Saturday Morning Post: The Weekly View from Washington
We’ve been skeptical in this space about the prospects for President Obama’s trade agenda. After this week, we can go a step further: The fast-track negotiating authority the White House needs to wrap up the twelve-nation Pacific Rim pact is on life support, and its vitals are fading. Its fate comes down to simple math in the House. The “No” caucus among Republicans — those reflexively opposed to anything the President supports — conservatively numbers somewhere between 60 and 70 votes against handing him the additional leash he’s seeking to hammer out this trade deal. If that level of opposition holds, and there’s nothing to suggest it won’t, Democrats will have to supply the margin by delivering north of 30 votes. Only the rosiest of whip counts sees the Democratic support crawling out of the teens. In an earlier era, House leaders might drag such a high priority to within spitting distance of the necessary 218 votes, then put it on the floor and muscle the remainder. The current GOP leadership team isn’t much for arm-twisting; this bill may not even make it to the floor.
Republicans aren’t waiting for the patient to flatline to start gaming the autopsy. In K Street war rooms, GOP lobbyists are already sowing the argument that the trade bill’s imminent collapse owes to a failure of presidential leadership. They aren’t wrong. As one Democratic lawmaker noted ruefully on Thursday before heading to the White House for a closed-door meeting with Obama on the issue, Democratic congressmen don’t need to see him privately; they need to see him out on the stump, in their districts, rallying support.
Can a more energetic effort now by the President and the business community bring this one back from the dead? Anything’s possible. But the smart money is ready to start talking about it in the past tense. Says one plugged-in pro-trade lobbyist, “It’s toast.”
| Tory Newmyer | |
| @@torynewmyer | |
| tory_newmyer@fortune.com |
Top News
• Even more bad news for the big business lobby
In case the fading trade agenda wasn’t depressing enough for big business interests in Washington, they can also look forward in June to a knock-down fight to salvage the Export Import Bank. Free-market conservatives have zeroed in on the export financing facility as a proxy for a broader system of corporate cronyism they want to uproot. Republican presidential candidates have fallen in line, as have most GOP leaders on the Hill. Without much room to maneuver, Speaker John Boehner, an erstwhile support of Ex-Im, signaled this week he’d be ok with an orderly plan to wind it down, as long as its charter isn’t simply allowed to expire at the end of next month. Washington Examiner
• Sanders rakes in $1.5 million in a single day
We wrote critically of avowed socialist and now-Democratic presidential aspirant Bernie Sanders’ pre-debut this week. And the Vermont Senator’s appearance at Howard University, two hours after word leaked of his decision to launch a campaign but two days before the actual announcement, was indeed lackluster. No matter. In the 24 hours after his Thursday declaration, Sanders hauled in an eye-popping $1.5 million in online contributions from some 35,000 donors. And while Sanders’ chances of overtaking the Hillary Clinton juggernaut to seize the nomination remain remote, it’s worth noting his fundraising debut eclipsed those of the three high-tier Republicans who’ve already announced, Ted Cruz (Texas), Sens. Rand Paul (Ky.), and Marcio Rubio (Fla.). Sanders advisers say they plan to extend the run to raise $50 million, the sum they’ve settled on for waging a credible primary challenge — and the upper range of what we identified a month ago as the cost of such a bid. Washington Post
• Chris Christie’s Presidential Dreams Hit the Skids
Any hope the New Jersey Governor had that last year’s George Washington Bridge lane-closing scandal would simply go away imploded on Friday with the guilty plea of his longtime loyalist David Wildstein to two counts of conspiracy in the mess. Wildstein, who’s known Christie since high school, maintains that Christie had real-time knowledge of the scheme to exact retribution on a small-town mayor for withholding an endorsement by creating a traffic snarl, a claim that Christie has consistently denied. Two of Christie’s closest lieutenants, Bill Baroni and Bridget Anne Kelly, also were indicted. While the reemergence of the bride headache saps Christie’s presidential dreams, the reality is they were sapped long ago. A strong field of contenders has already crowded him out. New York Times
Around the Water Cooler
• The case for bringing back smoke-filled rooms
Here’s a provocative thesis: The problem with our political system is we’ve been too successful rooting out corruption. That’s the argument advanced by Brookings senior fellow Jonathan Rauch in his new book, Political Realism: How Hacks, Machines, Big Money, and Back-Room Deals Can Strengthen American Democracy. In short, his thinking goes, the transactional politics of earlier times — whereby leaders traded public works projects and plum committee assignments for votes on big bills — was ugly but effective. We’ve replaced it with a system in which pols measure their worth by their ideological purity, instead of what they’re actually able to accomplish, and the result is our current morass (see: our first item today). Rauch isn’t advocating for a return to Tammany Hall-type graft. But he says reapplying some grease to the skids could benefit the common interest. Sausage making isn’t supposed to be pretty. The Cook Political Report
• Pop some popcorn: Bernanke and the Wall Street Journal editorial board are at war
The former Fed chairman and the conservative opinion leaders got in a rhetorical slap fight this week over how much responsibility the central bank’s policies own for lagging growth and employment numbers. Our Chris Matthews has the tale of the tape (spoiler: Bernanke edges the Journal on points). Fortune
• Like a Washington boxing metaphor come to life
Speaking of fights, you may have heard there’s a big one tonight. A real one. Between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao for the welterweight championship — and a nine-figure purse, the biggest ever. We won’t pretend there’s a Washington angle here, even though Sens. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) have talked up the Las Vegas bout in recent days. Instead, here’s a primer on the event itself and the huge amounts of money involved in selling what promoters and fans are calling the fight of the century. Wall Street Journal
