Investment in American Infrastructure

[LFC]

Sept 23, 2021 0:07:50 GMT AnBr said:

I have been trying to tell some lefties I know this for quite some time. They tell me that I am no real progressive or even dismissively call me a "neoliberal". I try to tell them that their all-or-nothing approach usually will get them exactly that. Nothing.

Apparently later in life Ted Kennedy regretted taking this approach with Nixon on healthcare. (I think I have the basics correct.) Obviously they got nothing for decades after.

[LFC]

TPM is on this. First they looks at the two sides. This is important. It's not two sliver factions (bold mine). And the "moderates" aren't offering anything beyond "do what we want or we'll kill the whole thing."

On Capitol Hill – among the Democrats alone since the Republicans have absented themselves from the process – we’re seeing one of those legislative stand-offs that seem insoluble and which, for the Democrats, raises the real risk of disaster. These crises tend to resolve themselves, eventually. Because both sides eventually see that they’re courting disaster and draw back from the brink.

But there’s something a bit different this time. And it’s worth teasing out what that is.

Yesterday Nancy Pelosi met with House progressives to try to get them to come down off their threats to sink the bipartisan mini-bill if “moderates” won’t agree to vote for the big omnibus reconciliation bill. This whole press framing about “moderates” versus progressives is actually misleading inasmuch as it appears to pit the Manchins and Sinemas against the AOCs and Jayapals. In fact, some version of the big reconciliation bill is the consensus position within the Democratic party with the exception of a couple senators and maybe a dozen members of the House tops. It’s really the great bulk of the party versus a couple handfuls of members in both chambers.

In any case, Pelosi met with the House progressives and they weren’t biting. And that’s not hard to understand since Manchin’s offer is essentially pass my bill now and we’ll see what happens with your bill. Maybe we’ll horse trade and come up with a reconciliation bill we can both agree on or maybe you just get nothing.

Josh makes the case, and very convincingly, that S&M literally have not offered policy, only position. And they keep shifting. They are literally playing politics and aren't even trying to legislate.

But really there’s something even more essential. The two sides aren’t so much disagreeing as speaking two entirely different languages. One side is talking the language of policy – specific programs with price tags and calendars for implementation while the other side is talking positioning and optics. It might as well be Aramaic and Icelandic.

One of the great frustrations for most Democrats on the Hill has been that Sinema and Manchin are such moving targets. The arguments and rationales are changeable, contradictory and even absurd. For Manchin one moment it’s the debt or it’s runaway inflation or work requirements or chimerical future COVID relief packages that money must be saved for. The ‘strategic pause’ is a good example of it. It’s not really comprehensible in legislative terms. It’s a reasonable position not to want any more spending at all. But a ‘strategic pause’ makes no sense. Sinema has her own version of the same nonsense. The clash is elevated by the fact that Sinema especially but Manchin too just aren’t policy people. Even they don’t know quite what they want. They just don’t want that much of it. But again, it’s the language of positioning. They’re backfilling policy explanations into positioning moves. Both are trying be the ‘moderate’ reining in the Democrats, splitting the difference. They’re playing to the beltway establishment’s love of ‘moderates’ and ‘bipartisanship’. It’s the language of positioning rather than policy in which you’re talking about specific programs rather than trying to stake out a position.

[LFC]

The meeting with Biden may have at least gotten an admission that S&M and anybody hiding behind them are offering literally NOTHING. Not just that they are dug in but that they aren't putting up a position that can even be discussed because there's zero there there. They've also now burned through every last scrap of goodwill among the Democrats. "Trust us" is dead.

The word I got from inside yesterday’s meetings was cautiously optimistic. No breakthroughs. But some of the prerequisites to a breakthrough. This write-up from Politico is pleasantly free of the standard Manchin-fluffery and I think gets to some of the key points. The biggest takeaway is that the President insisted and the Manchiners seemed to concede that they have to come up with a counter-proposal. This has freaked out a number of readers since it seems to concede that the topline number will be less than $3.5 trillion. But the demand for a counterproposal is a good thing not a bad thing.

As we noted yesterday, the real impasse at the moment is that the two sides aren’t even speaking the same language. We may get to an impasse over specifics. But we’re not there yet. So the problem is both worse and better than it seems on the surface. The Manchiners are demanding everyone else vote for their bill in exchange for a bunch of hand waving and goalpost moving. That won’t work. It’s not negotiable – literally – since it amounts to an existential threat. If that’s the deal at least a lot of folks from the Progressive Caucus (and I suspect many more) will vote to kill the bipartisan mini-bill and they will be totally right to do so.

