Working the GOP's weak spot: how Barack Obama is following Bill Clinton's minimum wage game plan to try to hold on to the senate.

• Author: Glastris, Paul

On April 30, Senate Republicans filibustered a bill sponsored by the Democrats and heavily promoted by President Obama that would have raised the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour. It was an impressive show of unity by GOP senators, only one of whom, Bob Corker of Tennessee, supported the Democrats' failed effort to send the bill to the floor for a vote.

But that very day, former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty made news when he said on MSNBC that "Republicans should support reasonable increases to the minimum wage." Five days later, another 2012 GOP presidential candidate broke ranks. "Let's not make this argument that we're for the blue-collar guy but we're against any minimum wage increase ever," said Rick Santorum. "It just makes no sense." A month after that, Mitt Romney himself joined in the apostasy: "I, for instance, as you know, part company with many of the conservatives in my party on the issue of the minimum wage. I think we ought to raise it."

Though Pawlenty, Santorum, and Romney aren't running for office (at least not in 2014), their prominence in the party--and the journalistic rule that says three's a trend--was enough to prompt this front-page Washington Post headline: "Split Appears in GOP as More Call for Raising Federal Minimum Wage"

And it isn't just Republican ex-presidential candidates who are having second thoughts on the minimum wage. In several hotly contested Senate races, GOP challengers have commenced various sorts of waffling on the issue. In Arkansas, Representative Tom Cotton, aiming to unseat Senator Mark Pryor, let it be known that he will "carefully study" a state minimum wage increase proposal after having previously opposed the very idea of a minimum wage. In North Carolina, Tom Tillis, during the GOP primary to take on Senator Kay Hagan, called the bill to increase the federal minimum wage a "dangerous idea." But after winning the nomination in May, he told MSNBC's Chuck Todd that it would be appropriate for the state legislature to decide whether to raise the minimum wage, though he refused to say whether he, the speaker of the North Carolina house, would support such a move.

That there's some dissension and subtle repositioning occurring among Republicans on this topic is understandable. The GOP is well placed to retake the Senate this November, but the minimum wage is the one issue that could rob them of that prize. Most Republican elected officials oppose raising it (or even having it) out of a conviction that it will cost jobs (and it might--as many as 500,000 jobs, according to a recent CBO projection), or to match the beliefs of their most conservative voters, or because of pressure from business groups, or all three. Yet they know full well that a higher minimum wage is hugely popular, with 70 percent of voters, including about half of all Republicans, favoring it.

Democrats know that too, which is why they've made raising the minimum wage the main weapon in their 2014 electoral arsenal. It's a core Democratic conviction, an evergreen the party has periodically and profitably turned to for decades. Yet it feels newly relevant in an era of rampant income inequality. And it is the perfect rhetorical snare for any Republican who tries to capitalize on the lack of income growth in the current recovery. The same recent CBO report projects that if the Democrats' bill becomes law, more than 16.5 million families would see their wages go up--for a collective total of $31 billon--including nearly a million families who would be lifted above the poverty line.

Indeed, Democrats have lined the route to November with a series of minimum wage traps. The April 30 Senate vote was the first; Senate leaders plan to keep bringing the bill up for a vote again and again throughout the summer and fall. Meanwhile, Democrats and groups supporting them, including labor unions, have managed to get initiatives to raise state minimum wage levels on the ballot in several states, including Arkansas and Alaska, where key Senate contests are also taking place. Such ballot measures have been shown to boost Democratic voter turnout in midterm elections by several percentage points.

Whether this will be enough to help the Democrats keep the Senate remains to be seen. But the power of the minimum wage, if handled right, to wreak havoc in the Republican ranks should not be underestimated.

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