Boehner, who has primary responsibility for retaining the Republican majority in the House, is less cowed by the Tea Party forces both within his caucus and out in the states.David Brady, a political scientist at Stanford and deputy director of the Hoover Institution, said in an email: “Tea Party threats to run their candidates against incumbents voting against them have lost credibility.”
In close contests, the long-term unemployed, along with their families and their friends, have the power to determine the outcome in those 2014 elections in which a percentage point gained or lost can be decisive. On Dec. 28 Congress allowed unemployment benefits to expire for an estimated 1.3 million out of work men and women. A vote against restoring the benefits would create “a political vulnerability,” said John Feehery, a public relations executive who was once a top aide to Dennis Hastert, the former House speaker. “A lot of those folks on unemployment are swing voters. They dislike Obama but will vote their economic interests if they have to.”
Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist at Emory, agreed:
“I have to assume that if they are willing to consider extending unemployment benefits, it’s because they don’t want to hand Democrats a potentially damaging issue in the midterm elections. They certainly know that this has the support of a large majority of voters including a lot of Republican voters. And Democrats are going to try to use this issue along with raising the minimum wage to try to offset the political fallout from the rollout of Obamacare.”
Bridging the Compassion Gap - NYTimes.com
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