TDS founding editor Ruy Teixeira has two posts at ThinkProgress which Democratic political strategists will find instructive and their Republican counterparts will find worrisome. From Teixeira’s “The Hidden Demographic Shifts That Are Sinking The Republican Party“:

First, look at where Republicans and Democrats tend to live. David Jarman took a detailed look recently, with great charts and interactive maps, at the relative growth in Democratic and Republican votes in the nation’s 3,144 counties between 1988 and 2012. For each county, Jarman calculates the net change in Democratic votes (increase in Democratic votes minus increase in Republican votes) over that time period.
The results are fascinating for how much and where growth is benefiting Democrats and Republicans. Start with the Democrats. The 25 top counties for net Democratic vote gain include many of the most populous counties in the country. They include Los Angeles at the top, eight of the ten most populous (LA, plus Cook [Chicago], San Diego and Orange [CA], Dallas, Kings [Brooklyn], Queens and Miami-Dade) and 15 of the top 25 most populous. The rest, without exception, are large counties that include a major city or are urbanized inner suburbs of a major city. The magnitude of Democratic gains in the top 25 ranges from 1.2 million in LA down to around 140,000.
The top gainers for the GOP, in contrast, tend to be in much smaller counties on the periphery of metropolitan areas (“exurbs”). The top 25 GOP gainers include no county in the US top 25 in population and include only one in the top 50. And the magnitude of GOP gains in the top 25 is much smaller than those enjoyed by the Democrats. Indeed, the largest GOP net gain of all–90,000 in Provo county, Utah-is not only smaller than the 25th ranked gain for the Democrats (140,000) but also smaller than Democratic gains all the way down to the 61st ranked Democratic gainer county.
Democratic strength in dense areas is clearly one reason for the Democrats’ increasing electoral potency, particularly in Presidential elections. Conversely, the concentration of GOP gains in more lightly-populated areas limits their strength now and in the future.

Teixeira then takes a look at educational attainment trends by generation as revealed in a recent Pew Research Center report, and explains that millennial college graduates are doing exceptionally-well in terms of earnings and employment:

The report notes that 34 percent of Millennial generation 25-32 year olds have a four year college degree, compared to 25 percent among Gen Xers at the same age, 24 percent among both late and early Boomers and just 13 percent among those from the Silent generation. Millennials are also receiving the highest relative values from their degrees. A Millennial college graduate has median earnings of $45,500, compared to just $28,000 for a Millennial high school graduate. Back in 1965, the gap was much narrower: a Silent Generation college graduate earned $38,800 (2012 dollars) while a high school graduate earned $31,400.
Millennial college graduates also do very well in terms of unemployment (just 3.8 percent vs. 8.1 percent among those with some college and 12.2 percent among high school graduates) and poverty incidence (5.8 percent vs. 14.7 percent among those with some college and 21.8 percent among high school grads). These data should put to rest any notion that it is somehow not worth it for Millennials to invest in a college education.
That is certainly how Millennial college grads see the situation. In the accompanying public opinion survey, 88 percent said that, considering what they and their family paid for their education, their degree has already paid off (62 percent) or would pay off in the future (26 percent). In addition, 86 percent of employed Millennial college grads describe their current job as a career or career-track job, compared to 73 percent of those with some college and only 57 percent of high school grads.

The improving education and earnings attainment of the Millennial generation is “a powerful factor moving us toward a more open and tolerant society (see this report from CAP),” explains Teixeira. “It also should reduce Democratic deficits among white voters since white college graduates are considerably less hostile to Democrats than white noncollege voters.”
The data strongly suggests that “making a college education attainable and affordable for a much larger segment of the population should be a high priority for progressives,” says Teixeira. “And since the GOP’s commitment to enhancing economic mobility, as Sean McElwee has pointed out, is full-throated and unequivocal — except when it involves spending money — this is an issue where Democrats can draw a particularly sharp contrast between themselves and the GOP.”
But it’s not only the Millennials who are giving democrats an edge going forward. Teixeira quotes from a new Gallup report:

Baby boomers constitute 32% of the U.S. adult population and, by Gallup’s estimate, 36% of the electorate in 2012, eclipsing all other generational groups. Baby boomers have dominated U.S. politics on the basis of their sheer numbers since the late 1970s, when most of the group had reached voting age….If the party preferences of each generational group were to hold steady in the coming years as the Democratic-leaning baby boomers gradually replace the more Republican Silent and Greatest generations, the country as a whole would likely become more Democratic.

