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The Democratic Strategist

Political Strategy for a Permanent Democratic Majority

Political Strategy Notes

Political data junkies, take note: Philip Bump of The Fix has an interview with Joe Lenski, executive VP of Edison Media Research, which conducts polls for the National Election Pool (NEP), a group of six media organizations including Fox, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC and the Associated Press, on the topic, “How exit polls work, explained.”
The Nation’s Ari Berman reports, “New York Had the Second-Lowest Voter Turnout So Far This Election Season: Among states with primaries, we are only beating Louisiana.” Apparently the fact that the two front-runners of both major parties are New Yorkers is a bit of a yawner for the state’s voters.
Alex Kotch of Facing South addresses the two faces of corporate political priorities, in which “Companies opposing Mississippi’s anti-LGBT law helped elect its proponents.” Much the same could be said for corporate immigration policies and political spending.
At Wapo Politics Matea Gold and Jose A. DelReal ponder the “Trump Makeover” and find scant support outside of his campaign for the notion that it is doable.
“You know, I can’t snap my finger and tell people what to do. But what I will do is do everything that I can to make sure that somebody like a Donald Trump or some other right-wing Republican, does not become president of the United States…” – Sen. Bernie Sanders, from a transcript of his interview by George Stephanopoulos at ABC This Week, via PoliticusUSA.
Robert Kuttner addresses the big question for Dems in his article, “Will Bernie’s People Back Hillary in November?” in The American Prospect. Kuttner also provides a sobering reminder about the timing of the conventions and the image Dems must project: “Remember, the Democrats will meet in Philadelphia on July 25 to 28. That’s just a week after Republicans gather in Cleveland on July 18 to 21. Republicans are primed to make fools of themselves and split down the middle, with the likelihood of an independent protest candidacy (either Trump as sore loser or a business Republican as a rump candidate). With that prologue, Democrats will want to look adult and united.”
Virginia’s Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe has restored voting rights to more than 200,00 VA citizens, who have completed sentences for felony convictions. As the NYT editorial board notes, “Virginia was one of four states, along with Iowa, Kentucky and Florida, that placed a lifetime bar on voting for anyone convicted of a felony. All other states except Maine and Vermont impose lesser restrictions on voting by people with felony convictions…To people who have served their time and finished parole, Mr. McAuliffe said in a statement: “I want you back in society. I want you feeling good about yourself. I want you voting, getting a job, paying taxes.” It is the largest restoration of voting rights by a governor, ever. “There’s no question that we’ve had a horrible history in voting rights as relates to African-Americans — we should remedy it,” he said. In Virginia, one in five blacks have until now been unable to vote because of a felony conviction.”
For those who doubt that felon disenfranchisement laws are intended to undermine African American voting rights, Janai S. Nelson, associate director-counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and a professor at St. John’s University School of Law, shares this in her NYT op-ed on the topic: “A 1906 report quoting the former Virginia state senator Carter Glass forecast that voting laws passed in 1902 would “eliminate the darkey as a political factor in this State in less than five years, so that in no single county of the Commonwealth will there be the least concern felt for the complete supremacy of the white race in the affairs of government.”
Turns out that this Vice Presiddent is a guy you want in your corner — particularly if you are a Democrat running for the U.S. Senate. At Politico Edward Isaac-Dovere reports on “Joe Biden’s 2016 campaign: The Senate.” As the author notes, “A Harper poll taken right after Obama and Biden endorsed showed 57 percent of Pennsylvania Democrats saying that the vice president’s support would make them more likely to support a candidate (58 percent said the president’s support would). Other public and private polls haven’t asked the same question, but campaign strategists are confident that the numbers would hold true in nearly every state.”

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