The labor movement could use a little good news — and they get it from Alana Semuel’s L.A. Times article “White-collar workers are turning to labor unions.”
Greg Sargent argues persuasively that the I.R.S. does not quite “make the broader case against liberal governance that Republicans are trying to weave out of it.”
This NYT editorial says GOP’s scandal-mongering is all about distracting the public from their obstruction of needed economic reforms.
You’re probably sick of the Republican’s Benghazi nothing-burger. But if you can read just one mare article about on the topic, make it Chris Gentilviso’s HuffPo post, “Republicans Altered Benghazi Emails, CBS News Report Claims.”
Sen Ayotte doubles down against background checks, bets on “Blame Bloomberg” strategy to raise dough. ‘American Future Fund,’ reportedly a Koch Bros. political conduit, ponies up $550K to support her.
At Larry J. Sabato’s Crystal Ball, Geoffrey Skelley probes “How migration does — or doesn’t — change how a state votes.”
Here’s an interesting approach to fighting suppression of young voters —lower the voting age to 17, like they are getting ready to do in Illinois.
Jonathan Bernstein explains “Why Obama’s Popularity Still Matters,” even though he is a lame duck.
Nate Silver debunks the “second-term curse,” noting that “some recent presidents have overcome the supposed curse and actually become more popular on average during their second terms.”
For those who long for a tell-it-like-it-really-is president, Ezra Klein’s “If Obama went Bulworth, here’s what he’d say” is just the tonic.

Although “Republicans hope public anger over the Benghazi attacks and their aftermath will besmirch congressional Democrats in next year’s midterm elections,” reports AP’s Charles Babbington, “a major independent inquiry largely absolved [former Secretary of State]Clinton of wrongdoing.” Further, ”The unsubstantiated Republican allegations about Benghazi disintegrated one by one,” said Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the House committee’s top Democrat. ”There’s no evidence of a conspiracy to withhold military assets for political reasons, no evidence of a cover-up.”
Ezra Klein and Evan Soltas argue in “The good reasons for the IRS’s dumb mistake” at Wonkblog that it the IRS should target political groups like the tea party to insure that they are not abusing their 501(c)4 status with political activity. “The IRS is supposed to reject groups that are primarily political from registering as 501(c)4s. If they’re going to do that, then they need some kind of test that helps them flag problematic applicants. And that test will have to be a bit impressionistic.” What would be wrong, say Klein and Soltas, is if progressive groups were not also scrutinized.
The Newark Star-Ledger editorial, “Christie’s early voting veto will hurt turnout” pretty much shreds NJ Governor Chris Christie’s bogus image as a leader committed to bipartisanship.
At The Fix Chris Cillizza asks “Can Democrats rebuild Obama’s winning coalition?” and answers, “Black voters, the census study makes clear, were the story of the 2012 election. For the first time since the bureau started measuring voter participation in 1996, the African American turnout rate (66 percent of eligible voters) surpassed that of whites (64 percent)… The bigger problem for the party in attempting to rebuild the Obama coalition is the youth vote. The census study of the 2012 electorate found that just 41 percent of eligible voters ages 18 to 24 actually voted, well below the overall turnout rate of 62 percent of eligible voters. The youth voting rate was a significant dip from the 49 percent of voters ages 18 to 24 who turned out in 2008….Voters ages 18 to 29 made up just 15 percent of the 2012 electorate — lower than exit poll data have shown for the past few elections. That decline should be of significant concern to Democratic strategists, particularly without Obama on the ballot in future elections.”
That the Obama Administration is leveraging private and nonprofit sector support for publicizing and implementing the Affordable care Act is commendable; That it should have to as a result of GOP obstruction of funding is a sad commentary on the Republican party’s willingness to endanger the health of millions of Americans for political advantage.
At Daily Kos, Joan McCarter reports that “Maine became the 13th state in the nation to call for a constitutional amendment to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission..Maine joins West Virginia, Colorado, Montana, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, California, Rhode Island, Maryland, Vermont, New Mexico and Hawaii in calling for that Constitutional amendment…Outside of the U.S. Congress and the Supreme Court, Republicans hate corporate spending in campaigns [pdf] almost as much as Democrats (71 percent versus 73 percent, respectively) and want to see reform. A Constitutional amendment is not an easy thing to achieve, but the time is right for this one.”
Michael Wear’s post at The Atlantic “How the GOP Can Win Back the Values Debate–and How Dems Could Lose It” should probably be put in the “not likely, but worth a quick read” category. His point that Dems should tone down the “strident moralizing” and embrace a little more civility in dialogue is not a bad one, although the Republicans are worse offenders by far.
In the Washington Post editorial “The GOP’s Politics of Dysfunction,” the editorial board calls out the Republicans for their “absurdly flimsy pretexts” in blocking cabinet appointments needed to enable proper functioning of government: “Americans elected Barack Obama president, and reelected him. He’s entitled to his Cabinet. It’s possible that Republicans will muster the 41 votes needed in the Senate to block both nominations — despite their strong qualifications and high ethical standards. If they do, Americans will be under no illusions that the GOP has led Washington to new lows of dysfunction.”
Joseph E. Stiglitz’s “Student Debt and the Crushing of the American Dream” at the New York Times Opinionator spotlights an issue of increasing concern to middle class voters, and one which Dems would be wise to address with more assertive leadership.
‘Bout time.

