If there was ever a contest for “most polarizing figure in America,” my guess is the final face-off would be Newt Gingrich vs. Paul Ryan or John Boehner, with Gingrich winning by a slam-dunk. Ryan and Boehner are emblematic protectors of economic privilege, true. But Gingrich not only divides America with vicious ad hominem attacks and rhetorical bomb-throwing; he divides the GOP like none of their leaders in recent memory.
The latest corroboration of Gingrich’s divisive fallout in the GOP can be found in Jackie Calmes’ article in the Sunday New York Times, “As Gingrich’s Star Rises, So Do His Party’s Concerns,” which includes a round-up of some of the nail-biting comments being made by Republican insiders:

Since we don’t know how he got here, I don’t know how he can be stopped,” said Ed Rogers, a longtime Washington lobbyist and party strategist who worked for the first President George Bush. …
…Representative Peter T. King, a New York Republican who served in the House when Mr. Gingrich was speaker, has been an outspoken critic. I’ve had any number of members of Congress come over to me and thank me for what I’m saying,” he said. “They say, ‘This guy is going to kill us if he gets the nomination.’ ”
…Stuart Rothenberg, an independent analyst of Congressional races, said that Mr. Gingrich could hurt other Republicans running next year. “There are some Republican insiders I talk to who think it would be a full-fledged blowout,” he said.
…”The fact that he has no infrastructure scares me to death,” said a party chairman in a battleground state, who asked not to be named given his need to remain neutral…”How do we make sure this train wreck doesn’t happen?” he added. “That’s the conversation among the politicos.”

There is even talk of that most treasured of Democratic fantasies, a brokered GOP convention, as Calmes reports:

Some Tea Party conservatives have even begun talking of a brokered Republican convention in August to push for a candidate they feel is more conservative.
…”What is amazing is how many people feel this way,” said Adam Brandon, a spokesman for FreedomWorks, a group affiliated with the Tea Party movement. “If you had a concerted effort, someone could force a brokered convention. The hard part is finding the right person.”

It would take a very close GOP delegate count next August to force a brokered convention. But, however unlikely, the buzz is out there, a perverse tribute to Newt’s staying power as poster-boy for polarization.
I would not be shocked if Romney’s big money supporters begin pouring dough into Ron Paul’s Iowa campaign as part of a desperate ‘Stop Newt’ effort. A Paul upset in Iowa would slow Newt for a minute, but even a strong second-place finish in New Hampshire would keep Gingrich afloat. For Dems, the good news is that a long, hard-fought Republican primary season is likely, given the volatile polls we have seen thus far.
At a minimum, the emergent GOP front-runner will have already been subjected to some of the most thoroughly-tested and brutal campaign ads yet created, which Dems can tweak, polish and amplify. Incumbents still have an important advantage as the more unified party.
Odds are, the Republicans will nominate a seriously damaged candidate. But, whether it’s Newt or Romney, they will likely unify at the convention and line up to support the nominee. Much depends on how much damage they do to each other in the primaries — maybe not as much as the economic trends going forward, but their fall campaign could be impaired by still-echoing internecine strife.
The Obama campaign’s early attack ads targeting Romney are understandable, since they believe he is the more formidable opponent. And it’s easy to envision ‘blowout’ scenarios in which Newt’s reverse coattails help Dems down-ballot.
But Dems should not underestimate Newt, nor overestimate Romney. If Newt shines compared to Obama in the last Presidential debate and the economy is trending downward, expect a close race. Gingrich has to be one of the most power-crazed presidential candidates ever, and he knows this is his last chance to win the white house. He will bring his ‘A’ game.
Romney, on the other hand, is not as good a debater as Newt, and his flip-flop baggage is extensive. Obama should best him in most of the debates. Romney’s best hope for beating Obama is a worsening economy.
I get the ‘Root for Newt’ mantra attributed to the Obama campaign. Axelrod and Plouffe, who have already conducted one impressive presidential campaign, are still among the smartest strategists in the Democratic Party. And the delicious prospect of a down-ballot disaster for the GOP under Newt sweetens the pot considerably. It’s hard to envision a similar rout for down-ballot Republicans if Romney is nominated, despite his significant vulnerabilities.
Both Republican front-runners can be beat, especially if favorable economic trends kick in. They are stuck with a largely discredited monomania about tax cuts for the rich being the panacea for all economic ills, and polls show the public isn’t buying it. The Obama campaign’s hopes for Gingrich’s nomination are understandable. But Dems should prepare for a fierce, close race regardless.

