Bipartisanship Ahead?

Immigration Reform Maneuvering

President Obama challenged the Republicans, who, and keep this in mind, still do not control the Senate, to get acceptable Immigration Reform legislation ready for his signature before January 2015 when the Republicans could pass their own bill for his signature.

President Obama has an already drafted and very liberal executive order dealing with immigration and illegal immigrants now in the United States. In its final form itt will have either amnesty for some or a route to amnesty for all that will appeal to Latino voters the Democrats need in 2016.

The Republicans, who will also need Latino votes in 2016, will not be happy with Obama's executive order, but to remove some of its amnesty provisions they will have to come up with less favorable terms which could cost them Latino votes and secure those votes for the Democrats.

Nomination For Attorney General

If President Obama nominates the likely African American attorney from Brooklyn to fill Eric Holder's sensitive post as Attorney General, is he opting for his very best choice for the post, or is he hoping for a 2 for 1, even a 3 for 1 political appointment?

The Empire State....New York....is a traditional bloc of electoral votes for his party Democrats, and those electoral votes will be needed by whoever Democrats nominate to hold onto the presidency in 2016.

An African American nominee, any well qualified African American nominee, puts the Republican Party on the spot when it starts hearings which question the president's choice, and the qualifications of his nominee. What's more, the potential African American nominee in this case is a woman, another bloc of potential 2016 voters the Democrats need to continue to appeal to, making this a nominee the Republicans would disqualify only at great risk.

The Keystone Pipeline

President Obama will delay approval of the Keystone Pipeline as long as he possibly can, while claiming that he is waiting for legal challenges to be resolved in the courts, and then for his own State Department input, and then for hearings on its environmental impact.

During the delays, farmers' corn and soybean harvests are endangered by railroad rolling stock being insufficient to haul both the oil it now hauls, and the farmers' harvests, a large part of which those farm states (Republican strongholds) are likely to lose at a cost of millions.

The farm states' electoral votes are an insignificant portion of the electoral votes needed to win the presidency in 2016, so that even passage of the Keystone Pipeline by Senate Republicans in January 2015 will not be damaging to Democrat hopes, even though the delay hurts consumers and adds to the foreign export trade imbalance.

Furthermore Obama's delayed approval of the Keystone Pipeline, when it does happen (and it will) can be used as a bargaining chip for something else President Obama wants, such as an increase in the minimum wage Republicans oppose as ultimately hurting the very citizens and families it is supposed to help, by slowing job growth and increasing the cost of living.

Will November 7, 2014 be remembered as Bipartisanship Day #1?

With the Election 2016 campaign battle already underway, and the November 7, 2014 post-election "conciliatory meeting" at the White House not even convened as this was written, watch for that nomination, executive reforms on immigration, and inaction on the stalled pipeline project. You will get a sense of how hot the political winds are which are coming..

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Copyright 2014 Demas W. Jasper All rights reserved