“Thus, over time, high-turnout seniors, currently the most conservative part of the electorate by age, will be liberalized as Baby Boomers age,” explains Teixeira. “Moreover, the most liberal part of the generation — those born up through 1955 and termed “early Boomers” — is frontloaded, so the political impact on the senior population could be fairly rapid.” In sum, adds Teixeira, “the changing location, education levels, and age of the electorate suggest why the Republicans’ long-term disadvantages aren’t so bad as most people think. They’re worse.”
In addition to the demographic advantages benefitting Democrats, Teixeira sees a more short-term game-changing opportunity for Dems in recent public opinion, as explained in his ThinkProgress post “Why Democrats Should Run On Inequality In 2014“:

There’s been some debate recently about how progressives should talk about inequality: opportunity and mobility or redistribution and fairness? I personally lean toward the opportunity and mobility approach, a position I outline here.
But this disagreement over how to talk about inequality here shouldn’t obscure the fact that, when it comes to the 2014 elections, there’s broad agreement among progressives that Democrats who share their values should talk about it. In fact, the data are unequivocal: if they want to win, they should talk about it a lot.

Teixeira notes that Democrats have been perhaps over-sensitive to charges of “class warfare” when they raise the topic of inequality, while Republicans, aware that polls show increasing concern about inequality, are doing their best to muddle the issue. Further,

Take a recent CNN poll that asked people whether “the government should work to substantially reduce the income gap between the rich and poor.” Unsurprisingly, 90 percent of liberals of liberals agreed. But so did 71 percent of moderates, suggesting candidates who run on inequality have opportunities to make gains in the center.
However, the same data show that Republicans like Ryan and Lee aren’t exactly in a good position to capitalize on this opportunity. 53 percent of conservatives disagreed with the notion of government working to solve the income gap, suggesting Republicans will only have limited room to attack inequality without alienating their base. Indeed, the real political opportunity created by independent disgust with inequality is for Democrats to use it as a wedge issue to pry centrist voters away from Republican candidates.
More data in the CNN poll support this interpretation. 91 percent of Democrats and 66 percent of independents thought the government should work hard to reduce the income gap. 57 percent of Republican identifiers thought the government should not work at all on reducing the income gap.
Now, most independents are not actually independent: the vast majority of independents vote like either Republicans or Democrats. But based on what we know about the typical distribution of pure independents versus closet partisans and their respective views, we can estimate pure independents’ support for government action to reduce inequality from the CNN data. The figure comes, by my calculations, to around 66 percent.

“The electorate’s true centrists — the pure independents whom one might legitimately call swing voters — are overwhelmingly supportive of government action to reduce the gap between rich and poor in today’s America,” concludes Teixeira. “However progressives choose to talk about inequality, they should, above all, keep talking. Centrist voters will be listening.”
Teixeira’s analysis shows quite clearly that Republicans have a lot to worry about in terms of demographic transformation going forward. And if Democrats heed his findings about public attitudes towards growing inequality and amplify their proposals to address it, the 2014 elections should give the GOP increasing concern in the months ahead as well.

Adolph Reed, Jr.’s article “Nothing Left:: The long, slow surrender of American liberals” in the current issue of Harper’s has created a bit of a stir in Democratic circles. Read it, give it some thought, and then read two more nuanced takes on the topic and Reed’s article by Harold Meyerson and Kos blogger Armando, cited below.
First, from Meyerson’s American Prospect post, “The Left, Viewed from Space“:

As Reed sees it, both political parties have been captured by neo-liberalism, by Wall Street, by the cult of laissez-faire. The Democrats have succumbed while maintaining, or even increasing, their liberalism on social and cultural issues, even as the Republicans have moved rightward on those same social issues. More troublingly, as Reed sees it, the American left has acquiesced in the Democrats’ rightward movement, backing a passel of candidates and two presidents–Bill Clinton and Barack Obama–who adhered to the economics of Robert Rubin and his protégés. The Left, says Reed, has always had an excuse: If the Republicans are elected, the world will lurch to the right. Backing Clinton and Obama and the Democrats is a defensive exercise, and a kneejerk defensive exercise at that.

