Legal Commentary

Bloggers: Both side critical of party chairs. Disagree somewhat, but not entirely, on health care chances, and Obama as a one-term President

By David Kopel

This week, the National Journal poll of political bloggers moves to a new spot on the NJ website, ?The Hotline Blogometer.? Besides the weekly poll, the Blogometer contains a daily report on what leading liberal and conservative political bloggers are writing about the controversies of the moment. In this week?s poll, bloggers were asked ?On a scale of 0 to 10, what?s the likelihood that Congress will pass health care reform?? Based on the information that was available in the earlier part of this week, the Left answered 7.8, while the Right said 5.6. Which is not terribly far apart.

I voted for 5, and wrote ?In May 1994, President Clinton used the full force of his office to convince House Democrats to drive their majority off a cliff, by enacting a ban on so-called ?assault weapons? (ordinary firearms with cosmetically incorrect features). President Obama and House leadership seem determined to repeat a similar mistake, except on a much greater scale.?

Question 2 asked the Left ?Is Tim Kaine an asset or a liability as DNC chairman?? The Right was asked about Michael Steele and the RNC. On both sides, only 31% voted for ?asset.? The only writer who had anything good to say about Michael Steele was me: ?Probably some of each. Still having trouble understanding that his job is to help the team, not to be the star.?

Finally, the bloggers were asked if Obama would be a one-term President. Thirty-one percent on the Left, and 71 percent on the Right thought so. Of course it?s far too early to predict with any confidence, but perhaps it would be accurate to say that his current chances for re-election are in the 30?70% range. He?s far from doomed, but not looking particularly solid right now either. I guessed the one-term would be the more likely result: ?He will have plenty of opportunities in 2011?2012 to change his current self-destructive course. But it seems more likely that he will double down on his failures and his policies, which alienate the majority of the American people.?

Full post as published by The Volokh Conspiracy on March 18, 2010 (boomark / email).