Wake Up To Politics - October 7, 2015
To read today's edition of Wake Up To Politics in a PDF format, click here. Continue reading to find the text of the Wake Up in the body of the email!
Wednesday, October 7, 2015
398 Days until Election Day 2016
117 Days until the Iowa Caucuses
21 Days until the Next Republican Debate
6 Days Until the 1st Democratic DebateIt's Wednesday, October 7, 2015, I'm Gabe Fleisher for Wake Up To Politics, and reporting from WUTP world HQ in my bedroom - Good morning: THIS IS YOUR WAKE UP CALL!!!
To send me questions, comments, tips, new subscribers, and more: email me at wakeuptopolitics@gmail.com. To learn more about WUTP and subscribe, visit the site: wakeuptopolitics.com, or like me on Twitter and Facebook. More ways to engage with WUTP at the bottom.
White House Watch
The President’s Schedule At 11:15am, President Obama sits down with President Joachim Guack of Germany . According to the White House, Guack’s visit meeting marks “the 25th anniversary of German reunification and underscore the abiding friendship and partnership between the United States and Germany”; the two Presidents will discuss “ways to build on this partnership in the pursuit of common values and shared strategic and economic goals.”
At 12:20pm, the President will speak at the White House Summit on Worker Voice, a summit of “workers, employers, unions, organizers, and other advocates and experts” that will “focus on how workers can make their voices heard in the workplace in ways that are good for workers and businesses” and will “look to energize a new generation of Americans to come together and recognize the potential power of their voice at work.”
Then, at 2:30 PM, he will meet with his Secretary of State, John Kerry.
Finally, at 4:30pm, Obama will return to the Worker Voice Summit to participate in a town hall-style conversation with workers and organizers gathered at the summit.
That closing public conversation will be co-hosted by Coworker.org, and will “include questions and stories from both participants in the room, and workers and organizers from around the country,” according to the White House.
Capitol Hill News
Today in the Senate The upper chamber will continue its consideration of H.R. 1735, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) conference report, today.
The conference report cleared a procedural hurdle in the chamber Tuesday, but still faces a long path to becoming law. The President has threatened to veto the bill “over its use of extra Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) funds – money that essentially serves as a workaround to the sequestration caps in place across the budget,” the Washington Post reports.
Just months ago, the Senate passed its version of the NDAA by a 71-25 vote: a wide majority of support enough to override a veto. However, that was before the presidential veto threat that has deteriorated Democratic support for the authorization bill: on the conference committee that devised H.R. 1735, just two Senate Democrats approved the group’s report.
In fact, even if supporters of the NDAA authorization hobble together enough Senate Democrats and Republicans to pass the bill through the Senate – and achieve a veto-proof majority – it will not matter. Both houses are needed to override a veto, and when the conference report passed the House last month, it was 20 votes short of the needed votes to override.
Today in the House The lower chamber will consider two measures today, one of which is H. Res. 461, which would create a select subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee to investigate Planned Parenthood.
The new panel would be made up of 13 House members (eight Republicans, five Democrats) and is subpoena power and wide authority over investigation medical procedures involved in fetal tissue procurement, federal funding for abortion, medical practices for second and third trimester abortions, and other abortion-related procedures.
In reality, however, the select subcommittee will be investigating one thing: Planned Parenthood.
2016 Central
Polling Roundup: Quinnipiac Looks at General Election Hypotheticals A new Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday morning looks past the primary fights captivating the news cycle to next year’s general election. The poll tests hypothetical match-ups between the top Democrats (Clinton, Sanders, Biden) and top Republicans (Trump, Carson, Fiorina, Rubio, Bush) in three key swing states (Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania).
Across the board, Joe Biden and Ben Carson do best against candidates of the other party: Biden beat all five Republicans in Florida; in Ohio and Pennsylvania, he lost only to Carson (42% to 46%, 47% to 42%).
In those two states, Carson beats every Democrat he is tested against; in Florida, he does fall behind Biden (45% to 42%) and Clinton (45% to 43%).
Interestingly, neither Biden nor Carson lead their primary races. Republican frontrunner Donald Trump trails all three Democrats in all three states, while Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton trails Bush and Rubio in all three states, and loses to Carson and Fiorina in Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Why focus on the general election, nearly 400 days before it takes place? “When we get past the playoffs to the World Series, the general election face-off, Biden does better against leading Republicans than does Clinton or Sanders,” said Quinnipiac University Poll assistant director Peter A. Brown. “Trump, despite his strong showing in mock Republican primaries, fares worst among the GOP candidates matched against the three Democratic aspirants – giving some credence to pundits who say the billionaire could be every Democrats’ favorite GOP nominee.”
If you’d like to examine the Florida/Ohio/Pennsylvania numbers more closely, here are the full Quinnipiac results.
Email WUTP Subscribe to WUTP WUTP Archives
Forward *|FACEBOOK:LIKE|* To change the email address Wake Up To Politics is sent to you: *|UPDATE_PROFILE|*
For more on Wake Up To Politics, listen to Gabe on NPR's "Talk of the Nation, the Political Junkie podcast, and St. Louis Public Radio; watch Gabe on MSNBC's "Up with Steve Kornacki, and read about Gabe in Politico, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Globe, and the St. Louis Jewish Light