Meyerson notes that Reed is not calling for a third party and that Reed’s “primary lament is that the left over-invests, emotionally and otherwise, in Democratic candidates, inasmuch as those candidates don’t deliver much if and when they’re elected.” This, plus “its absorption into single-issue politics” distracts the left from its central goal of “building a long-term movement for economic equity that challenges the direction of American capitalism.”
Meyerson credits Reed with some worthwhile insights, but adds that “Reed’s characterization of the Democrats as neo-liberal NAFTA-ites seems frozen in time, that time being the 1990s.” Further, says Meyerson,

..Both Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have ruled out any support for Obama’s bid to resurrect fast-track–in essence, killing any chance for passing the latest iteration of corporate-backed trade agreements, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Reed’s view of the Democrats takes no account of the popularity of Elizabeth Warren and Bill de Blasio within the Democratic base, of the movement of fast-food workers and the spillover effect their campaign has had on efforts to raise the minimum wage. He didn’t get the news that Senate Democrats rejected Obama’s effort to make Larry Summers the chairman of the Fed precisely because of Summers’s role in deregulating finance. He seems not to have heard of the successes of groups like New York’s Working Families Party, which has built an electoral left in New York, or the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, which has won higher wages, union recognition and environmental victories by uniting labor and enviro groups in L.A. He seems, in short, to have missed the rise of a left that is doing pretty much what Reed says a left should be doing….

But Meyerson sees “the biggest hole” in Reed’s argument is his myopia about the role of labor unions in politics:

…With the Republican Party fairly brimming with Scott Walkers and Bob Corkers–with politicos whose very mission is to stamp out what’s left of the labor movement–the unions lack the luxury of downgrading their electoral work. Wherever they can, labor, liberals, and the left should favor candidates and campaigns devoted to working people’s interests and power. But if the choice is between a Scott Walker Republican and a Democrat of limited virtues who nonetheless will support unions’ right to exist, labor, liberals and the left still have to mobilize for that Democrat.

Reed blasts away at Democratic strategy, as well as Party leaders’ propensity for selling out core principles:

The atrophy of political imagination shows up in approaches to strategy as well. In the absence of goals that require long-term organizing — e.g., single-payer health care, universally free public higher education and public transportation, federal guarantees of housing and income security — the election cycle has come to exhaust the time horizon of political action. Objectives that cannot be met within one or two election cycles seem fanciful, as do any that do not comport with the Democratic agenda. Even those who consider themselves to the Democrats’ left are infected with electoralitis. Each election now becomes a moment of life-or-death urgency that precludes dissent or even reflection. For liberals, there is only one option in an election year, and that is to elect, at whatever cost, whichever Democrat is running. This modus operandi has tethered what remains of the left to a Democratic Party that has long since renounced its commitment to any sort of redistributive vision and imposes a willed amnesia on political debate. True, the last Democrat was really unsatisfying, but this one is better; true, the last Republican didn’t bring destruction on the universe, but this one certainly will. And, of course, each of the “pivotal” Supreme Court justices is four years older than he or she was the last time.

In his Daily Kos post, “The surrender of the left? Activism and electoral politics,” Armando also takes a more thoughtful look at the political reality behind Reed’s article. “I think that while Reed’s pessimism and diagnosis of what ails the left, the electoralitis, is accurate, I’m not sure that I agree with his prescription.”
Armando takes particular issue with Reed’s contention that a Hillary Clinton presidency would spell the end of progressive Democrats’ ability to shape and influence policy debates:

A President Hillary Clinton will not be, nor be perceived, as the left flank of the Democratic Party. This permits, in my view, real arguments, initiatives and negotiation from strong progressive elements in Congress. There will be more room for independence, initiatives and influence. This was not possible in my view under the Obama presidency.

