The Atlantic Politics Channel

Flickr user Speaker Pelosi

Nov 6 2009, 2:31PM

Health Care Vote Might Be Delayed, But It Won't Matter

When are we getting a health care vote in the House? It seemed impossible that with her monster majority, Nancy Pelosi might need to delay the vote beyond Saturday to round up enough support for the House's version of a health care bill. But the Hill is rife with conflicting reports that the vote might go until Monday or Tuesday. Like most kerfuffles, this one won't matter. The Democratic House will pass a bill and that will eventually need to be married to whatever the Senate produces. But the fact that delay is in the air is not a great thing for the process. The conservatives who rallied yesterday on Capitol Hill will take credit for the delay, but in the end there is going to be a bill.

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Paul J. Richards/Getty Images

Nov 6 2009, 11:36AM

Pawlenty: Deficit Neutral, Starting Now

by Chris Good

Gov. Tim Pawlenty has wrangled with Democrats in the Minnesota state legislature this year to balance the state's budget, and now Pawlenty has proposed an amendment to the Minnesota Constitution that would effectively require state budgets to be deficit neutral, capping new spending in a given budget cycle at the level of revenue that the state took in during the previous cycle.

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Spc. Luke Austin/Getty Images

Nov 6 2009, 11:21AM

Paterson's Defiant Ad Buy In New York

by Marc Ambinder

New York Governor David Paterson (D), emboldened by the results of Tuesday's elections, begins his first flight of television ads today in the state. The ads, entitled "Some Say," refer to attempts by the White House to persuade Paterson, whose approval ratings are low, to not run for his first elected term. According to a Republican media ad buyer, the Paterson campaign is spending about $625,785 for a week's worth of ads in five markets, including Rochester, Buffalo and New York City. The New York Times has more info here.

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Nov 6 2009, 10:23AM

The White House Political Learning Curve

by Marc Ambinder

Is Barack Obama's cool style of governing fundamentally incompatible with the furnace of modern politics? Bipartisan conclaves, bringing industry to the table(s), relative transparency, accommodation and consensus meetings are all ornaments of the Obama brand. But political parties, built around existing alignments of interests, tend to get excited about fighting. Base-tending is crucial to political husbandry. Obama has a gourmand's disdain for populism and picking fights.

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Alex Wong/Getty Images

Nov 6 2009, 10:18AM

After White House Hedging, Double-Digit Unemployment Is Here

by Chris Good

Double-digit unemployment is finally here, and it's here in a big way: unemployment jumped from 9.8 percent last month into the double digits, a .4 percent increase to 10.2 percent. At the Business Channel, Dan Indiviglio breaks down the utter bleakness in the numbers.

It's an event the White House has expected, and has been hedging against, all along: they've said since early summer that unemployment may crest over the double-digit mark, and, more recently, as administration officials have brought the good news of 3.5 percent third-quarter GDP growth, they've made some more direct predictions that this would happen.

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Flickr user Stefan

Nov 6 2009, 6:30AM

Question Of The Day: The GOP And Conservative Grassroots

Tea partiers descended on Capitol Hill yesterday for a rally that drew 10,000 people, and prominent Republicans like Eric Cantor Mike Pence spoke to the crowd. Are grassroots conservatives ready to get behind figures of the Republican establishment, or do GOP politicians still need to approach the tea partiers, and their populist energy, with caution?

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Nov 6 2009, 6:00AM

The Rundown, 11/6

It's Unemployment Day in America, as the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor statistics will deliver the (probably bad) numbers on unemployment this morning, with the figure expected to rise slightly from the 9.8 percent reported last month...possibly even to break into double digits.

Which would make today a good time for the president to offer some sort of relief to the economically strapped nation...and, coincidentally, he's expected to do just that. The House passed an extension of unemployment benefits yesterday, and President Obama is expected to sign it today. Call it a silver lining.

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