Democrats are recruiting an impressive number of strong candidates to run for office across the country. But at this historical moment, grass roots progressives — the OWS-friendly “99 percenters” — have a particulalry favorable political climate in which to run for office and do very well, argues The Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuval in her column, “99%er Champions.”

As we head into a presidential election year, I’d wager a lot the mainstream media will focus their attention on the horse race for the White House and other prime time campaigns. But this is a moment–when we are seeing a real shift in our politics, from Wisconsin to Ohio to Occupy–to be recruiting and supporting what I’d call 99 percenter candidates: those who share the core convictions of Occupy Wall Street and the 99 percent movement.
This space that’s been opened by movements provides a real opportunity now for a progressive politics that is strong at the grassroots and strong in principle, and that finds champions inside an electoral system badly in need of reform–reform that will only come if we can elect enough “inside” progressives to help our “outside” movements make it happen.
So it’s great to see candidates like Tammy Baldwin, Elizabeth Warren and Mazie Hirono on the campaign trail talking about issues like democracy and equality. It’s also good to know Progressive Majority, along with allies like the New Organizing Institute, Rebuild the Dream and Democracy for America, has pledges from over 1,500 candidates to run in 2012.

Vanden Heuval spotlights Norman Soloman, a Democratic candidate for congress (CA-6) and founding director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, who has been endorsed by CA-based progressive leaders and activists, as an excellent example of the kind of candidate who meets “the need to fuse movement energy and electoral politics”:

The vision of Solomon…is aligned with what is now so central to our political discussion and must remain so: action on jobs and income inequality; ending the wars and investing those resources at home; sane and fair taxes on the wealthy and Wall Street; protecting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid; ending our dependence on fossil fuels and preventing catastrophic climate change.
…”I used to say that having a strong progressive movement was much more important than who was in office, but now I’d say that what we really need is a strong progressive movement and much better people in office,” he said. “Having John Conyers, Barbara Lee, Dennis Kucinich, Jim McGovern, Raúl Grijalva, Lynn Woolsey in Congress is important. We need more of those sorts of legislators as part of the political landscape.”

“It’s just common sense that progressives who come out of movements have a far better chance of staying connected to the Occupy movement energy and principles than Democrats who don’t,” says vanden Heuval, noting that “Solomon is such a candidate, and there are others.”
Vanden Heuval amplifies the call in her conclusion: “I’ve always believed lasting progressive transformation will come from people’s movements, the kind now taking root in towns and cities across the nation. But it will also require people on the inside who share those principles and are fully dedicated to fighting for them. In 2012, we have the opportunity to elect those champions.”

Timothy Noah’s “Poll: It Isn’t Both Sides’ Fault” at The New Republic provides a strong validation Of James Vega’s December 5 TDS post about the folly and fraud of ‘false equivalence’ in assigning blame to both political parties for legislative gridlock and economic decline. Citing a new Pew Center poll conducted 12/7-11, Noah explains in the nut graph:

…The really interesting finding is that the public does not accept the “objective” message spoon-fed by the press that both sides are equally at fault. Instead, it (accurately) assigns most of the blame to the Republican party. Forty percent say Republican leaders are more to blame, as against a mere 23 percent who say Democratic leaders are more to blame. A larger proportion blames the GOP than blame both parties (32 percent). And among independents, 38 percent say Republicans are more to blame, against 15 percent who say Democrats are. So much for the hack story line that partisanship and political games-playing is paralyzing Washington. Partisanship and political games-playing by Republicans is paralyzing Washington

It gets better:

Which party, Pew asked, is more extreme in its positions? Fifty-three percent say Republicans, against 33 percent who finger Democrats. (Only 1 percent says that neither side is more extreme.)
Which side is more willing to work with the other? Fifty-one percent say it’s the Democrats, against 25 percent who say Republicans.
Which side can better manage the government? Forty-one percent say the Democrats against 35 percent who say the Republicans.
Which side is more honest and ethical? Forty-five percent say the Democrats, against 28 percent who say the Republicans.

Noah goes on to cite polling data showing that even Republicans agree that their party is at more at fault. More and more it appears that the MSM’s false equivalency puppets and parrots have a very tough sell.