If Reed doesn’t directly advocate that progressive Democrats sit out the next couple of elections, he comes pretty close:

The crucial tasks for a committed left in the United States now are to admit that no politically effective force exists and to begin trying to create one. This is a long-term effort, and one that requires grounding in a vibrant labor movement. Labor may be weak or in decline, but that means aiding in its rebuilding is the most serious task for the American left. Pretending some other option exists is worse than useless. There are no magical interventions, shortcuts, or technical fixes. We need to reject the fantasy that some spark will ignite the People to move as a mass. We must create a constituency for a left program — and that cannot occur via MSNBC or blog posts or the New York Times. It requires painstaking organization and building relationships with people outside the Beltway and comfortable leftist groves. Finally, admitting our absolute impotence can be politically liberating; acknowledging that as a left we have no influence on who gets nominated or elected, or what they do in office, should reduce the frenzied self-delusion that rivets attention to the quadrennial, biennial, and now seemingly permanent horse races. It is long past time for us to begin again to approach leftist critique and strategy by determining what our social and governmental priorities should be and focusing our attention on building the kind of popular movement capable of realizing that vision…

Armando responds,

I cannot agree that the abandonment of electoral politics, as Reed seems to advise, is wise. Reed, it seems to me, like too many persons, sees elections as only the presidential election. The hard work to do necessarily includes electoral work, especially at the state and congressional level. And there is no better period than the coming election cycles.

In any case, 2014 seems like a bad year for Dems to reassemble the old circular firing squad. The “long, slow surrender” in the title of Reed’s article may better describe the defeatist attitude that underlays withdrawal from electoral politics than any real ideological trends within the Democratic Party.

Jackie Calmes reports at The New York Times that “Democrats Try Wooing Ones Who Got Away: White Men” Calmes quotes TDS founding editor Ruy Teixeira: “”You can’t just give Republicans a clear field to play for the votes of white working-class men without putting up some sort of a fight because that just allows them to run the table with these voters, thereby potentially offsetting your burgeoning advantage among minorities, single women, millennials,” said Ruy Teixeira, an analyst at the left-leaning Center for American Progress.”
Pot is a big, possibly pivotal issue in the PA governor’s race. Thomas Fitzgerald of the Philly Inquirer explains why.
At HuffPo Sabrina Siddiqui takes a look at MoveOn’s billboard campaign, and notes: “MoveOn’s billboard campaign, which begins on March 3, will detail how many local residents have been denied health care coverage without the expansion. The Texas billboard, for example, takes aim at Republican Gov. Rick Perry and reads: “Welcome to Texas! Where Gov. Perry has denied 1,046,000 Texans health care and now all Texans are paying for it. It’s like a whole other country…A similar billboard in Florida knocks Republican Gov. Rick Scott, who endorsed the Medicaid expansion but went silent after the state’s GOP-led legislature rejected it. “Welcome to Florida! Where 763,000 people are denied health care because Gov. Scott won’t fight to expand Medicaid,” the sign reads.”
Half of all Republican U.S. Senators running in 2014 face primary challenges, reports Sean Sullivan at The Fix.
Jennifer L. Clark and DeNora Getachew report at MSNBC that voter suppression is finally getting some serious push-back in the states: “In fact, state legislation introduced this year shows real momentum toward improving our elections in every corner of the map. In the first three weeks of 2014 alone, at least 190 bills that would expand access to registration and voting were introduced in 31 states, compared to only 49 bills in 19 states that would restrict access, according to an analysis from the Brennan Center for Justice.”
At In These Times Sarah Jaffe reports on the emergence of the progressive Working Families Party, its successes and how it may affect Democratic prospects in key races.
From Lloyd Green’s Daily Beast post, “Republicans Better Mind the Modernity Gap To Catch Up to Clinton“: “Sasha Issenberg, the politics and tech watcher summed-up the Republicans’ tech predicament this way, “With an eager pool of academic collaborators in political science, behavioral psychology, and economics linking up with curious political operatives and hacks, the left has birthed an unexpected subculture. It now contains a full-fledged electioneering intelligentsia, focused on integrating large-scale survey research with randomized experimental methods to isolate particular populations that can be moved by political contact.” In other words, the art of electioneering is stacked in favor of the Democrats.”
At Crooks & Liars Howie Klein makes the case that the DSCC ought to be providing strong support for Maine’s Shenna Bellows in her campaign for senate against Republican Susan Collins. Klein notes that President Obama got 56 percent of the vote in Maine and Bellows is an astute progressive, much like Elizabeth Warren. Bellows’ ActBlue page is right here.
A better question than this one might be, can Democrats craft a message that resonates with both progressives and moderates?