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The Democratic Strategist

Political Strategy for a Permanent Democratic Majority

Political Strategy Notes

USA Today’s Richard Wolf and Tim Mullaney report that “Economists surveyed by Bloomberg News say the economy is expected to have added 150,000 jobs in May, with unemployment holding at 8.1%. That’s up from 115,000 new jobs last month, but below the 200,000-plus monthly gains this winter.” and “midyear job growth is a solid election predictor. Employment grew strongly in the spring and summer of 1972, 1984, 1996 and to a lesser degree 2004 — and presidents won re-election. The opposite was true in 1976, 1980 and 1992, when incumbents lost.”
Hrafnkell Haraldsson has a pretty good wrap up at PolitcusUSA of the many reasons why Obama deserves support from progressives, as well as moderates.
Noam M. Levy reports in the L.A. Times that a new Kaiser Family Foundation finds “Little interest in women’s issues on the campaign trail.” I don’t know how much value there is in polls ranking issue priorities — of course respondents will say the economy is the big issue. But Levey’s note that “the Kaiser poll found just 31% of women believe there is currently a “wide-scale effort to limit women’s reproductive health choices and services.” Just 31 percent?…Sounds like bad news for the GOP to me.
Good to hear Attorney-General Eric Holder speak out about the threat to voting rights. The Democratic response to the GOP war on voting could use a louder trumpet.
Re: the war on voting, this report should make Derms a dilly of an ad.
At PoliticusUSA, Jason Easley reports that “CNN Moves To The Right and Loses 52% of Its Viewers.” Easley observes, “CNN’s problems started when the network bosses got the bright idea that they should try to copy Fox News, and move to the right. After climbing into bed with the Tea Party Express and hiring far right wingers Erick Erickson and Dana Loesch led to the current ratings disaster, what would you expect CNN to do?…If you said hire more right wingers and conservatives, congratulations, you are qualified for an upper management position at CNN.”
Bloomberg.com’s Heidi Przybyla’s “Senate Democrats Outspent 3 to 1 on Ads by Super-Pacs” provides a sobering look at the GOP’s financial edge, noting “The disparity could take a greater toll on House and Senate Democrats than on Obama…”There’s so much oxygen being sucked up by the Obama campaign,” said Ken Goldstein, president of New York-based Kantar Media’s CMAG, a company that tracks advertising. “Democrats are also not going to have the same kind of money that Republican outside groups are going to have.”
I doubt President Obama’s “Polish death camp” gaffe will hurt much with Polish-American voters. In a way, it underscores the fact that an Obama gaffe is a very rare occurrence, the exception that proves the rule.
At The Plum Line, WaPo’s Jonathan Bernstein concludes that no swing voters will care one way or the other about Obama’s attacks on Bain capital or Cory Bookers take on it. Bernstein also observes, “Mostly, people vote on two things: their party leanings, and a general sense of how the incumbent has been doing (that is, how the nation is going, not whether his ads and TV surrogate appearances are well co-ordinated). Other things may, on the margins, push voters a little: specific issues, evaluation of the candidates’ personalities and abilities and ideology, group affiliation beyond partisanship…Most true independents are low-information voters who pay only minimal attention to any of this stuff.”

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