No, not Michelle Obama. Michelle Nunn, head of the Points of Light Foundation and daughter former Senator Sam Nunn. She should run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by retiring Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss.
Many Georgians believe Nunn would be a strong Democratic candidate. As Greg Bluestein and Daniel Malloy report in the Atlanta Constitution, commenting on the recent decision of Rep. John Barrow not to run for the Democratic senatorial nomination:

Barrow’s decision opens the door for Michelle Nunn, the daughter of former senator Sam Nunn and head of the volunteer service organization Points of Light. She didn’t return a call seeking comment, but supporters had urged her to run regardless of Barrow’s decision. Her refusal to step aside – setting up a potentially contentious primary — was a factor in Barrow deciding not to run.

Malloy and Bluestein quote former Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin on the possibility of Nunn’s candidacy, noting that she has “an excellent reputation among women — and not just among liberals.” Nunn is also well-liked by African Americans, partly as a result of her stewardship of Hands on Atlanta, which served thousands of disadvantaged citizens in the Atlanta area.
Having recently heard Michelle Nunn address the Coretta Scott King birthday commemoration, I can report that she is an excellent speaker. Whip-smart (Phi Beta Kappa, Harvard M.A), Nunn is also savvy about mobilizing youth, which she did exceptionally well at Hands on Atlanta.
She would likely do well with political centrists and perhaps even some conservatives by having the Nunn name, especially if her highly popular father accompanies/introduces her to key forums.
With the current Republican field seeking the GOP nomination to replace Chambliss, Nunn could face a divided opposition. The Republican field is not very impressive, to put it generously. Indeed there is a possibility they could nominate Rep. Paul Broun, arguably one of the most irrational right-wingers in congress.
There are a few other Democrats considering a run for the Senate seat being vacated by Chambliss. Yet, none can match Michelle Nunn’s potential to energize women, youth, African Americans and progressives, while also getting a healthy percentage of political moderates. If she runs, the Republicans could lose this seat and the U.S. Senate could gain a member who actually knows how to inspire citizens to serve their country.

