The End of Debt-Ceiling Politics + Hillary vs. Scott Walker in 2016?

The news arrived yesterday with little fanfare; it might not have even been the top story on the Google News page. But it is certainly a noteworthy development. The House of Representatives passed a clean debt ceiling bill -- meaning there are no conditions attached, no quid pro quo, no Keystone XL pipeline, no nibbling away at Obamacare -- raising the amount that government can legally borrow through march 2015. This morning Jonathan Weisman and Ashley Parker have the story, "House Approves Higher Debt Limit Without Condition."

It is an enormous capitulation by Speaker of the House John Boehner, who had to rely on overwhelming Democratic support (only 28 Republicans voted yes). After three years, the GOP strategy of locking down D.C. with debt-ceiling brinkmanship has been tossed on the dung heap. Last October's near Armageddon must have been enough for the national Republican brain trust, particularly when the GOP was awarded a Get Out of Jail Free card with Obamacare's disastrous online rollout. Republican leadership is keeping eyes on the prize: the U.S. Senate and possibly even the White House. Towards that goal they obviously feel that a low profile, coupled with an aggressive beatdown on Tea Party primary challengers, will deliver them to the promised land.

Clearly there is wisdom in leaving Obama to stew in his own shit. (See Monday's post for Obama's plummeting approval rating as well as the country's burgeoning socialist populism.) But Boehner's adroit elimination of debt-ceiling politics on Tuesday comes at a steep price for the GOP. The internecine warfare between the corporate-financed Tea Party and the Republican establishment which, for the most part, has been kept off the front pages (left to rage online) is now going to -- or at least there is that potential -- blow up big time. As Weisman and Parker point out,

For Mr. Boehner it was a potentially momentous decision. Conservative activists, including the Tea Party Patriots, FreedomWorks, L. Brent Bozell’s ForAmerica and commentators on the website RedState.com are all circulating petitions to end Mr. Boehner’s speakership. 

And it was Mr. Boehner who raised such high expectations around the debt limit. In 2011, he established what has become known as the “Boehner Rule”: any debt ceiling increase was supposed to be offset by an equivalent spending cut. 

“This is a lost opportunity,” the speaker conceded. “We could have sat down and worked together in a bipartisan manner to find cuts and reforms that are greater than increasing the debt limit. I am disappointed, to say the least.”

Also, there is this tasty morsel a few paragraphs down:

In a closed-door session Monday night, Representative Andy Harris, Republican of Maryland, accused the speaker of being in the pockets of the insurance industry, a charge that stirred outrage among many of his colleagues.

There is a good chance, I think, that it will blow over quickly. It probably already has. More extreme weather in the South, Tom Brokaw diagnosed with cancer, etc., will suck up the attention of news consumers.

I have a coworker who follows the daily news. When she gave me a ride to the train station yesterday after work I asked her what she thought about the House passing the debt ceiling. She said that she had glimpsed the headline right before we left, but that she didn't read the story or really even think about it.

Chalk up a "W" for Boehner and the GOP establishment.

Before signing off, I'd like to mention that Trip Gabriel has a good story, "In Governors’ Races This Year, Lessons for 2016," about Republican governors running for reelection. He focuses on four Republicans in the industrial North -- Walker of Wisconsin, Kasich of Ohio, Snyder of Michigan and Corbett of Pennsylvania:

National Democratic groups hope to take back the four executive mansions held by Rust Belt Republicans by attacking on social and economic issues — the incumbents’ cuts to education, their opposition to raising the minimum wage and abortion restrictions they signed into law. 

“They’ve all fostered hostility and divisiveness despite running as moderate technocrats,” said Danny Kanner, a spokesman for the Democratic Governors Association, which bought its first television ads of the 2014 cycle in Michigan, attacking Mr. Snyder. “On the economy, they gave huge tax cuts to the wealthiest and corporations. They paid for it by raising middle-class taxes, and because that wasn’t enough, they cut education.” 

Mr. Walker’s bitter 2011 showdown with the unions made him a national figure. He remains a hero of the Republican grass roots and a favorite of wealthy donors like the billionaire David H. Koch, who founded a nonprofit group that contributed heavily to the governor’s campaign to avoid a recall. That appeal to the party’s base and its donor class has some conservative pundits and strategists banging the drum for a presidential bid. 

Mr. Walker, who insists that his focus is on 2014, seems to gain in stature each day that enthusiasm for Gov. Chris Christie, Republican of New Jersey, ebbs in the scandal over the closing of bridge lanes. 

But Mr. Walker has also helped polarize his battleground state. A Marquette University Law School poll last month showed his job approval reaching a high — of just 51 percent.

Can you imagine a more nauseating general election in 2016 than Hillary vs. Scott Walker? It would be 12 months of rockem sockem corporate robots.