Republican New Hampshire Senate candidate Scott Brown said Monday "there is no appetite" for impeaching President Barack Obama and that talk of it is just an effort to change the subject from the president's failed policies.
"There is no appetite for impeachment," Brown, the former Massachusetts senator, said during an appearance on
Fox News. "Impeachment is another effort to shift the blame for the failed policies in Washington," he told host Martha MacCallum.
Brown's sentiments echoed those expressed by Rep. Steve Scalise, the newly elected House Majority Whip and a tea party member, on
Fox News Sunday.
Scalise told host Chris Wallace that impeachment is not being planned, and "it seems the White House wants to talk about impeachment, and they are going off and fundraising off of it."
That same day, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was renewing her call for impeachment.
"It's time to impeach; and on behalf of American workers and legal immigrants of all backgrounds, we should vehemently oppose any politician on the left or right who would hesitate in voting for articles of impeachment," she wrote.
In a
Facebook post Sunday, Palin wrote that most Americans are unaware of the impeachable offenses Obama has committed in her eyes.
She pointed to a CNN poll that found one-third of respondents would support impeaching Obama, which Palin insisted is notable when "considering how misconstrued the issue is when relying" on media reports.
A
CNN/ORC International Poll released Friday showed only 35 percent do not believe Obama has exceeded his executive authority or gone "too far" in expanding his presidential powers.
Among Republicans, 57 percent support impeachment, compared to 35 percent of independents and 13 percent of Democrats.
Palin, citing Obama's handling of immigration and flow of Central American children across the southern border, originally called for impeachment in a July 8 column posted on
Breitbart News.
Since Palin uttered the "I" word, Democrats have seemed intent on pushing the issue into voter's minds, particularly among Democrats.
"It has the potential to wake up a lot of Democrats whose energy level about voting this year is low," Democratic consultant Joe Trippi told
Politico.
"The more they talk about it, the more it has a red-hot effect on their base. So if you can get the temperature just right, you're turning out all your base voters and Democrats don't take it seriously and it's a good year for you," Trippi added.
Appearing at a Christian Science Monitor
reporters breakfast on July 25, Obama senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer said the president's decision to take additional executive actions on immigration could increase the possibility of impeachment.
He added, it "should not be discounted" because "I think Speaker Boehner, by going down the path of this lawsuit, has opened the door to impeachment sometime in the future."
Boehner has unequivocally rejected calls for impeachment.
However, Iowa Republican Congressman Steve King told
Breitbart that from his standpoint, "If the president [enacts more executive actions], we need to bring impeachment hearings immediately before the House of Representatives."
New York Times columnist
Charles Blow noted that Democrats, including Pfeiffer, are now characterizing the lawsuit as "impeachment lite."
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