Thread: President Obama could lose big on Syria in House

President Obama could lose big on Syria in House

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/0...ote-96347.html

A loss on Syria would have serious reverberations throughout the next three months. | AP Photo




By JOHN BRESNAHAN and JAKE SHERMAN | 9/5/13 6:27 PM EDT
If the House voted today on a resolution to attack Syria, President Barack Obama would lose — and lose big.
That’s the private assessment of House Republican and Democratic lawmakers and aides who are closely involved in the process.
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If the Senate passes a use-of-force resolution next week — which is no sure thing — the current dynamics suggest that the House would defeat it. That would represent a dramatic failure for Obama, and once again prove that his sway over Congress is extraordinarily limited. The loss would have serious reverberations throughout the next three months, when Obama faces off against Congress in a series of high-stakes fiscal battles.
(WATCH: Obama meets with congressional leaders on Syria)
Several Republican leadership aides, who are counting votes but not encouraging a position, say that there are roughly one to two dozen “yes” votes in favor of military action at this time. The stunningly low number is expected to grow a bit.
But senior aides say they expect, at most, between 50 and 60 Republicans to vote with Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), who support the president’s plan to bomb Syria to stop Bashar Assad from using chemical weapons on his people. That would amount to less than one-third of the House Republican Conference.
(Also on POLITICO: Pelosi enforcers wobble on Syria)
That would mean the vast majority of the 200 House Democrats will need to vote with Obama for the resolution to pass. But Democrats privately say that Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) can only round up between 115 and 130 “yes” votes.
High-level congressional sources believe there is some time — but not much — for Obama, Boehner and Pelosi to turn things around. But any vote to authorize an attack on Syria will be extraordinarily close, according to people in both parties with direct knowledge of the political dynamics in the House Republican Conference and Democratic Caucus.
(PHOTOS: Syria: Where politicians stand)
Boehner and Cantor back the president’s plan for “limited, proportional” strikes in Syria. Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is not convinced it’s the right decision. McCarthy’s calculus seems to be more in line with many House Republicans — he has spoken to many of his allies in the last week, and the support for a U.S. strike on Syria is incredibly low, sources familiar with those discussions says say.
House leaders plan to takes up the Syria resolution only if it passes the Senate first.
The political climate, of course, can change. Pelosi is a legendary whip and has an uncanny ability to move her members. Since Congress is not in session, many lawmakers haven’t been lobbied by the Obama administration or attended its classified briefings. Obama hasn’t taken to the Oval Office to address the nation about Syria — many hope he’ll do that when he returns from the G-20 in Russia. The White House has already canceled a planned presidential trip to Los Angeles on Monday so the president can lobby lawmakers.
(WATCH: Dianne Feinstein: John Kerry has stepped up 'amazingly')
And rank-and-file House Republicans — especially some key members — are holding back their positions, waiting to see what happens next week when Congress returns.
“Republicans have traditionally tended to break toward the president” on national security and defense issues, noted a senior GOP aide. But this aide estimated that the resolution to bomb Syria has only a “30 to 40 percent chance of passing right now.”
(Also on POLITICO: So far, President Obama’s political arm sits out Syria push)
POLITICO reported on Thursday that Obama administration officials have reached out directly to one-third of Congress in the last two weeks — at least 60 senators and 125 House members — with more contacts to come, according to a White House aide.
And AIPAC, the powerful pro-Israel lobbying group, is poised to mount a major blitz next week in support of the Syria resolution, officials with the group said. AIPAC lobbyists and their supporters have been speaking directly to a number of lawmakers, especially senators, said House and Senate aides.
(Also on POLITICO: AIPAC to go all-out on Syria)
“At the end of the day, a lot of these Democrats are going to be with the president,” said a House Democratic aide close to the issue. “Because the choice is to vote against [the Syria resolution] and turn the president into a lame duck and destroy his credibility, or swallow it and vote for something that you’re not wild about. When you’re faced with that kind of decision, most of these fence-sitters are going to come aboard.”

Whip-Lashed! Obama Predicted to Lose Syria Vote 3 - 1

Obama on Verge of Historic Rebuke Over Syria

Thursday, 05 Sep 2013 04:51 PM
By David A. Patten

President Barack Obama appears to be dangerously close to what would be an historic rebuke at the hands of Congress, if the current whip-count projections on the authorization to attack Syria continue to hold.

Pundits on both sides of the aisle say losing the high-stakes bid for congressional authorization would make Obama an instant lame-duck, and might well endanger his entire second-term agenda.

The resolution authorizing an attack on Syrian strongman Bashar Assad, as punishment for his use of chemical weapons against his own people, is still expected to pass the Democratic-controlled Senate.

But the real question mark all along has been whether the administration could muster enough support to get the attack resolution through the House. And there, the situation for the administration appears to be growing dimmer by the hour.

Various news organizations are contacting members of Congress to see where they stand on the attack authorization. While each outlet has different numbers, the ominous sign for the administration is that all of them show the "no" votes outpacing the "yes" votes by a more than a 3-1 margin.

