In his New York Times column, Thomas B. Edsall has a data-rich take-down of the Republican myth “that life for the poor and the middle class is better than it seems.”
Despite good reasons for optimism about prospects for immigration reform, Dems should make themselves aware of the opposition’s strategy. Benjy Sarlin’s Talking Points Memo post, “Meet The Conservatives Trying To Stop Immigration Reform” is a good place to begin.
The Times has an editorial, “Political Power Needs to Be Used,” arguing that Democrats have been unnecessarily fear-driven in recent years: “If ever there were a moment for Democrats to press their political advantage, this is it. Their message on many of the biggest national issues — taxes, guns, education spending, financial regulation — has widespread support, and they have increased their numbers in both houses of Congress. But after years of being out-yelled by strident right-wing ideologues, too many in the Democratic Party still have a case of nerves, afraid of bold action and forthright principles.”
Commenting on the Obama-Clinton 60 Minutes interview, Michael Tomasky sees a transition benefiting Dems: “We have thus passed an important portal in American politics: Democrats are now the regular guys. Conservatives are the weirdos.”
U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky sinks the Republican meme that the American middle class is prospering, which is often used to justify cuts in social spending.
Opposition to the Affordable Care Act seems to have leveled off and begun to decline, in part because major benefits are starting to kick in. H.E.W. Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has a HuffPo update: “We’re starting an important countdown, first to October 1, 2013, when many of you will be able to begin to shop for health insurance that meets your needs at the new Health Insurance Marketplace at HealthCare.gov. The countdown continues on to January 1, 2014, the start of new health insurance coverage for millions of Americans…This is an historic time for those Americans who never had health insurance, who had to go without insurance after losing a job or becoming sick, or who had been turned down because of a pre-existing condition. Because of these new marketplaces established under the Affordable Care Act, millions of Americans will have new access to affordable health insurance coverage.”
A lot is riding on how user-friendly the aforementioned website will prove to be as a cornerstone of Obamacare. At WaPo’s Wonkblog Sarah Kliff’s “Buying health coverage is insanely confusing. Can Obamacare fix that?” explores some of the challenges consumers face in sorting out all of the data associated with evaluating and selecting health insurers.
Demos President Miles Rapaport does a good job of criticizing right-to-work laws and explaining the importance of unions for creating a healthy economy on this union-hostile Fox program.
In her Daily Beast post, “How Obama and the Democrats Could Win on Gun Control–by Losing” Eleanor Clift quotes TDS co-founding editor William Galston: “I confidently predict that a lot of red-state Democrats [in the Senate] will vote in favor of expanded background checks and against an assault weapons ban. That’s the political sweet spot, and that’s where they’ll be–and they don’t think that will hurt them,” says Galston. Testifying before the Senate committee Wednesday, NRA head Wayne LaPierre said his organization would oppose universal background checks. “That’s an insane move,” says Galston, calling the NRA “a front organization for the gun manufacturers.”
Michael Grunwald’s “What’s Wrong With the Republican Party?” at Time Swampland sums it up well: “I’ve often banged my spoon on my high chair about the reality-defying extremism and chronic obstructionism and borderline surrealism of the modern Republican Party. Its journey to wackadoodleland is, in my view, the most important political story of the last two decades…”
Dems who have been wondering if Clare McCaskill’s successful re-election strategy of getting involved in the GOP state primary could be replicated with positive results elsewhere should read Nate Silver’s “High-Risk Primaries Could Cost Republicans in 2014.”

In her post, “Obama’s Permanent Campaign: Can He Use His Reelection Playbook to Change Washington?” at The Atlantic, Molly Ball addresses a question on the minds of many Democrats who are concerned about party-building. Ball’s post explains the new strategy, which is anchored on the creation of a new group ‘Organizing for Action’:

…Organizing for Action could be the key to enacting the president’s agenda. Obama’s best hope for his aggressive program may lie in the same innovative campaign techniques of grassroots mobilization and data-based field organizing that got him reelected in November. And if he pulls it off, he could revolutionize lawmaking the way he’s already revolutionized campaigns.
Politicians talk about an outside game, but no president has ever commanded a standing army of organized supporters who could be summoned at a moment’s notice to put pressure on Washington at his command. That is what Obama is proposing to do, said Addisu Demissie, who served as political director of Organizing for America, the heir to Obama’s 2008 campaign organization.
“A lot of the things the president has proposed are popular — pieces of gun safety, immigration, and so on,” Demissie said. “The people are with him. But those people have to be heard, to step up and be counted, particularly in Republican congressional districts.”
To be sure, there’s a network of progressive advocacy organizations who are active on a wide range of issues. “But none of them have the sole job of mobilizing on behalf of the president’s agenda,” Demissie said. Obama’s grassroots supporters “have been trained now, through two presidential election cycles, to work and organize and do the hard work of politics. Now, Obama can really use that power and those skills…Having a grassroots army could be the whole ballgame.”

