. The Pentagon agrees, too.
NY Times:
The American airstrikes on Monday against the Shabab, the Qaeda-linked militant network in Somalia, succeeded in killing the group’s leader, Ahmed Abdi Godane, the Pentagon announced Friday.
“We have confirmed that Ahmed Godane, the co-founder of Al Shabab, has been killed,” the Pentagon press secretary, Rear Adm. John Kirby, said in a statement.
He called the death of Mr. Godane “a major symbolic and operational loss” to the Shabab.