The following item, by TDS Co-Editor William Galston, is cross-posted from The New Republic:
Over the next three weeks, the heat-to-light ratio in the press coverage of the Iowa caucuses will rise steadily. Here are a few basics to keep in mind.
1. Iowa is a flawed leading indicator, especially for Republicans. Of the past five contests without an incumbent Republican president, the Iowa winner has gone on to receive the nomination only twice–in 1996 (Dole) and 2000 (George W. Bush). On the other hand, Iowa typically winnows the field and seems likely to do so again. If Bachmann and Santorum don’t do significantly better than expected in Iowa, their campaigns for all practical purposes will end. If Perry doesn’t do well despite spending millions on advertising, he’ll probably have enough left in the bank to continue, but with poor prospects of success.
2. A Gingrich victory in Iowa would put him in a strong position to go the distance–by narrowing or even overcoming Mitt Romney’s margin in New Hampshire and by putting him in an excellent position to sweep the Southern primaries, where he now leads Romney by a combined 41 to 16 percent.
3. Ron Paul is Romney’s new best friend. Not only is Paul attacking Gingrich relentlessly, but also a strong Paul showing in Iowa would almost certainly come at Gingrich’s expense. Because Romney is unlikely to prevail in Iowa, the best outcome for him would be a victory by a candidate with no chance of going on to win the nomination. More than a few veteran observers of the Iowa scene believe that Paul’s combination of strong organization and fervent support could produce just such a result.
4. Paul is not the Tea Party candidate. In fact, 56 percent of likely Republican caucus-goers who sympathize with the Tea Party have ruled out voting for Paul–more than for any other candidate. By contrast, only 17 percent have ruled out Gingrich, while only 31 percent have done so for Romney. The reason is simple–Tea Partiers are fervent across-the-board conservatives, not libertarians, and disagree with Paul on many social and foreign policy issues. Indeed, Paul’s profile disrupts standard ideological categories. 13 percent of Republicans see him as liberal, 20 percent as moderate, another 20 percent as somewhat conservative, and 28 percent as very conservative, while the remainder just don’t know what to make of him.
5. Romney and Gingrich’s ideological profiles are much clearer to voters. Likely Republican primary and caucus participants have found it much easier to locate Romney and Gingrich along the left-right continuum. 57 percent see Gingrich as somewhat or very conservative, versus 28 percent who regard him as moderate. Romney profile is almost the mirror-image: 53 percent see him as moderate, versus only 29 percent as somewhat or very conservative. In a party whose grassroots supporters are mainly conservative, Gingrich’s ideological position gives him an advantage–if he can maintain it. That’s why Romney and others have begun attacking him for past positions that defied conservative orthodoxy.
6. Romney has lost his “electability” edge: What was once his greatest asset among Republicans–the belief that he was far more likely to defeat Barack Obama than was any other contender–now seems to be slipping away. As recently as mid-November, fully 30 percent of primary and caucus participants espoused that view, versus only 13 percent for Gingrich. Now, 35 percent give the electability award to Gingrich, versus 28 percent for Romney.
Are these Republicans right? Based on the evidence, anyway, it’s hard to say. On the one hand, a synthesis of recent surveys suggests that Obama would beat Gingrich handily but is in a dead heat with Romney. On the other hand, a recent Gallup/USA Today poll showed that both Romney and Gingrich lead Obama in the twelve crucial swing states by almost identical margins. And one could make a case that Gingrich’s more welcoming stance on immigration would serve him well with Hispanics in a general election–assuming that it doesn’t become his Achilles heel during the nominating contest.
7. The Republican race remains fluid and unsettled. Only a third of Romney’s supporters back him strongly; only 29 percent of Gingrich’s do so. And there are indications–from the Gallup tracking poll, for example–that the Gingrich tide is receding a bit. A poorer than expected showing in Iowa could disrupt the momentum of his entire campaign.
William Galston is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a contributing editor at The New Republic.

One of the conclusions you get from Jedediah Purdy’s Democracy post “The Roberts Court v. America” is that the Democrats were too hasty in confirming the current CJ and the other conservative justices.
Subtitled “How the Roberts Supreme Court is using the First Amendment to craft a radical, free-market jurisprudence,” Purdy paints a disturbing portrait of a court majority dedicated to gratifying wealthy elites at the expense of working people. Most Dems were generally aware of this, but Purdy’s report should heighten concern about the future of economic progress in America under a High Court dedicated to de-regulation. As Purdy summarizes the philosophy of the current High Court:

In the last few years, the Supreme Court and lower federal courts have shown a new hostility toward laws that regulate the economy and try to limit the effects of economic power. They have declared a series of laws unconstitutional, most famously limits on corporate campaign spending (the Supreme Court) and a key part of Congress’s 2010 health-care reform act (among others the 11th Circuit Court in Atlanta; the Supreme Court will decide the issue in the coming year)… and struck down other state laws that try to constrain the effect of wealth on elections. These decisions don’t just trim around the edges of regulation: They go to the heart of whether government can act to balance out private economic power in an era of growing economic inequality and insecurity. These decisions chime with some of the more troubling themes of the time. They fit well with the economics-minded idea that most of life is best seen as a marketplace, and with the right-wing mistrust of government that has metastasized into Tea Party contempt and anger.
Liberals have denounced many of these decisions, but they have not yet spelled out the larger pattern. What’s missing from the criticism is a picture of what these cases add up to: an identity for the Roberts Court as the judicial voice of the idea that nearly everything works best on market logic, that economic models of behavior capture most of what matters, and political, civic, and moral distinctions mostly amount to obscurantism and special pleading.

The author believes the current court is headed in the direction of the “Lochner era,” named for an emblematic case which in which the Supreme Court of 1905 launched an era of some 200 decisions bashing worker rights and undermining economic fairness to benefit the already-wealthy, laying the foundation for unfettered corporate abuse. “The new cases have different doctrinal logic, and the economy has changed vastly, but the bottom lines are eerily alike: giving constitutional protection to unequal economic power in the name of personal liberty.”
Purdy sketches the ideological underpinnings of the Roberts Court:

The Supreme Court’s several-pronged attack on the regulation of spending, selling, and buying reinforces one of the most persistent and pernicious intellectual mistakes of the time…the idea that markets are natural phenomena, arising from their own organic principles and free human action, while politics and lawmaking are artificial interferences with this natural activity. In fact, as sophisticated economists, lawyers, and others have always understood, markets are the products of law, which defines and enforces the ownership and exchanges that set the market in motion. A laissez-faire market arises from one kind of law, a more social-democratic market from another. There are things to say for and against both kinds of markets, and any real-life economy has complex blends of both elements–for instance, minimum-wage laws, bans on racial discrimination and prostitution, speed and weight limits for long-haul truckers, and so forth are all straightforward limits on laissez-faire market freedom. It is obscurantist to suggest that some version of the laissez-faire market is a natural baseline, and anything that departs from it needs special justification…

Of recent decisions by the Roberts majority, Purdy adds,

That is the spirit of the new cases. Taken to their limit, they would set aside the intellectual and political gains of decades of struggle in the twentieth century: the New Deal recognition that the country must take responsibility for shaping its own economy, and the decision to remove the old American romance with economic libertarianism from constitutional judging…The new jurisprudence shares some special features with the old–in particular, a meshing of constitutional principle with economic libertarianism that calls into question the authority of democratic government to shape markets and, above all, check economic power.

Regarding the upcoming deliberations on HCR, Purdy writes, “The most extreme scenario would begin with invalidating the 2010 Affordable Care Act, but, win or lose, the mere fact that there is a viable constitutional argument against the law is a sign of how far the new economic libertarianism has gone.” Regarding elections and spending, he writes “It is in this market-fixated climate that courts can declare that spending is speech, advertisement is argument, and the transfer of marketing data is a core concern of the First Amendment.”
President Obama was able to get Justices Sotomayor and Kagan confirmed. But now the Senate Republicans are about blocking all Obama court appointments. If the Republicans win, Dems should put Republican court nominees, and particularly their economic philosophy, through more intense scrutiny. One more free market ideologue on the court, and reforms like the minimum wage, health and safety regulation and all remaining elements of the social and economic safety net will all be endangered, if not shredded.
Of course, the term “Robert’s Court” somewhat disses the four liberal/moderate court justices, who may be in the majority on occasion. There is also an argument that one more reactionary Supreme Court Justice won’t make such a big difference. But a 6-3 High Court would prolong the rule of the ‘free’ market purists, potentially for decades longer than the current 5-4 conservative majority.
Progressives have been fairly vigilant in monitoring the records of Court nominees with respect to their views on abortion, gun control, Gay marriage, prayer in school and all of the social issues. But it’s clear that Dems have been too lax in giving conservative court nominees a free ride on their economic philosophies, which are proving hugely consequential to America’s future.
There’s lots more in Purdy’s article that Dems should read to better understand what’s at stake in the November elections. But if political moderates needed just one good reason to vote Democratic in 2012, Purdy’s got it.