The simple reality is that there was a cross party deal: the mini-bill and the reconciliation bill pass together. It wasn’t a deal for $3.5 trillion but it was for something in that ballpark. After the Manchiners got their vote in the Senate they tried to break the deal. Manchin tried to break it. Sinema tried to break it. And Josh Gottheimer and his crew in the House operating as the cat’s paws of Mark Penn and whoever is funding him tried to break it. There’s no ambiguity about that. The challenge now is to put things back together. When two sides lack trust you often have intermediaries who act as escrow agents for the things of value. The President and Speaker Pelosi were playing that role. Now they need to get back to playing that role. The Manchiners need to put a proposal on the table. Once they move from hand-waving to a proposal there’s going to need to be some tough negotiations to see if both sides can get to numbers they can live with. Whether they can isn’t clear. But if they can the President will then need to find a way to guarantee the deal. Because right now almost no one trusts the Manchiners. And that makes sense because they tried to break the deal.

[LFC]

I wonder if the fact that her poll numbers are collapsing will bring Sinema back into the Democratic mainstream.

It makes perfect sense for someone like Sinema to carve out a centrist niche in the Senate. Arizona is purple but just barely, at least for now. It just voted for Biden and now has two Democratic Senators. But Sinema, who was only elected in 2018, is the state’s first Democratic Senator since Dennis DeConcini. He retired in 1994 but he was first elected all the way back in 1976, almost 45 years ago. Arizona may be trending blue but it’s just at the beginning of the trend.

What I take that to mean is that there are likely a lot of independent voters who find the current GOP toxic and are looking for a not-GOP option while still being at best ambivalent about a lot of the ambitions currently animating the national Democratic party. So it makes a lot of sense to carve out a position as a Democrat who isn’t a lockstep vote for the party leadership and is focused on keeping things “commonsense” rather than taking the lead of AOC or whatever other scare character is big on Fox News at the moment. You oppose Democrats on some things and often try to rein them in a bit.

The problem is that Sinema has managed this mission with all the finesse and canniness of a freight train running through a house. She hasn’t so much been a thorn in the side of the White House as … well, as a freight train going through the White House. She’s repeatedly expressed what can only be called a contempt for her fellow Democrats and their hopes and has basically, along with Joe Manchin, blocked most of the party’s agenda from even coming to a vote. She’s not so much nudging things to the right or the center as just blocking almost everything.

I’m sure there’s a non-trivial number of Arizonans who voted for her who are pretty happy with that. As I said, they got not-GOP, not-Trump. But they didn’t necessarily want Bernie’s revolution or a bunch of Democratic spending. They just want the crazies to go away. That’s exactly what Sinema is delivering. She’s keeping the Democrats in line, guaranteeing a not-GOP version of Biden. All good.

The problem is there aren’t that many of those voters. And to succeed politically she needs to hold a lot of those voters and keep Democrats united behind her, if not always perfectly happy with her.

Here's where she now stands. If she hopes to survive her next primary she had better perform some better political calculations because the independents aren't going to carry her.

How do the actual numbers at home add up for Sinema? I looked. They’re terrible! Honestly substantially worse than I thought. This mid-July poll from Data for Progress tells the story.

Among Arizona Dems Joe Biden had a 94% approval rating; Mark Kelly had an 85% approval and Sinema had a 54% approval. Within your own party that’s a really, really bad number. And how did she fair with independents? She actually came in behind Biden (44%) and Kelly (45%), though not by much. Sinema was at 40%. When Arizona Democratic primary voters (who can be Dems or independents) were given the options of “I would vote to reelect Kyrsten Sinema” or “I would vote for a different candidate who would get rid of the filibuster” the numbers were basically catastrophic. Sinema got 22% and the unnamed filibuster-buster got 66%.

If we move to the Arizona electorate overall, of Sinema, Biden, Kelly and the Republican Governor Doug Doucey she’s the least popular.

[goldenvalley]

Sept 23, 2021 15:32:22 GMT LFC said:

The meeting with Biden may have at least gotten an admission that S&M and anybody hiding behind them are offering literally NOTHING. Not just that they are dug in but that they aren't putting up a position that can even be discussed because there's zero there there. They've also now burned through every last scrap of goodwill among the Democrats. "Trust us" is dead.

Fine they have no solutions.  All they have is negativity and the DC press buzzing about them.  They still won't vote for the bills.  

