Good evening and welcome to the Daily Strike. It was a slow news day, which seems amazing given the breadth of crises we're facing these days. I can tell you that Obama is traveling to India in November, and that BP has apparently successfully sliced the pipe in its latest effort to do something or other.
SCANDAL: There has been an alarming amount of DC chatter about two "scandals" that actually are nothing at all. President Obama floated potential job offers to both Rep. Joe Sestak (PA) and State House Speaker Andrew Romanoff (CO) to get them to avoid challenging incumbent Democrats in this year's Senate primaries. Even if this was something Bush did, I would never have thought of it as a big deal. It seems perfectly normal, if somewhat unethical, that a President would try to make a deal to avoid a divisive primary. The top Republican on the House Government Reform committee, who would become chairman if the GOP retakes the House this November, is repeatedly calling for investigations and special prosecutors, and the press is eating it up. It's pretty difficult to watch.
I will say this though: the President's strategy absolutely worked. He pledged loyalty to current Senators in exchange for their support for key pieces of legislation. I'm not sure that Senators Specter (PA) and Bennet (CO) would have been such staunch Obama supporters if they weren't depending on White House support. Thankfully, the President wasn't able to knock any of these primary challengers out of their races. This forced the current Senators to court their base, and thus pushed them leftward. Put simply, loyalty is a good political strategy, and so is pressure from the base!
THE WHITE HOUSE: The President today met with one of his political adversaries, Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona. The two of them reportedly did not spend much time discussing Arizona's new immigration law, though President Obama did pledge to send troops to protect the Arizona border. Brewer described the meeting as cordial.
The President also went to two separate events today at each of his daugther's schools. Isn't he such a good Dad?
That's it for now. On a personal note, we are very proud here of Mother Strike, who will be hosting and introducing the House Speaker at an event tomorrow in San Francisco.
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