Greg Sargent has a short, smart post “Why Republicans are better at negotiating than Dems,” which says a lot about why bipartisanship is a fading ideal, as well as the futility of offering up-front concessions to an adversary with an increasingly infantile attitude toward conflict-resolution. Noting the speculation that Dems are seriously considering dropping the millionaire’s surtax in exchange for the GOP dumping the Keystone XL pipeline poison pill, Sargent quotes Boehner’s ‘rationale’:

They never had the votes for their so-called millionaires’ surtax,” Boehner said at his weekly briefing with reporters. “They didn’t even have the votes in 2009 and 2010, when they controlled everything. So, I appreciate the fact that they gave up on their millionaires’ surtax, but they didn’t give anything up because they never had it.

“Dems view these talks as follows: We give something up, and you give something up in return,” says Sargent. That is the way sincere, problem-solving grown-ups negotiate, only you don’t cave on your most important goal up front. The GOP “leadership,” on the other hand, offers the following warped “logic,” Sargent explains:

…Republicans view them as: Your concessions don’t even count as concessions, because we were never going to agree to your demands in the first place, so you’ll have to come up with some real concessions, i.e., you’ll have to give up more.

As Sargent concludes about the GOP position, “This pretty clearly illustrates the folly of signaling a willingness to compromise in advance, doesn’t it?”

A majority, 58 percent of Americans want Congress to enact the payroll tax reduction, with 35 percent wanting it to expire, according to a new Associated Press-GfK Roper Public Affairs and Corporate Communications poll conducted 12/8-12. “Letting the payroll tax break expire would cost a family making $50,000 about $1,000…If an agreement is not reached by the end of the year, payroll taxes will jump on Jan. 1 from this year’s 4.2 percent back to their normal level of 6.2 percent,” explains Laurie Kellman in her AP report. It’s not just Dems who support the extension, she notes: “Republicans were evenly divided,” while “Conservatives supported an extension, 54 percent to the 42 percent who prefer to let the reduction expire.”
It must be done. Think of it as basic training for Democratic warriors, this exploratory journey via AmericanCrossroadsWatch.org through the rancid belly of the beast.
Paul Waldman’s “Is the GOP Base Willing to Lose in 2012?” explores the interesting question also raised by Ed Kilgore about whether the ‘true believers’ are OK with Obama winning re-election — provided they get control of the Republican Party.
You go, guy.
Dems have been saying all along that unemployment compensation benefits the entire economy, as well as the jobless. And a new study by Mark Zandi and Alan Binder flagged at Demos finds that “UI has been one of the most effective forms of stimulus…Each dollar spent on extended UI benefits produced $1.61 in economic activity and has helped to mitigate the worst effects of the economic down turn…According to study by the Economic Policy Institute, letting extended benefits expire as a result of the debt ceiling deal will take $70 billion out of the economy in 2012, reduce GDP by 0.4 percent, and result in 528,000 fewer jobs.”
There are serious questions that should be answered about Ron Paul’s racial attitudes (audio clip here), but at least he’s transparent about his reactionary views on Medicare.
On the racism issue, Michael Tomasky speculates at the Daily Beast about Paul’s share of the youth vote: “I wonder what these young and gender-transcendent and differently melanined people would make, for example, of the racism charges. There is debate on this point, but back during the 2008 campaign, The New Republic’s James Kirchick tracked down old copies (late 1980s and early 1990s) of a newsletter that went out to subscribers under Paul’s name. The sentences that appear in these documents are so astonishing that they’d have stood out in Alabama in 1960…The name of New York City should be changed to “Welfaria,” “Zooville,” “Rapetown,” “Dirtburg,” or “Lazyopolis.” David Duke’s near-win in the 1990 Louisiana Senate primary was celebrated. Mountains of material about welfare cheats and animals and arming oneself for the coming race riot and so on.”
Good news in The Keystone State — Obama up 10 points since August.
Public Policy Polling also has welcome news for the white house: “PPP has polled Virginia four times in 2011 and has come to the same conclusion every time: Barack Obama just hasn’t slipped there to the extent he has nationally. That’s a finding with major, major implications for his reelection prospects because if he wins Virginia he’s probably going to win the Electoral College…and our polling in the state over the course of the year has certainly suggested he’s in a good position to do it. Right now we find Obama on positive ground in the state with 48% of voters approving of him to 47% who disapprove…in Virginia he has a very strong base behind him…Obama leads both Mitt Romney (48-42) and Newt Gingrich (50-43) by margins comparable to his 6 point victory over John McCain in 2008. He leads both of them with independents- Romney by 4 and Gingrich by 8. And between the two match ups he’s picking up as many Republicans as he’s losing Democrats, again something we just aren’t seeing in very many places.” (Full results, cross tabs here)
Check out these interesting maps of five possible paths to 270 electoral votes for Obama.
Massimo Calabresi reports at Time Swampland on “Texas Trifecta: Control of Presidency, Congress and Courts May Be at Stake in Redistricting Fight,” and he does it with way-cool, jazzy maps. In addition to four new congressional seats at stake, the fight over the legality of the redistricting plan threatens to delay the TX primary from Super Tuesday, (March 6) to May 29, “nearly three extra months of expensive and damaging intra-party attacks between GOP candidates.”