Scott Horsley’s npr.org post “Democrats Hope For A Bright Future In The Lone Star State” sheds light on Latino voter turnout: “According to the census figures, turnout among Latinos who were eligible to vote last year was just 48 percent, 14 points lower than the turnout for non-Hispanic whites. Latino turnout was considerably higher in swing states, though. These numbers aren’t as precise, because of smaller sample sizes, but the trend is clear: 52 percent of Latinos turned out to vote in Colorado, 62 percent in Florida and 67 percent in Virginia — all states where the Obama campaign invested heavily in Latino mobilization and won by narrow margins.” Horsley quotes TDS founding editor Ruy Teixeira: “I think it tells you you get what you pay for…We know there’s this sleeping giant of the Hispanic electorate. So if you don’t do anything, or you just do the average amount, you’ll get your average turnout…But there’s a potential there to put more effort, more mobilization, more money, more time, into getting the Hispanic voters to the polls, and it should produce an increment in their vote.”
Of course, demographic trends would never deter Republicans from exercising their singular genius for seizing every opportunity to alienate Latino voters, as demonstrated by this latest example.
A statistic from a new Pew Research Center poll that should give Dems real hope for a 2014 upset: “…Just 22 percent approve of the job performance of GOP leaders in Congress.”
Dan Balz and Todd Mellnick report at the Washington Post that “In terms of participation rates, the Census survey said that 66 percent of eligible black voters turned out last November, compared to 64 percent of eligible white voters. In the course of three presidential elections, from 2004 to 2012, black participation has gone from seven points lower than white participation to two points higher.” However Balz and Mellnick also add that “The Census report notes that 2012 was marked by “large decreases in youth voting rates for all race groups and Hispanics.” Voting rates dropped by about 7 percentage points among both whites and blacks ages 18 to 24, and by almost 5 points among young Hispanics.”
NBC Senior Political Editor Mark Murray reports at NBC First Read that, according to a “new NBC News/Marist poll, 55 percent of Virginia residents say they want stricter laws governing the sale of firearms, versus 36 percent who want them left the same.”
Underdog Democrat Terry McAuliffe gains on VA A.G. Ken Cuccinelli in race for Governor, which is now a stat tie in new NBC/Marist poll.
Sarah Kliff has an interesting Wonkblog post, “Democrats say there’s a reason they’re not selling Obamacare yet,” noting, “I’ve put this question to top administration officials and advocates, and the answer tends to be this: If we start selling Obamacare now, we’re going to be raving about a product that doesn’t yet exist. That would, in turn, undermine the sales pitch they want to make in October, when enrollment in the new health plans opens…Both Enroll America and the Obama administration have discussed early summer, around June or so, as the point at which they’ll start ramping up their outreach campaigns. That’s when they believe they can start talking about health benefits that will become accessible a few months down the road…So, as Republican take more shots at the health care law, the Obama administration’s relative silence is part of a larger plan.”
Yet more evidence that progressives have a powerful weapon in consumer boycotts against wingnut media advertisers.
There may be more detail than you want to know about in Thomas B. Edsall’s NYT Opinionator post,”In Data We Trust” about Karl Rove’s ploy to be the GOP’s information technology czar. But this is required reading for Dem oppo researchers and data managers.
The Nation’s John Nichols explains why Mark Sanford’s win in SC-1 was pretty much a lock once he got the GOP nomination: “In 2012, the Democratic nominee took just 29 percent of the vote. Colbert Busch took 46 percent. So, in what was probably a best-of-all-worlds scenario for the Democrats, their candidate raised the party’s percentage of the vote by almost sixteen points. But she needed a swing of more than twenty-one points…What happened in South Carolina will keep happening there and in the vast majority of American congressional districts for so long as those districts are drawn to advantage one party or the others.”

WaPo columnist E. J. Dionne, Jr. understands as well as any pundit that there is only so much President Obama can do in terms of needed reforms with the Republican majority hell-bent on sabotaging his presidency at every opportunity. But Dionne believes the president still has some unused leverage in his ability to change the “nation’s political conversation,” and it’s time to use it. As Dionne writes,

…The talk in Washington has been dominated by the same stuff we obsessed over in 2010, 2011 and 2012: a monotonous, uninspiring, insider clash over budgets. Even in that context, we barely discuss what government can do that would be helpful (except to air travelers).
Obama’s defenders say that D.C. dysfunction should be laid at the feet of Republicans in Congress who are so invested in his failure that they even vote against things they are for. That’s what Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) says happened on background checks.
Rather than criticize the president, says former chief White House speechwriter Jon Favreau, those who want him to succeed need to hold Republicans in the House and Senate accountable. The president can’t do it by himself, Favreau said in the Daily Beast. He needs help from his supporters.
Well, sure. To pretend that the president can magically get an increasingly right-wing Republican House and Senate contingent to do his bidding is either naive or willfully misleading. The GOP really does hope that blocking whatever Obama wants will steadily weaken him.
But the president also needs to ask himself why even his supporters are growing impatient. His whole budget strategy, after all, is directed almost entirely toward gently coaxing Republicans his way, without any concern as to whether what he is doing is demobilizing the very people he needs on his side now.

