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The Democratic Strategist

Political Strategy for a Permanent Democratic Majority

Political Strategy Notes

Republicans Sabotaging, Not Governing. This Is Who They Are Now” by Dave Johnson at Campaign for America’s Future blog says it clear and simple: “This is who they are now. This is who the Republican Party is now. It is RedState, Limbaugh, Coulter, Drudge Report, etc. It is not Bob Dole or John McCain or even Ronald Reagan. It is not Ronald Reagan playing poker with Tip O’Neill…Ronald Reagan would be primaried out as a “RINO” in today’s Republican Party…If you don’t get it yet, let this sink in: Mitch McConnell is being primaried for being “a big government guy” and too “progressive” and working with Democrats. Mitch McConnell!”
“I don’t know enough. I’m sorry. I haven’t read that portion of the bill,” says N.C. Gov. McCrory of the voter suppression package he is about to sign. The bill is “being called the most suppressive voting law in the nation.”
This idea probably won’t get much traction. Meanwhile Dems couldn’t ask for a better poster boy for crude nativism and outright bigotry than Republican Rep. Steve King, who has driven a deep spike into the heart of his party’s already limp efforts to win Latino votes in 2014.
Todd Leopold’s post, “The Republicans of the future?” at CNN Politics reads more like an exercise in wishful thinking than a harbinger of things to come. Don’t be too surprised if many of the young Republicans quoted in this post end up bailing out of the GOP and joining the Libertarian Party out of frustration — and embarrassment about bigoted bomb-throwers like Rep. Steve King.
Kyle Kondik’s Crystal Ball post on “Senate 2014 and Beyond” sees GOP Senate gains next year, but stops short of predicting a Republican takeover.
Michael Langenmayr, campaign director of Daily Kos, reports in an e-blast that the Koch brothers are trying to recall two of the best Democratic state legislators in the country, Colorado Democrats John Morse and Angela Giron, whose leadership was instrumental in enacting “a slew of new good government and progressive laws this year–background checks, civil unions, online voter registration, and more.” Langenmayr urges Democrats to contribute to protecting Morse and Giron, to help offset the big money right-wingers are dumping into defeating them, and you can do that right here.
Paul Waldman’s American Prospect post, “GOP Circular Firing Squad Locked and Loaded” is chicken soup for the Democratic Soul.
At Politico James Hohman reports “A statewide survey by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, shared first with POLITICO, focused on which messages might get women who voted in the 2008 or 2012 presidential elections, but not for governor in 2009, to show up…They found that statements about Cuccinelli’s position on abortion had a bigger effect among this group than any other issue in generating both the level of support and intensity for Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe. “Protecting a woman’s right to choose” trumped health care, guns, transportation, spending and college affordability. This held true in each of Virginia’s three-biggest media markets.”
Dan Balz’s WaPo post “How the Obama campaign won the race for voter data” illuminates the data driven method used to get to 270 ev’s.
Copycats. Not sure this is going to work out all that well for them, since their grass roots activists are increasingly detached from reality.

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