[LFC]

Ed Kilgore gives Democrats some advice if they don't want to face a 2010 style wipeout. I think the section titles "The posturing needs to stop" and "Public demands, threats, and hostage taking must end instantly" are pretty damn good advice. And Sinema has to be made to understand that her personal political fate is tied to the success of the Dems. If she torpedoes them then she's toast.

[jackd]

Everyone seems to be ignoring traditional negotiation practice. As I understand it, Manchin says 3.5 is too much and 1.5 would be more like it. The majority seems reluctant to bargain on cost whereas Manchin is insisting on it. Traditional practice would have the majority make a counter offer on cost. If the majority's position is it's 3,5 or nothing, nothing is what they will get.

[LFC]

Sept 23, 2021 18:40:40 GMT jackd said:

Everyone seems to be ignoring traditional negotiation practice. As I understand it, Manchin says 3.5 is too much and 1.5 would be more like it. The majority seems reluctant to bargain on cost whereas Manchin is insisting on it. Traditional practice would have the majority make a counter offer on cost. If the majority's position is it's 3,5 or nothing, nothing is what they will get.

The problem is, as Sanders said, the $3.5T was already bargained for. The progressives wanted closer to $6T. In other words the progressives have already negotiated to a less than ideal position (to them) of 40% less than what they wanted. Manchin is now insisting they renegotiate that down to between 17-25% of what they initially wanted. Asking somebody to go from 40% they already gave up to giving up 80% to meet your figure or else you'll kill the whole thing isn't negotiation, it's hostage taking. Especially when you're refusing to even state what you actually want and would agree to.

And again, as Josh Marshall noted, S&M are demanding that the bipartisan bill be passed first so there's zero guarantee the amount the progressives would give up wouldn't end up being 100%. Manchin has proven to be pretty slippery on his positions including this one and the filibuster. As mentioned before he has no credibility left with the majority of Democrats so many view the risk of getting no reconciliation bill at all pretty high. Sinema is even worse.

I'm not defending the progressives from the standpoint of their wants and their policies and I'm certainly not saying I have a good answer for the politics of this whole mess, just that saying $3.5T is the starting point is to ignore negotiations that have already taken place. The $3.5T IS a compromise. Manchin wants to paint it as a starting offer which it most certainly isn't. In reality there's nearly $5T difference between what he wants (at the moment) and what the progressives want. They gave up $2.5T. It's his move, or at least should be, but I don't see him moving much and I don't see him being in any rush to create a concrete proposal.

[jackd]

I've never heard Sanders say he negotiated to 3.5 with Manchin and Sinema. Do you have something to the contrary?

Come to think of it, I've never heard Sanders say who, exactly, he did compromise with.

[goldenvalley]

Sept 23, 2021 19:19:04 GMT jackd said:

I've never heard Sanders say he negotiated to 3.5 with Manchin and Sinema. Do you have something to the contrary?

Come to think of it, I've never heard Sanders say who, exactly, he did compromise with.

Sanders said this over the weekend (I think) 

"I have already made, and my colleagues have made a major compromise, going from six trillion down to three and a half trillion," Sanders said. "Right now what we are doing is we are engaging with the House and the Senate. It is a complicated proposal. All I am telling you is the $3.5 trillion is much too low. A compromise has already been made; an agreement has been made."

Time magazine says he made the deal with Biden during the summer.

After weeks of negotiating with both the White House and his own committee, Sanders says the $3.5 trillion number was reached thanks to “a lot of talking and a lot of heartburn.” For him, it’s a mixed bag. Ideas he had been championing for years, like a wealth tax and Medicare for All, were not in there. But other progressive wish list items, like an extension of the child tax credit and tax increases on the wealthy, were included. “All of the major provisions remain in the bill: that is the good news,” he says. “The bad news is, we are not funding them, at this point, for as long a period as I want.”

[jackd]

Thanks for that. It's obvious that Manchin and Sinema were not part of the negotiation nor were the House members who are objecting. With due respect to Senator Sanders, the fact that he negotiated with someone else (Biden?) can in no way bind, even informally, those currently objecting. Biden can try to persuade them but he can't force anything. Those who try to compare the situation to LBJ and FDR ignore the fact that both men had large congressional majorities. Biden does not. Bernie and the House progressives better negotiate or they are going to turn the government over to congressional Republicans for the foreseeable future.

[LFC]

Sept 23, 2021 19:19:04 GMT jackd said:

I've never heard Sanders say he negotiated to 3.5 with Manchin and Sinema. Do you have something to the contrary?

