Thursday's Starting Lineup
By Reid Wilson
Good Thursday morning, and happy birthday to The Simpsons, which debuted 20 years ago when they adopted Santa's Little Helper. If you need a refresher on that episode, we'll wait while you go watch it.
Here's Hotline OnCall's Starting Lineup, the people who are going to make headlines today:
PRES. OBAMA: It's crunch time for the WH as Obama heads off to Copenhagen today, the second time he's been to Denmark while in office. Of course, the first time didn't work out so well, as his home town got booted in the first round of Olympic balloting.
This time, climate talks are on the agenda, and world leaders are parachuting in for the summit's final days. Obama had planned to show up at the summit early, but his decision to wait until the end seemed to signal the WH had big hopes for a grand agreement.
Sec/State Hillary Clinton said today the U.S. will join a $100B yearly fund to help developing countries overcome global warming challenges, but other breakthroughs have been hard to come by. Much like the health care debate, the WH likely won't have another chance to seriously move this debate on the world stage.
EX-DNC CHAIR HOWARD DEAN: Yes, he's made the list 2 days in a row, but Dean is not done with his crusade to kill what he sees as an insufficient effort at health care reform. Dean has been doing a media tour over the last 24 hours, including several appearances on MSNBC and an op-ed in the Washington Post.
The WH has fired back at their erstwhile ally, publicly wondering where he gets the notion that the bill is good for insurance companies. WH press sec. Robert Gibbs suggested Dean didn't fully understand the bill, while comms dir. Dan Pfeiffer penned a rebuttal on the WH blog.
Dean said this morning he will support Obama when the pres. runs for re-election, but after being passed over twice for HHS Sec., he has now ensured he won't be getting a job in the admin. in either the 1st or 2nd term.
THE DEM PARTY: As much as they might try to make the '10 elections a choice between 2 parties, new surveys are looking terrible for Dems, and voters are looking more and more likely to use the election as a referendum on the WH and the party in charge.
A new NBC/WSJ poll shows Pres. Obama's approval rating dropping below 50% for the first time, while the public is now split over who it wants in charge of Congress. The ever-eloquent Peter Hart told the Journal that "red flags are flying at full mast" for Dems.
GOPers aren't getting any more popular, and top party strategists will acknowledge that fact (See our interview later this morning with NRSC chair John Cornyn). And for the first time a major and widely-respected poll has showed the anti-incumbent Tea Party movement leading both parties by a significant margin, and it's the only movement of the three tested -- along with Dems and the GOP -- with a net-positive approval rating.
This will be an anti-incumbent election, but with more incumbents, it will be up to Dems to prove why they should still be in charge in DC. That will be a tall order.
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