GOP Fractures Further Over Payroll Tax Mess

TPM writes GOP Fractures Further Over Payroll Tax Mess "House GOP aides basically admitted this to reporters yesterday, but it bears repeating. The reason they fashioned a Rube Goldberg-esque procedural device to kill the Senate payroll tax cut compromise is that they know they’re now in political free fall on the issue. By doing things the way they did, at least vulnerable House Republicans can say that they didn’t vote against a tax cut for the middle class."

"By the same token, seven Republicans — Reps. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Walter Jones (R-NC), Charlie Bass (R-NH), Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA), Chris Gibson (R-NY), Tim Johnson (R-IL), and Frank Wolf (R-VA) — defected from leadership on the payroll vote. Five of those — Bass, Herrera Beutler, Gibson, Johnson, and Wolf — are Democratic targets. One, Flake, is a conservative who has opposed the payroll cut from the beginning but — and this is key — he is running statewide to replace retiring Sen. Jon Kyl in a state Democrats are trying to turn competitive. Jones is the only outlier, and he’s famously contrarian."