Come to think of it, I've never heard Sanders say who, exactly, he did compromise with.

Second part first. He certainly brought up the larger figure months ago when congressional Democrats were coming up with the reconciliation plan in the first place. This is not a recent revelation. For fun I just looked up his policy proposals when he ran for president in 2016 and the $3.5T is less than 20% of the spending he was proposing back then so, at least for him personally, this is a much smaller ask. Doing a little more digging and it appears that the progressives were actually supporting a $10T bill back in April and that the initial resolution had 100 co-sponsors, about 10X more than those opposed to the $3.5T figure. So I think we can safely say that the progressives have compromised from their initial asks is pretty well established.

As for negotiating directly with Manchin and Sinema well who knows? Did those negotiating the basics bypass them intentionally? Did S&M avoid being involved in negotiations and create this very moment? We don't know and likely will never know. Not that it matters because they are still the outliers of the bell curve insisting the vast majority of the party move to their demand. (Well, Manchin's demand. Sinema is sounding more like Dr. No especially in her protection of Big Pharma profits.)

To put things in perspective it sounds like these two plus, which per TPM is a maximum of a dozen total digging in hard for a much smaller bill, represents less than 5% of congressional Dems.The Congressional Progressive Caucus represents about 35% so at least 7X more. Then there are those not in the CPC who support the $3.5T level which sounds like it's now an overwhelming majority. With those numbers making the case that both sides are equally at fault would be pretty tough. What we're seeing right now is the tail wagging the dog and with the Dems barely having control they can.

And I'll repeat that doesn't mean I have an answer to how the politics of this should work for each person involved, just that it's clear that what's happening is driven by a small minority. Demanding that everybody else must move 60-70% from an already negotiated position is rather imbalanced. But, of course, that's their right.

[LFC]

Sept 23, 2021 20:08:48 GMT jackd said:

Bernie and the House progressives better negotiate or they are going to turn the government over to congressional Republicans for the foreseeable future.

Negotiate what exactly? As the articles I posted note they have steadfastly refused to even make remotely concrete demands. As far as I can tell Manchin's demands are less (but no idea what exactly should be less), only revenue increases to pay for it (but without tax hikes that would make us "less competitive", whatever that means), and pause the whole thing (despite the entire thing hanging on the loss of one Senate seat i.e. just one heart attack or car accident in a state with a Republican governor).

If the last demand is really all Manchin wants so he can run out the clock well he has that power.

[jackd]

See my comment above in reply to GV. Obviously, Manchin and Sinema, together with their silent partners, are a minority of the Democrats in the Senate but given the Senate rules, that's interesting but irrelevant. As to the tail wagging the dog, when the tail is in control, that's a reality that has to be dealt with. The Democrats' problem here is that they don't really have a working majority. As I indicated to you earlier, they have 48 votes at most, if that (see your reference to TPM). That's why I say that the progressives are ignoring the ordinary rules of negotiation. One has to negotiate with the person or persons whose agreement one needs.

Negotiate what exactly?  The price.  That's what the objectors are insisting on.  Maybe it's not fair or unreasonable but it is what it is, as Seinfeld likes to put it.

[goldenvalley]

There were internal party negotiations.  I doubt they involved every single Senator or House Member; it's not practicable. And most of the time party unity is expected when the majority is held by a narrow margin. On something like this, I would expect Manchin to have been saying back in July when there was discussion of the two track system...one on hard infrastructure to go to a straight vote in the Senate, the other to go via reconciliation.  That was the time Manchin should have been disputing the figure on the reconciliation...the number was not a secret.  



Why wait until now to raise the objection when it's gotten this far down the road unless Manchin just wants to torpedo the whole thing?  The House won't take the hard infrastructure bill up without both being on the table according to Pelosi.  So he and Sinema are blowing the whole deal up.

[LFC]

Sept 23, 2021 20:27:07 GMT jackd said:

Negotiate what exactly?  The price.  That's what the objectors are insisting on.  Maybe it's not fair or unreasonable but it is what it is, as Seinfeld likes to put it.

You're making a huge assumption that they want to negotiate. Perhaps they want only the bipartisan bill to pass and then call it a day. I'd say that's got a pretty high likelihood for at least one if not both of them. (See comments below by a TPM reader in Arizona on Sinema I'm about to post.) It seems like this may be the talking filibuster all over again in which case there are no negotiations to be made. I guess we'll see.