It’s been a tough slog for the new organization, as Ball explains,

Insiders are calling Organizing for Action “OFA 4.0” — the fourth iteration of the acronym. OFA 1.0 was the first presidential campaign; 2.0 was its successor, Organizing for America, which became an arm of the Democratic National Committee in 2009; 3.0 was the reelection campaign.
OFA 2.0 is the most direct precedent for the current effort — and a cautionary tale. Organizing for America was largely blamed for having squandered the momentum of Obama’s first victory, allowing the president to get mired in D.C. deal-making and leaving his rank-and-file supporters out in the cold.
Veterans of the group bristle a bit at this characterization, but most acknowledge that Organizing for America took too long to get started, lacked a focused mission, didn’t play well with other actors (such as local Democratic parties) and, because of its affiliation with the DNC, suffered from conflicting imperatives. Was its job to push Obama’s plans, or was it to get more Democrats elected.

Despite the obstacles, however, the group has had some impressive success, and claims a measure of credit for helping to enact the Affordable Care Act. “…by the end of August, we were showing up at events and outnumbering the Tea Party folks 3 to 1 or 5 to 1 or 10 to 1 depending on the area.,” noted Evan Sutton an OFA field director in Nevada.
Ball concludes her post with a quote from former DNC chair Howard Dean: “Lots of presidents have tried to rally the public on an ad hoc basis…But I don’t believe any president has ever maintained a standing grassroots army …. Obama built the best grassroots campaign I’ve ever seen by a mile. Nobody has done this successfully before, but if anyone can do it, he can.”

While many commentators have written about the Republican campaign to rig the electoral college vote in key states, The Nation’s John Nichols has come up with a credible strategy for preventing it. if you are a Democrat in one of these states under Republican siege, print, clip and stick Nichols’ post, “Three Strategies to Block the Gerrymandering of the Electoral College” on the fridge. It will likely come in handy on the road to 2016.
The three strategies Nichols suggests include:

1. “NAME AND SHAME” THOSE WHO WOULD RIG ELECTIONS
2. ENGAGE IN THE DEBATE AND OFFER A POPULAR-VOTE ALTERNATIVE
3. MAKE GERRYMANDERING AN ISSUE

As regards point #1, many would say “But they have no shame.” It’s not hard to cite numerous instances of Republican shamelessness on a broad range of topics. Nonetheless, there are memes they don’t want to get stuck with. As Nichols explains:

When The Nation began writing several weeks ago about the Priebus plan, and specific efforts in swing states, the stories went viral. Social media matters in this struggle. So, too, does the attention coming from television and radio hosts such as MSNBC’s Ed Schultz, Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman and Thom Hartmann.
The attention “names and shames” Republicans who are implementing the Priebus plan in states such as Virginia. But it also puts pressure on Republicans who are considering doing so. Significantly, when Florida legislative leaders were asked by The Miami Herald about the proposal, the biggest swing state’s most powerful Republicans scrambled to distance themselves from the anti-democratic initiative. Florida House Speaker Will Weatherford said, “To me, that’s like saying in a football game, ‘We should have only three quarters, because we were winning after three quarters and the beat us in the fourth. I don’t think we need to change the rules of the game, I think we need to get better.”

