On our final 2014 trip around the “Inside Politics” table, our reporters shared insights on a key midterm year moment — or a key marker to look for in 2015. Some of the nuggets were a bit of both:
1. Elizabeth who? Clinton’s important outreach to her left
We end the year with several liberal groups urging Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts to change her mind and seek the presidency in 2016.
Some of this is real, some is part fund-raising gimmick, and some is designed to keep pressure on runaway Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.
Politico’s Maggie Haberman shared reporting of how Team Clinton is paying close attention — and making key inroads.
One group that has not joined the “Draft Warren” movement just happens to be the one perhaps closest to her, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee.
Haberman took us inside a key meeting — a top Clinton political aide sitting down with PCCC leadership.
“This is the first time you’re seeing people in Clintonland trying to build a bridge openly, in a serious way, toward Warren’s supporters. This is also the group that has not joined the draft movement. So I think that this is something you are going to see more of going forward.”
2. A Mississippi turning point
Robert Costa of The Washington Post highlighted the bruising Mississippi Senate primary as a 2014 turning point.
Remember, tea party favorite Chris McDaniel nearly beat incumbent GOP Sen. Thad Cochran.
“If Chris McDaniel had won that primary, it would have cost Republican candidates across the country a lot of political points,” Costa noted. “They would have to answer for all of his statements, all of his radio comments from the past.”
Instead, though, the GOP establishment carried the day.
“That primary really signaled what was happening in the party this year — a push back against the tea party ahead of 2016, trying to get the party toward the center, back toward a winning coalition.”
The tea party promises a comeback in 2015 and beyond. Worth watching.
3. A wartime presidential legacy?
Julie Pace of The Associated Press recalled some big presidential decisions of 2014 that proved how difficult it is for President Obama to follow the foreign policy course he laid out in his initial 2008 campaign.
“One of the defining moments in 2014 for the White House was President Obama’s decision to launch airstrikes in Iraq and Syria. I’ve covered Barack Obama for a very long time. And if you had told me that I would be writing about him going back into military conflict in the Middle East instead of pulling out of it, I would have told you you were crazy,” Pace said.
Looking back, Pace recalled “getting out of the Middle East, war in the Middle East, was a central promise, a central promise that Barack Obama made to the voters. And if he ends his presidency in military conflict, then I think it really jeopardizes the legacy for him.”
4. Obama betting on his ’emerging’ coalition
In several big 2014 challenges, Nia-Malika Henderson of The Washington Post saw Obama being guided by his loyalty to the new demographics of his core political constituency.
And, she suggests, trying to send a signal to future Democratic candidates.
“Immigration reform, Obama’s moves on Cuba, as well as some of his comments on Ferguson and race,” were three topics Henderson believes can be linked, in part.
“Part of his, you know, sort of ‘Bulworth’ moment is realizing and really embracing the idea that the Democratic Party is — is a black and brown party, is a party that is going to be progressive — progressive around these issues of race. You know, part of sort of the downside of that, we saw some of that in 2014 with the cratering of the white vote.” (The 1998 comedy “Bulworth” is about a politician who starts saying exactly what he thinks.)
But looking forward, Henderson notes, Hillary Clinton seems to agree with Obama.
“With Clinton very much doubling down on that, some of the comments she’s made on race, her immediately coming out in terms of the immigration reform — this is going to have consequences, I think, for the party, the Democratic Party, going forward.”
And, she suggests, Republicans ignore the lessons at their peril.
5. Boehner and McConnell’s New Year’s resolution
Old school is the way to go — if you’re Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader-to-be Mitch McConnell.
Both are mindful that deadline budget deals have created political openings for what they consider harmful tea party antics in recent years — most noteworthy, of course, the government shutdown.
So their plan is to go back to old-fashioned budgeting: passing individual appropriations bills for government agencies and having those debates in the spring and summer — well in advance of the October 1 beginning of the fiscal year.
That way if, say, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas wants to derail the process because of some tea party objection, the delay happens harmlessly in the summer or early fall — not up against the deadline. Same goes if it’s the Democrats who are trying to make a point. Or even if there is a presidential veto of an appropriations bill.
Less drama and political harm, Boehner and McConnell believe, if these things are dealt with in what Washington calls regular order.
So if it is regular — normal — why is it such a big test?
Well, the last time Congress and the White House went through a full appropriations process in regular order? Bill Clinton was president.