[LFC]

Another TPM reader in Arizona describes Sinema. That view seems to be that she's caught between Democratic voters who she needs to get back in office and the people who purchased her votes already.

I am a longtime TPM subscriber who has known Krysten Sinema since she was running for Phoenix City Council as a Green party candidate. I think your analyses, and that of fellow reader GT, of her behavior are largely on target, though the revelation this morning that the big mail and digital push on her behalf is coming directly from Big Pharma suggests that this, again, is short-term positioning rather than some long-term plan.

You’re absolutely right in questioning the absence of any core demands she is making of whatever reconciliation bill might come down the pike. Commentators have made much of her reliance on campaign funds from Big Pharma and other corporate interests, but she’s also one of the leading recipients of “women’s issues” money – i.e. donations from groups and individuals associated with pro-choice and pro-equality causes. Yet she has had nothing to say about really important parts of the reconciliation bill that will directly affect women – things like child care, family leave, expanded pre-school.

There’s a lot of good stuff that would appeal to progressives, suburban GOP moms, and major campaign donors! But she can’t even bring herself to verbalize and prioritize these issues.

Like you, I think she believes that passing the Sinema-Romney infrastructure bill will prove that she can get things done in bipartisan fashion. Now apparently she’s got Big Pharma and the Chamber telling her she’s gotta put the brakes on reconciliation because it threatens too many of their interests. And her Dem colleagues are saying she can’t have one without the other.

She’s in a DC bubble of her own making. She has virtually no in-state presence, no public schedule, no press conferences, no interaction with regular voters, and other than industry-funded SuperPACs, no support system. She’s in a tough spot, and she put herself there.

[jackd]

If the prior negotiations didn't include Manchin for sure and probably Sinema as well, that's kind of dumb. Sanders knows those people. Maybe he thought he could steamroller them and maybe he will but not so far. There's no way to determine whether or not they'll negotiate it unless you try. Manchin threw out a number and Sanders said no with no counter offer. If that's a close out, so be it but don't be surprised if the objectors just say no also. I have to believe that Biden is trying to find a compromise number. He's an old hand at that process.

[LFC]

Sept 23, 2021 20:52:33 GMT jackd said:

He's an old hand at that process.

Well that's one thing we can agree on!

[jackd]

I think he was supposed to meet with Sanders and the progressives today after meeting with the "moderates" yesterday. If he's not trying to mediate a compromise, I'll be astonished.

[AnBr]

Sept 23, 2021 14:18:51 GMT LFC said:

Sept 23, 2021 0:07:50 GMT AnBr said:

I have been trying to tell some lefties I know this for quite some time. They tell me that I am no real progressive or even dismissively call me a "neoliberal". I try to tell them that their all-or-nothing approach usually will get them exactly that. Nothing.

Apparently later in life Ted Kennedy regretted taking this approach with Nixon on healthcare. (I think I have the basics correct.) Obviously they got nothing for decades after.

These idiots need to know that one of the more effective ways to achieve their goals is that way a dog takes over a bed. Keep pressing against his human and wait for his human to move over a little and then move over to press him more. Sooner or later the human will be on the edge of the bed if not on the floor. Take what you can get when you can get it and then keep pushing for more. It's a game of inches that works.

[LFC]

Another post by Josh Marshall noting that the real picture here is the overwhelming majority of the Democratic Party against Manchin and Sinema. There might be a very small amount of silent support but they really are the outliers. The media, of course, is trying to paint it as Sanders/AOC against Manchin/Sinema because that's what they do.

We are now down to the crunch time on the Biden agenda. And we don’t know how it will turn out. But there are two aspects of the story which have been quite damaging for the Democrats. They’re worth discussing.

The first is one we’ve discussed before but in a different context. It’s largely a press failure. But it’s one Democrats could do more to fix. For months we’ve had this intra-party debate presented as one between “progressives” and “moderates”. Often that gets personalized as AOC and Bernie versus Joe Manchin or Kyrsten Sinema. This is demonstrably false. The overall package is supported overwhelmingly by Democrats in both chambers and pretty much across all factions. There are some quibbles about SALT taxes and the scope of the climate package. Some more middle-of-the-road Dems resist making some of the social programs permanent. Those are real and potentially consequential differences. But they’re all negotiable. The important point is that this package is the consensus position, supported by virtually everyone. It is after all the President’s agenda. Literally. And as much as these labels confound more than they clarify President Biden isn’t from AOC’s wing of the party.

