President Obama signs the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010.

For better or worse, during the 2014 election the Democratic Party is effectively all in on Obamacare and the GOP is all in against it. While this was mostly true in both the 2010 and 2012 election, the 2014 election will be very different. In the previous elections the law was just some theoretical future reform. At the best of times, it was a merely an intellectual policy debate about competing predictions. At the worst of times, it was a fight simply over buzzwords.

By November of 2014 the law will have been fully implemented for almost a year. This time it won’t be fight about principles and ideas, but how well a complex law has been actually working. There will literately be millions of people who are better off and worse off because of the law for both parties to highlight. There will be even more people who will finally see that the law has had almost no impact on them personally.

Previously, the GOP was defending the status quo against poorly understood Democratic changes. In 2014 Democrats will be defending a new status quo from the GOP’s vague promises to change it with a “repeal and replace.”

In addition there was actually a chance before the 2012 election that if Republicans won, they could have cleanly repealed the law. Now the Republicans are promising to tear up a huge program after it has been in place for several years. That is a substantially different prospect.

Yesterday, Republicans took a huge bet on the 2014 election that the implementation of the Affordable Care Act will be a train wreck and Democrats took an equally large bet it would be relatively successful. This could end up being the most important event of the 2014 election.

Terry McAuliffe

It is still early in the race and the contest remains fluid. Both candidates technically have slightly positive favorability ratings, but that could easily change. Neither candidate’s very well known and a very large share of the electorate has yet to form an opinion about the candidates. The poll found 60 percent haven’t heard enough about McAuliffe to form an opinion about him while 42 percent say they don’t know enough about Cuccinelli.

A recent Marist poll also found McAuliffe with a small lead among register voters, but had Cuccinelli slightly ahead among likely voters when leaners were included.

Photo by GCC Workforce & Community Education under Creative Commons license

While many have attacked this vote as a wasteful sideshow since there is no way this repeal bill will be enacted, I believe it is an acceptable use of time.

While taking more than thirty votes on on the same issue during a single Congress was needlessly wasteful, this is actually different. Taking just a single vote this Congress to put new members on the record technically provides voters with a useful piece of information.

Ideally, politics should be about parties with different policies that the electorate chooses between. Parties should run on well-defined platforms and work to enact these platforms if they win the election. Democracy works bests when voters know what policies the parties do and do not support.

At its core the Republicans want the voters to know where every member of Congress stands on one of the most significant laws in decades. Congress spending a few hours to create a clear policy contrast on one of the most important issue of the day might not be the most productive use of time, but it does serve a real function.

Photo by Gage Skidmore released under Creative Commons License

Vice President Joe Biden

My takeaway from my one-hour White House interview with Joe Biden is that he must be considering a presidential run. There will be too much Obama-era unfinished business – implementing the Affordable Care Act, fighting for climate-change initiatives, for example – for Biden to throw in the towel. His strengths as a candidate are his blue-collar persona, family values, lifetime support of labor unions and farmers, foreign-policy expertise and stouthearted belief that the Obama administration’s record of accomplishment – from the economic recovery to the killing of Osama bin Laden – has been historic. With Air Force Two at his disposal and his two superbright sons, Hunter and Beau, probably working as his chief advisers, Biden can give Hillary Clinton a run for her money.

This isn’t the first indication that despite his age Biden may well run in 2016. During the recent inauguration Biden paid special attention to top officials from the early primary states. He is being careful to leave the door open.

As long as Biden is possibly considering a run it at least means activists on the left have a small point of leverage over this lame duck administration. Since Biden would be forced to run on Obama’s legacy during a primary, he has a small incentive to try to stop Obama from upsetting the base too much. By historic standards Biden plays a fairly prominent role in this administration.

Photo by Barack Obama under Creative Commons license

Now that Republicans see attacking a lame duck provides only diminishing political returns they have once again set their sights squarely on Clinton. Yesterday’s Benghazi hearing was all about trying to tie blame to Clinton, as this new ad by American Crossroads makes clear.

With Clinton currently holding very strong poll numbers the Republican Party seems to have decided their best hope against her is to tear her down as early as possible. Don’t be surprised if this is the start of a three-year long operation.