Most alarming for the administration may be The Washington Post whip count.

The Post has contacted 371 of the 435 members of the House. Of those contacted, 204 representatives are against authorization or leaning against it. That compares to 24 members in favor and 143 members who are undecided, and 48 of the undecided representatives are Republicans.

Of the undecided members, the Post reports, many of them have yet to receive the administration’s intelligence briefing on the sarin gas attack in Syria. About 25 percent of those opposed to the authorization are Democrats, which means the resistance to the proposal is clearly bipartisan.

Of course, there’s always the chance that last-minute lobbying by the administration will change the political calculus. But with an election year looming and both the Democratic and GOP bases opposed to further military excursions in the Middle East, the Obama administration appears to be in serious trouble.

The concern that Congress might balk at authorizing the attack, just as the House of Commons did in Britain, was precisely the reason several Obama aides argued strongly against the president’s surprise announcement on Saturday to ask Congress to OK his war plans against Syria.

On Thursday afternoon, as the whip counts were being tallied, the realization dawned in the nation’s capital that President Obama is perilously close to what would be an historic, humiliating international rebuke.

To date, no major military power or international organization has supported Obama’s stated intention to launch a cruise-missile barrage at Assad, the so-called "shot across the bow."

Aaron Blake and Sean Sullivan of The Washington Post reported the prospects for getting the measure through the House "are looking progressively dimmer for the Obama administration."

On Wednesday, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee sent the resolution to the full Senate chamber by a 10-7 vote. But by Thursday, there appeared to be a growing groundswell of opinion against the proposal.

On his radio program Thursday, Fox host Geraldo Rivera announced that he had changed his mind and will now oppose the initiation of any hostilities against Assad, saying, "I can’t support this decision to get involved in the Syrian civil war."

In an email statement to Newsmax, Rivera elaborated on his change of heart.

"If a punitive strike is called for in Syria," Rivera said in an email, "why wasn't a punitive strike called for in Libya after Ambassador Stevens and his three brave colleagues were killed last year in Benghazi?

"Assad committed a crime against humanity. It's the world's job to punish [him], not just ours."

The veteran newsman and commentator went on to predict that the resolution will fail.

"Congress will not approve this, and the president must not defy the obvious and growing opposition to this ill-advised and admittedly ill-defined act," he wrote. "Once a missile is lobbed, there is no such thing as a limited and measured result."

If Obama were to lose on the key congressional vote, the political repercussions would be profound.

Veteran pollster and columnist Matt Towery of Insider/Advantage Polling tells Newsmax that Obama’s support in the House looks so shaky right now it could even begin to cost him support in the Senate.

"I think the president is in extraordinarily deep trouble, as are the House leaders who put their necks out on this," Towery tells Newsmax.

He added that with the vote in the House scheduled soon after Congress returns to session on Sept. 9, the clock is already running out for Obama to recapture the momentum.

"The sense of urgency is about to be lost here," he said.

Democratic pollster and Fox News commentator Doug Schoen, a contributor to Newsmax magazine, says that everyone will lose if support for the resolution implodes.

"Obama will seek to blame the Republicans if he loses the vote on Syria, as he has with issue after issue, time after time. On this occasion," he said, "I believe the strategy will fail — if only because as the United States comes to look weaker and weaker, so too will President Obama."

The biggest losers in the battle, Towery says, may be House Leaders John Boehner and Eric Cantor, because they have voiced support for the measure.

"I don't think this will be a history-making failure on Obama's part, because I think his presidency is basically at a point where it is viewed as ineffective and pretty much at its end anyway. This may be the bow at the top of the package marking the ineffectiveness in the second term. But I don’t think this will be a new emblem of failure. I mean, we’re already there," Towery said.

But he added: "It would be very difficult for Boehner and Cantor to be re-elected to leadership of the House, with this sort of revolt on their hands."

He also called the division within the GOP between the leadership and the base "a harbinger of things to come."

"A Republican Party that is barely holding itself together at the seams in my opinion is splitting itself apart," Towery said. "In my opinion, that’s almost as big a story as a president who in his second term is proving to be almost completely ineffective."

© 2013 Newsmax. All rights reserved.


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Obama is in a pretty pickle right now, fortunately for us and because of his own big mouth and jumping the gun, he is in a "damed if i do, damed if i don't" senario. His inability to relize that the Russians too must not appear weak to their allie Syria has cause a dangerous situation in the med were warships are in relitively close proximity to each other and its getting worst now that Russia has sortied their Aircraft Carrier to the med as well as flooded the med with their Subs. Even the Chinese have jumped in with a ship. Iran has also sortied ships to the med. What we need right now is a moment of pause, all parties need to push back from the table and call it a night to avoid what can be a misread action and counter action resulting in an all out shooting war with the Russians. All this posturing by the Superpowers is putting all of us at risk, lets hope common sense prevails here.