The following item, by TDS Managing Editor Ed Kilgore, is cross posted from The New Republic:
As the 2012 invisible primary lurches to a close, the Republican Party looks more likely than ever to be in the process of presenting its caucus and primary voters with the choice between one candidate they don’t want to nominate and another their fellow-Americans don’t want to elect. Mitt Romney simply hasn’t grown on primary voters; if anything, in recent weeks, he’s soured. And Newt Gingrich, for his part, would enter the general election as the weakest GOP nominee since Barry Goldwater. But owing to the present weakness of the GOP establishment, the bullishness of the base, and the fact that someone must win, my money is currently on Gingrich pulling off a repeat of 1964.
It would normally go without saying that the Republican Party establishment would find a way to ensure that Romney receives the nomination. But even the most robust assessment of establishment power within the GOP must take into account the simple fact that the rank-and-file will have the final say; the establishment, for all its money and access to the airwaves, can only succeed via its influence with actual voters who elect actual delegates to the actual convention. And such voters simply aren’t taking to him. Romney has now failed to benefit in any tangible way from the crashing and burning of no less than three candidates who have serially led him in national polls. His favorability/unfavorability ratio among Republican voters has been eroding notably, and he’s finally looking vulnerable even in New Hampshire, supposedly his Maginot Line against a poor showing in Iowa. Even his reputation as untouchable in candidate debates has come into question after a shaky performance in the recent ABC/Des Moines Register forum this last weekend. And time for yet another front-runner crash-and-burn is rapidly running out, with the blitzkrieg of January nominating events, beginning with the Iowa caucuses, exactly three weeks away.
But even more importantly, Romney’s shocking weakness against Gingrich suggests that his supposed trump card, “electability,” doesn’t really matter all that much to Republican voters. Given present trends, that’s not as surprising as it might seem. Ever-increasing majorities of likely Republican primary voters are expressing the opinion that they’d prefer a nominee who reflects their values and views to one with a better chance of winning next November. And even among the minority who say they care most about electability, it should by no means be assumed that that concern translates into support for Romney, given the recent ascendancy of the conservative dogma that run-to-the-center moderates are guaranteed losers and the parallel belief–born of the party’s exceptional contempt for Barack Obama–that any true conservative is destined to win in 2012. To put it bluntly, the conservative activists who dominate the Republican presidential nominating contest are split between those who simply don’t believe adverse polls about Gingrich, and those who would rather control the GOP than the White House, if forced to choose.
Revealingly enough, even believers in the ultimate power of the GOP establishment are beginning to lose faith in Mitt and look to previously far-fetched possibilities for resolving the GOP nomination process. Nate Silver’s take on the situation sums it up nicely:
Republicans are dangerously close to having none of their candidates be acceptable to rank-and-file voters and the party establishment. It’s not clear what happens when this is the case; there is no good precedent for it. But since finding a nominee who is broadly acceptable to different party constituencies is the foremost goal of any party during its nomination process, it seems possible that Republicans might begin to look elsewhere.
And so some pundits, including Rhodes Cook and Ezra Klein, have suggested that the establishment could go to astonishing lengths, up to and including a very late candidacy or even a “brokered convention,” to keep Newt off the top of the ticket. Cook goes all the way back to 1976 to the Democratic candidacies of Frank Church and Jerry Brown for any sort of precedent for his late-entry scenario, but both candidates came up far short, of course. And he concedes that any such 2012 candidate would have to win virtually everything still on the table after missing most of the filing deadlines for primaries prior to April. And Klein doesn’t offer any specific game-plan for the exceedingly unlikely event of a brokered convention.
But those pundits willing to entertain “anything’s possible” scenarios to thwart a Gingrich nomination might want to be more open to the possibility of the establishment simply losing, which is not unprecedented. Indeed, it happened in 1964, when the power of the rank-and-file to elect delegates in primaries was extremely limited, and very nearly happened again in 1976, when Ronald Reagan came within an eyelash of denying renomination to a sitting president. In both cases, a very large number of Republican voters showed themselves to be more interested in defeating the Republican establishment than in defeating Democrats.
Of course, I am not, repeat not, by any means arguing that Gingrich is anything like a shoo-in for the nomination at this point. The exposure of his many heresies against conservative orthodoxy, stressed so avidly by his opponents in the first Iowa debate, may still sink in among voters. Late and highly coordinated endorsements from right-wing opinion-leaders like Iowa’s Bob Vander Plaats and Steve King could lift another candidate like Perry, Bachmann, or Santorum just enough to wreck Gingrich’s momentum in Iowa. Or Ron Paul could win the caucuses, making New Hampshire the real starting point.
But if Newt loses, it won’t be because of some mystical power of the GOP establishment to deny the nomination to a weak general-election candidate. Conservative activists have a different view of the risks and opportunities of 2012 than either establishment pooh-bahs or the pundits. What looks to some like a winnable-or-losable general election looks to ideologues like the best chance in decades to replay 1964 and repeal the Great Society and the New Deal. In this context, it’s no surprise that the old revolutionary Gingrich looks like a better prospect than Romney to take on that challenge–and if it fails, well, it’s just a small step backwards on the conservative movement’s long march to ultimate victory.