Former Florida Governor Charlie Crist

Some great news: On Tuesday, Delaware became the 11th state to allow marriage equality. And just a few days ago, Rhode Island adopted a similar measure, which followed victories last fall in Maine, Maryland and Washington. I most certainly support marriage equality in Florida and look forward to the day it happens here.

Ever since Charlie Crist was effectively kicked out of the Republican Party by losing the Senate primary to Marco Rubio, he has slowly been transforming himself from a moderate Republican to a moderate Democrat.

Crist first became an independent back in 2010. In 2012 he endorsed Obama at the Democratic National Convention and then later that year officially registered as a Democrat. Crist is now taking positions that are more in line with the mainstream of the Democratic Party.

This is just the latest sign Crist might be preparing for a statewide run. There is a good chance Crist will run for governor again next year as a Democrat.

Only four years ago top Democrats thought endorsing same-sex marriage was politically too dangerous, now in large parts of the country it is seen a prerequisite for being considered part of the party.

Photo from Florida State images in the public domain

Rep. Ed Markey leads Gabriel Gomez in the special election for MA Senate

A new WBUR poll by MassINC Polling Group conducted over the weekend found Markey has an eight-point lead when you include leaners. It has Markey at 46 percent and Gomez at 38 percent among likely voters.

A Suffolk University poll finds Markey with a much larger 17 point lead among likely voters. It has Markey at 52 percent and Gomez at just 35 percent.

Both polls found Gomez remains an unknown quantity with many voters. According to the Suffolk poll 32 percent still hadn’t formed an opinion about him, while the WBUR found 47 had never heard of him or hadn’t formed an opinion.

While Gomez seems to be a strong Republican candidate for a blue state and the low turnout of special elections favors Republicans, the overwhelmingly Democratic leanings of Massachusetts is still nearly impossible for any Republican to overcome.

A new Marist poll found Democrat Terry McAuliffe with slim two point lead over Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli among registered voter. According to the poll, McAuliffe has the support of 43 percent of the register voters and Cuccinelli with 41 percent. But if you include leaners and look only a likely voters Cuccinelli ends up with a three point lead of McAuliffe.

The race is very close but could easily change going forward. A significant number voters said they currently haven’t heard enough about either candidate to form an opinion. The poll found 46 percent said they didn’t know enough about McAuliffe to rate him and 32 percent said the same thing about Cuccinelli.

Both candidates still have a lot of room and time to define themselves and their opponents. The two campaigns only began airing TV ads in the past few weeks.

There were two reasons to think the election was going to be closer than it was. The first was the only public pollster surveying the race, Public Policy Polling, had Sanford up by only one point but with momentum. Special elections with their unusual turnouts are traditionally very difficult to poll and last night’s was no exception. That is partly why no other pollsters even dared trying to poll the race.

Also, many thought the race would be closer because of Sanford’s sex scandal and incredibly strange behavior which led to him resigning as governor. Sanford was assumed to be too tainted for voters’ support. Even the national party cut him off.

Last night shows that partisan labels trump almost everything in Congressional elections. Sanford won by nationalizing the race. He even went so far as “debating” a cardboard Nancy Pelosi to show the race wasn’t about individual candidates but which party controls the House. Sanford made the race about partisan control, and given the strong Republican leaning of the district that was enough to give even this very tainted Republican the edge over a Democrat.

America is in an era of very unified and coherent political parties. Not only are members of Congress voting more like real national political parties along clear ideological divides but so too are their respective bases.

Screenshot from Mark Sanford campaign video

“I’ve struggled with this issue for 20 years,” he said. “For me, this is about turning 50 and looking at my children and wanting to be there for them.”

He also insisted that, contrary to what observers may say, the effort to slim down was not motivated by thoughts of a presidential bid.

“It’s so much more important than that,” he said.

While Christie mostly dodged the question, this is very likely a sign that he is seriously thinking about an eventual Presidential run. A sad reality of politics is that appearances are very important. People often see being overweight as a failure of self-control. In addition, people might worry if a very overweight individual is healthy enough to handle the stress and workload of the Presidency.

On a practical level losing a significant amount of weight would also simply make it easier for Christie to run. A Presidential campaign can be physically grueling.

Photo by Bob Jagendor released under Creative Commons License