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The Democratic Strategist

Political Strategy for a Permanent Democratic Majority

Political Strategy Notes

Greg Sargent’s Plum Line post “How to win the war over Obamacare” explains why ‘mend it, don’t end it’ is the most viable strategy for Dems contesting the estimated 35 house seats that are in play next year.
Keith Griffin writes in his Facing South post, “in the Deep South and Florida, Republican governors and state legislatures have turned down the funding, citing cost concerns and philosophical opposition to the safety net insurance program, which was signed into law on July 30, 1965. In Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and Florida, the move will exclude 2.7 million low-income residents from Medicaid eligibility, according to the Urban Institute.” If that doesn’t give Dems some leverage with southern voters, what will?
Democrats, do you know what your charge card is doing while you are asleep?
Odd that this Gallup Poll of Immigrant and U.S.-Born Hispanics did not factor in citizenship or RV’s among the variables. Good, nonetheless, that “Hispanics in the U.S. identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party over the Republican Party by about a 2-to-1 margin, regardless of whether they were U.S.-born.”
This Fox News Poll, conducted though it was by both Democratic and Republican pollsters, strikes me as biased towards Republicans, with 38% of respondents who “think of yourself” as a Democrat, vs. 37% Republicans. But the questions about attitudes toward recipients of public assistance are nonetheless interesting. For example, 94 percent of respondents said they are “Okay” with “a laid-off worker who wants a job and doesn’t have the money to feed his family” receiving food stamps.
At last, some very good news for the AFL-CIO.
At the Washington Monthly, Ed Kilgore addresses growing evidence that senior voters are getting fed up with the GOP: “If the trend holds, this is a very big deal, folks, not just in the long term but in the immediate future. It’s the grip the GOP had on white seniors that made the 2010 GOP landslide possible, and which had convinced most attentive observers that Republicans possessed a big advantage going into 2014 no matter what was going on across the issue landscape, given the disproportionate turnout of seniors in midterms.”
David Brooks makes a case for some, gasp, “modest paternalism.” Expect splenetic denunciations from Rand Paul, Ted Cruz.
Another great Krugman column, with a clear prescription for Democratic messaging: “…What we’re looking at…is the normal aftermath of a debt-fueled asset bubble; the sluggish U.S. recovery since 2009 is more or less in line with many historical examples, running all the way back to the Panic of 1893. Furthermore, the recovery has been hobbled by spending cuts — cuts that were motivated by what we now know was completely wrongheaded deficit panic. …We need to stop talking about spending cuts and start talking about job-creating spending increases instead. Yes, I know that the politics of doing the right thing will be very hard. But, as far as the economics goes, the only thing we have to fear is fear-mongering itself.
Always thought Santorum was a little weird, But this remark is bizarre.

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