Robert L. Borosage, president of the Institute for America’s Future, has an important post up at HuffPo, “The American Dream: The Forgotten Leading Actor.” It’s about the pivotal role unions play in creating a decent society.
No, it’s not a new idea to progressives. But, as Borosage notes, the bomb Newt chucked into the fray about relaxing child labor laws should serve as a potent reminder about the threat unions — and all American workers — face if the 2012 elections go the wrong way.
No one is surprised by the Republicans’ assault on unions. It’s more vicious than ever, but it’s been going on since Reagan busted PATCO, notes Borosage. But he also argues that the progressive narrative has largely neglected the labor movement, despite the recent uprisings in Wisconsin and Ohio.
Borosage cites recent speeches by Elizabeth Warren and President Obama, giving them due credit for their well-stated insights about corporate power and abuses, but faulting them for failing to cite the critical role of unions. He then reviews the contributions of labor:

We emerged from World War II with unions headed towards representing about 30% of the workforce. Fierce struggles with companies were needed to ensure that workers got a fair share of the rewards of their work. Unions were strong enough that non-union employers had to compete for good workers by offering comparable wages. Unions enforced the forty-hour week, and overtime pay, paid vacations, health care and pensions, family wages. Strong unions limited excess in corporate boardrooms, a countervailing power beyond the letter of the contract. As profits and productivity rose, wages rose as well.
When unions were weakened and reduced, all that changed. Productivity and profits continued to rise, but wages did not. The ratio of CEO pay to the average worker pay went from 40 to 1 to over 350 to 1. CEOs were given multimillion-dollar pay incentives to cook their books and merge and purge their companies. Unions were not strong enough to police the excess. America let multinationals define its trade and manufacturing strategy, hemorrhaging good jobs to mercantilist nations like China…The result was the wealthiest few captured literally all the rewards of growth. And 90% of America struggled to stay afloat with stagnant wages, rising prices, growing debt.
Unions were not the only factor in the rise of the middle class or in its decline. But they surely were central to the story of how the middle class was built and where America went wrong.

And, looking to the future, Borosage sees a still vital role for unions:

…Unions give workers practice in exercising their democratic rights. They elect their own leaders; they voice their concerns; they must learn to compromise and prioritize. They are true laboratories of democracy. They provide a democratic forum, and the organizing skills vital to challenging democracy’s opponents.
Unions are also essential to building a free market economy with shared prosperity. Unions help ensure that the rewards of rising productivity are widely shared. They help curb greed and lawlessness in executive suites. They help sustain legitimate order in the workplace, giving workers a way to express grievances, adjudicate wrongs. Their workplace success is vital to insuring that workers earn enough to generate consumer demand vital to economic growth.
In our current economic distress unions should be more important than ever. The net jobs being created in America are almost entirely in the non-tradeable sectors of the society — retail services, public employees, health care, education etc. These tend to feature low wage jobs — from the shop clerk to the hotel maid. But there is no intrinsic reason they are low paid. With strong unions, hotel maids in New York City make a middle class wage, with health care benefits. At least a part of countering the increasing income disparity in America is to empower workers to organize once more.