Progressives often flunk when it comes to “naming and shaming.” The progressive blogosphere generally does its part creating national buzz calling attention to injustices. But this doesn’t help enough to generate local coverage confronting electoral vote-suppressing perps on camera. It’s also about local protestors confronting these Republicans wherever they appear, again and again, until they renounce the project. That’s the job of Democratic activists. Nichols adds that an important part of “shaming” is to ferret out Republicans who have a conscience and who are willing to publicly denounce electoral vote suppression as morally repulsive.
With respect to Nichols’ second strategy, he elaborates:

…The right response is to highlight the anti-democratic character of the Electoral College and to push for a national popular vote. This will require a constitutional amendment. That takes work. But the process is in play. States across the country have endorsed plans to respect the popular vote that are advanced by FairVote: The Center for Voting and Democracy.
“The very fact that a scenario [in which a rigged Electoral College allows a popular-vote loser to become president] is even legally possible should give us all pause,” argues FairVote’s Rob Richie. “Election of the president should be a fair process where all American voters should have an equal ability to hold their president accountable. It’s time for the nation to embrace one-person, one-vote elections and the ‘fair fight’ represented by a national popular vote. Let’s forever dismiss the potential of such electoral hooliganism and finally do what the overwhelming majorities of Americans have consistently preferred: make every vote equal with a national popular vote for president.”
Understanding, talking about and promoting the National Popular Vote campaign is an essential response to every proposal to rig the Electoral College. It pulls the debate out of the weeds of partisanship and appeals to a sense of fairness in Democrats, independents and responsible Republicans.

In other words, make Republican advocates of electoral college gerrymandering explain on camera why they won’t support direct popular election of The President — a reform which has broad popular support. Asked “Would you vote for or against a law that would do away with the Electoral College and base the election of the president on the total vote cast throughout the nation?,” 63 percent said yes in a Gallup poll taken Jan. 8-9, with 29 percent opposed.
Nichols’ third strategy, “make gerrymandering an issue,” is a little tricky because it relies on the integrity of the courts. But his reasoning makes sense, and it would be political neglect not to try it:

…When gerrymandering threatens the integrity of national elections and the governing of the country, this opens a new avenue for challenging what remains the most common tool for rigging elections.
It is time for state attorneys general who have track records of supporting democracy initiatives, such as New York’s Eric Schneiderman, and state elections officials, such as Minnesota’s Mark Ritchie, to start looking at legal strategies to challenging the Priebus plan in particular and gerrymandering as it influences national elections. This really is an assault on the one-person, one-vote premise of the American experiment. And retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, among others, is advocating for a renewed push on behalf of fair elections.
“[It] goes back to the fundamental equal protection principle that government has the duty to be impartial. When it’s engaged in districting it should be impartial,” Stevens explained in a recent interview. “Nowadays, the political parties acknowledge that they are deliberately trying to gerrymander the districts in a way that will help the majority.”
This, argues Stevens, is “outrageously unconstitutional in my judgment. The government cannot gerrymander for the purpose of helping the majority party; the government should be redistricting for the purpose of creating appropriate legislative districts. And the government ought to start with the notion that districts should be compact and contiguous as statutes used to require.”
Stevens says the courts, which often intervene on voting rights cases involving minority representation, and in cases where states with divided government cannot settle on new district lines, should engage with the purpose of countering gerrymandering…”If the Court followed neutral principles in whatever rules they adopted, the rules would apply equally to the Republicans and Democrats,” says the retired Justice, a key player on voting and democracy issues during his thirty-five-year tenure on the High Court. “I think that line of cases would generate a body of law such as the one-person, one-vote cases that would be administered in a neutral way. This is one of my major disappointments in my entire career: that I was so totally unsuccessful in persuading the Court on something so obviously correct. Indeed, I think that the Court’s failure to act in this area is one of the things that has contributed to the much greater partisanship in legislative bodies…”
Justice Stevens is right. That partisanship has moved from gerrymandering the state lines and US House lines to gerrymandering the presidential vote. The moment is ripe for a constitutional intervention.

Nichols’ call to arms is right on time at this early stage. Democrats must understand that once battleground state electoral college votes have been rigged to elect Republicans, it will be awfully hard, if not impossible, to undo the travesty. The time to beat back this threat is now.