The reality is that this package is the consensus position supported overwhelmingly, close to universally among congressional Democrats with the exception of two Senators and maybe a dozen members in the House.

It’s more than just inaccurate. It’s highly damaging for Democrats in general. If this is an argument between the party’s left wing and “moderates”, lots of people are going to think that’s a disagreement where you want to at least split the difference. After all AOC and Bernie are democratic socialists and Fox News is clear that they’re totally scary people. That’s not a dig at either one. It’s just obvious that if you want to sell this agenda you want to sell it as Joe Biden’s agenda rather than AOC’s agenda. And that’s convenient because it is Joe Biden’s agenda!

Put it another way, if the Democratic party is having an argue about whether it’s agenda is too extreme or too expensive well … that’s a good way to signal, at least to a lot of people, that it is probably is too extreme or too expensive. You’ve got Republicans and Fox News and even Politico and Axios to make that argument. You don’t need Democrats validating it.

This is why the misleading coverage matters. If it’s the entire Democratic party wrestling with two hold out Senators that’s very different. And that actually is what’s happening. Part of the problem is that “progressives” and “moderates” are convenient and understandable shorthands. Even we use them here sometimes, if only because that’s the terminology everyone understands. There’s no good term for “everybody” which is basically what we’re talking about here. It’s “everybody” versus Manchin and Sinema.

Mostly this is bad press coverage. But bad journalism is like the weather. Whining about it only accomplishes so much – and it’s not much. You need to deal with it. And here Democrats haven’t dealt with it terribly well.

He also makes the point that this is bad personal politics because those in barely purple states will be the first to get wiped out if there's a Republican wave. It's the perfect stance to make yourself powerless and/or primaried.

[LFC]

Sept 23, 2021 15:42:00 GMT LFC said:

I wonder if the fact that her poll numbers are collapsing will bring Sinema back into the Democratic mainstream.

More on Sinema's poll numbers. I could easily see her completing the journey to becoming a Republican. Who knows, maybe she'll go full metal Boebert if she thinks that will preserve her cushy job and fundraising machine.

A pattern was starting to develop. Despite her public presentation of independence and push for bipartisanship Sinema wasn’t particularly popular independents. It was Republicans who seemed to like her a lot, at least compared to other Democrats. A pretty straightforward conclusion is that they liked her not so much for being a ‘moderate’ but for her tendency to stick it to her own party.

That tendency was in even sharper relief six weeks later (June 17th to 23rd) in another poll from Bendixen & Amandi. By now Sinema’s approval among Democrats had barely budged. Just 47% of Dems approved her performance as Senator. Only 46% of independents approved. But she had a new superpower. Her approval among Republicans was an eye-popping 54%. Only 32% disapproved. In an era of polarization that’s an astonishing 22% net approval from the opposite party.

The notable thing is that Sinema had no great advantage with independents. Her ace in the hole was Republicans, Fox News viewers. She’d built a constituency of partisan Republicans who really like her because she’s constantly wrongfooting her own party.

If you’re Sinema there’s certainly a very different way to look at those numbers. Virtually every other elected official has outsized support from their own pretty and minimal support from the opposite party and some mix with independents. That’s the story of polarization. But Sinema’s support is pretty similar in each group. In the Bendixen poll it’s a mere 8 point difference between the highest approval (Republicans at 54%) and the lowest (independents at 46%). What better example of bipartisanship and independence could there be, right?

But of course, parties nominate candidates. And there’s are DefCon 1 numbers for a primary. In Arizona, independents can vote in the Democratic primary. So that could help. But remember – Sinema’s even a bit less popular with independents. What Sinema appears to have done is assemble a coalition of tepid support from Democrats and outsized support among Republicans who love her sticking it to Democrats. Another way to look at it is illustrated in the Bendixen poll. Kelly and Sinema had almost identical overall approval numbers – Kelly with 51% and Sinema with 50%. But Kelly’s support was about evenly split between those who “strongly support” (24%) vs “somewhat support” (27%). Only 12% “strongly support[ed]” Sinema.

Sinema’s support is evenly spread but shallow everywhere – a mix of tepid support from Democrats and surprisingly strong support from Republicans who almost certainly won’t ever vote for her.

[jackd]

Re the Josh Marshall quote, didn't Josh, himself, report that there were perhaps 12 other Senators in the Democratic caucus agreeing with Manchin and letting him take the heat for resistance? That's not the same as just Manchin and Sinema against the rest of the party.

[jackd]

And whatever the divide, President Biden has declared the "parties" at a stalemate.