Further, as Borosage concludes:

…No major social reforms succeed in Washington without strong union support and mobilization…The spark was lit in Madison, Wisconsin, when students and farmers joined public workers demonstrating to protect their basic right to organize and bargain collectively. Occupy Wall Street turned that into a conflagration. As this fight intensifies, labor unions and the workers that they represent — reduced in membership, short of funds, savaged by their enemies and too often ignored by their friends — will by what they do or what they fail to do make a fundamental difference in what kind of society we build out of the ruins.

Regardless of what happens in the 2012 elections, progressives should commit to spreading the popular uprisings that took hold in Wisconsin, Ohio and OWS to restore the trade union movement as the engine of change and the Democratic Party.

It’s not easy, being a Mighty Job-Creator, especially when Kevin Drum is on the case, challenging the conservatives’ central meme in his Alternet post, “Rich People DON’T Create Jobs: 6 Myths That Have to Be Killed for Our Economy to Live.”
John Sides has a reminder at The American Prospect about “More Hype about Political Independents.” Sides grouses about a new Third Way report about independents which has “No acknowledgment of the fact that most of them lean toward a party and tend to vote loyally for that party. Or that presidential candidates routinely lose independents but win elections (at least the popular vote). See Jimmy Carter, Al Gore in 2000, and George W. Bush in 2004…”
Alyssa Battistoni’s “5 Anti-Environment Policies Republicans Don’t Want You To Notice” at Mother Jones should be of interest to Dems looking for an edge with green voters.
Fredreka Schouten of USA TODAY Politics has an update on the Republican war on early voting and the resistance to it. As for the motivation, Schouten makes it clear enough: “Overall, 34% of voters in the 2008 general election cast ballots before Election Day, up from 22.2% four years earlier, according to data from the Associated Press and Edison Research…In Florida, 54% of African-American voters cast their ballots early in the 2008 general election, and blacks made up nearly a third of statewide turnout the Sunday before Election Day, when some black churches organized a “Get Your Souls to the Polls” voter drive…”
This looks like fun, flagged and plugged by Digby.
Give Steve Kornacki’s Salon.com post, “When Cooter Took on Newt” a read. Kornacki interviews Ben Jones, a two-term Democratic congressman/Dukes of Hazard actor who whipped Republican Pat Swindall and did battle with Gingrich, and got soundly trounced by redistricting more than anything else. Jones, one of the savvier Newt-watchers calls Gingrich “a great demagogue. He has the ability to fire people up and appeal to the worst in them…I’ve known presidents of the United States, and foreign potentates, and real big-shot movie producers and actors. Newt is the only one who I thought really considered himself to be an important world figure – a transformative sort of historical figure. I mean, he has that image of himself…If anything is ever going to galvanize the Democratic Party, which is somewhat dispirited at this point, it would be a Newt Gingrich candidacy.”
The New Republic staff has a round-up of establishment Republicans dumping on Newt (They forgot to include Peggy Noonan). Call me paranoid, but there is something about the timing of the GOP old guard attacks that smells a little, well, concerted. The assault on Newt has a desperate “save Romney” feel about it. The prudent wing of the GOP is clearly worried.
Nate Silver goes kinda long on “Jon Huntsman’s Path to Victory“. I don’t see it happening (Huntsman doesn’t bring enough crazy for the 2011 GOP), but an interesting read nonetheless.
Suzi Parker’s “2012 Political Online Ad Tsunami Coming” at US News Politics reports on a new development that could transform political advertising: “CampaignGrid, a Washington-based tech company, has figured out how to hyper-target any website a registered voter visits and drop in political ads aimed directly at the user.” They’ve got a data base of 135 million registered voters, and yes, it’s done with cookies.
At The Daily Beast Michael Tomasky ponders “Could Obama Be Headed for a Landslide?” Tomasky cites recent polls showing Obama narrowly beating Gingrich and Romney in SC and leading well outside the margin of error in FL, while Republican Governors of both states are tanking like leaden koi.
Simon Rosenberg of the New Democratic Network also sees cause for Democratic optimism in his post, “A Year Out, The National Landscape Is Changing.” As Rosenberg notes, “President Obama is Stronger, Romney Weaker – President Obama is beating Mitt Romney in a direct head to head, 49% to 43%, up from 46%/44% in October. This puts Obama almost at 50, and at the same margin of victory as his landslide victory in 2008…Going deeper into the data there are many examples one can find of unexpected Obama strengths and surprising early Romney weakness. 64 percent say that Obama has performed better or just about as expected. On basic favorability, his number is net positive, 45/40. In all the measures about favorability and enthusiasm, Romney fares much worse than President Obama…”