At Larry J. Sabato’s Crystal Ball, Alan I. Abramowitz’s “Republican Electoral College Plan Would Undermine Democracy” provides a revealing overview of the latest GOP effort to dominate politics through morally-corrupt ‘reforms’. In an introduction to Abramowitz’s post, editor Sabato, who writes from a nonpartisan perspective, has this to say about the revelations in the post:

We have asked Crystal Ball Senior Columnist Alan Abramowitz, Alben W. Barkley Professor of Political Science at Emory University, to examine the proposal and outline its likely effects. As we suspected, it would permit a GOP nominee to capture the White House even while losing the popular vote by many millions. This is not a relatively small Electoral College “misfire” on the order of 1888 or 2000. Instead, it is a corrupt and cynical maneuver to frustrate popular will and put a heavy thumb — the whole hand, in fact — on the scale for future Republican candidates… A party in decline is Nixonian and fears the future; it sees enemies everywhere, feels overwhelmed by electoral trends, and thinks it can win only by cheating, by subverting the system and stacking the deck in its favor.

And reading Abramowitz’s insightful commentary confirms the worst —that the current Republican Party has wholeheartedly embraced a power-grabbing philosophy, which one usually finds in the worst tyrants and which threatens to make a mockery of our democratic traditions. As Sabato explains:

As the electorate continues to become less white and more liberal in its outlook on social issues, Republicans have two choices about how to improve their party’s prospects in future presidential elections. One approach would be to adopt more moderate positions on issues such as immigration, abortion, gay rights and health care in order to make their party more appealing to young people, women and nonwhites. But that strategy would risk alienating a large portion of the GOP’s current base, especially those aligned with the Tea Party movement. So rather than adopting that risky strategy, some Republican leaders appear to be opting for a different approach — changing the electoral rules to make it easier for a Republican candidate to win the presidency despite losing the popular vote.
Several Republican governors and state legislative leaders in key battleground states have recently expressed support for a plan to change the method of awarding their state’s electoral votes from the current winner-take-all system to one in which one vote would be awarded to the winner of each congressional district in the state and two votes would be awarded to the statewide winner. In the aftermath of the GOP’s 2012 defeat, this plan appears to be gaining momentum and was recently endorsed by the chairman of the Republican National Committee, Reince Priebus…
…There is a serious problem with this approach. Despite a superficial appearance of fairness, the congressional district plan would be profoundly undemocratic — skewing the results in favor of the party drawing the congressional district lines in a state and greatly increasing the chances of an Electoral College misfire (a victory by the candidate losing the national popular vote)…Despite Obama’s comfortable margin in the national popular vote, a system that awarded one electoral vote for each House district plus two votes for the statewide winner would have resulted in a Romney victory by 276 electoral votes to 262 electoral votes.

And it gets a lot worse if Republicans are able to force proportional allocation on key ‘battleground’ states they have targeted. As Abramowitz notes,

…There is a chance that this system could be adopted by six battleground states that were carried by Obama in both 2008 and 2012 but where Republicans currently control the governorship and both houses of the legislature: Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin…If these six battleground states were to adopt the congressional district method of awarding electoral votes, it would not guarantee a Republican victory in the 2016 presidential election but it would make such a victory much more likely. That’s because the congressional district lines in these states were gerrymandered by Republican legislatures following the 2010 census to give their party a huge advantage. As a result, even though Obama carried all six states in 2012, it appears that Romney carried 61 House districts in these states to only 33 for Obama. Romney appears to have carried 16 of 27 House districts in Florida, 9 of 14 House districts in Michigan, 12 of 16 House districts in Ohio, 12 of 18 House districts in Pennsylvania, 7 of 11 House districts in Virginia and 5 of 8 House districts in Wisconsin.
If the congressional district system had been used in these six states in 2012, instead of Obama winning all of their 106 electoral votes, it appears that Romney would have won 61 electoral votes to only 45 for Obama. As a result, Obama’s margin in the national electoral vote would have been reduced from 332-206 to only 271-267.

The result would not just be disastrous for the Democratic Party; It could also do profound damage to democracy in the U.S., as Abramowitz concludes:

Under current circumstances, the congressional district system could well result in a Republican victory even if the Democratic candidate were to win the popular vote by a substantial margin. Such a situation would undoubtedly lead to widespread questioning of the legitimacy of the election and, potentially, a public backlash against the victorious Republican candidate and the GOP itself. Before engaging in a cynical attempt to rig the electoral system, Republican leaders and strategists should consider the potential harm that their actions could do to our democratic form of government and to their own party.

It is a sad day when one of America’s two most venerable parties decides it can only win by thwarting the will of the people. As Sabato suggests, the GOP’s devolution to “Nixonian” manipulation leaves our system with only one party that practices fair politics and ernestly seeks majority support.