Dionne argues that President Obama needs to use more stick with the carrots he offers the Republicans. With respect to Social Security indexing, for example :

…Such a major step toward the Republicans should be taken only in return for concrete concessions from them on the need for more revenue…If Obama wants to underscore that his problem is Republican obstruction, he should tell those GOP senators he likes to dine with that they need to come up with revenue very soon or else he’ll withdraw that “chained CPI” offer he claims not to like much anyway. Put up or shut up is a cliche, but a useful one.

The president should also make stronger use of the bully pulpit, says Dionne, to put reforms like the much-needed minimum wage hike, funding for infrastructure upgrades and pre-K education in the national conversation. Yes Obama has spoken out eloquently on these issues, but Dionne argues that he needs to amp it up, “a consistent, driving theme: that the stakes in this debate are larger than the day-to-day drone of partisan invective suggests.”
It’s a fair point. If President Bush can create a widely-accepted meme about WMD’s out of pure fantasy and make it stick, President Obama ought to be able to do a lot more than has been done so far with the undeniable reality of our urgent need for infrastructure upgrades.
The Republicans can continue their knee-jerk obstruction of all of the president’s proposed reforms, and will do so as long as they have enough wiggle room. But if Obama fully leverages his power to create a more heated national dialogue about these and other highly-popular reforms, he just might be able to shake loose enough votes among his adversaries to enact the needed legislation — or send them packing in 2014.

At Think Progress.org, Scott Keyes provides an in-depth look at the Elizabeth Colbert Busch’s carefully-calibrated strategy for winning the special election for South Carolina’s 1st congressional district tomorrow — a seat Republicans have held for 30 years.
Even if Colbert Busch loses, argues The Fix’s Chris Cillizza and Sean Sullivan, the outcome might benefit Democrats in part because Sanford would be a high-profile exemplar of “The narrative that Republicans have a woman problem will have new life — with little the GOP leadership can do about it.”
Carrie Budoff Brown of Politico reports on the latest immigration reform strategy: “Senate immigration negotiators are targeting as many as two dozen Republicans for a show-of-force majority — which they believe may be the only way a reform bill will have the momentum to force the House to act…Reform proponents are looking for votes far beyond the usual moderate suspects to senators in conservative bastions such as Utah, Georgia and Wyoming. The senators landed on the list because they’re retiring, representing agricultural states, anxious to get the issue behind the party, important to persuading skittish House Republicans or all of the above.”
The white house has announced that the president will begin “middle class jobs and opportunity tours” on Thursday to raise awareness of the Administration’s proposals for a minimum wage hike to $9 per hour, $50 billion in infrastructure upgrades and new investments in manufacturing. The white house said that “the tours are designed to engage Americans and push Congress to act.” Hopefully they will also spotlight Democratic candidates.
WaPo columnist E. J. Dionne, Jr. makes the case that the president’s tours “should be shaped by a consistent, driving theme: that the stakes in this debate are larger than the day-to-day drone of partisan invective suggests…Remember the Mark Twain line that Wagner’s music was better than it sounded? Obama’s program has more to do with growth and opportunity than he usually lets on. If he wants to rally us, he might want to change that.”
Despite a new Republican effort to suppress student voters in Ohio, President Obama urged Ohio State University graduates to reject government-bashing and become fully engaged citizens.
Matea Gold of the L.A. Times Washington, D.C. Bureau spotlights ‘Democracy Alliance,’ a group of wealthy donors to progressive causes, including OFA.
Paul Krugman makes an often overlooked point in his Sunday NYT column: “Keynesian economics says not just that you should run deficits in bad times, but that you should pay down debt in good times…Hard-line conservatives declare that we must not run deficits in times of economic crisis. Why? Because, they say, politicians won’t do the right thing and pay down the debt in good times. And who are these irresponsible politicians they’re talking about? Why, themselves…Here we have conservatives telling us that we must tighten our belts despite mass unemployment, because otherwise future conservatives will keep running deficits once times improve.”
The political comeback of Ohio Gov. John Kasich, attributable to some extent to his support for Medicaid expansion, provides a cautionary tale for Democrats, as reported by Andy Kroll of Mother Jones.
So here’s an interesting chart depicting the geography of “political clout” — and a surge in clout along the Gulf Coast.

At The Daily Beast Michael Tomasky notes “You’ve seen the poll results showing at least five senators who voted against the Manchin-Toomey bill losing significant support. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire is the only one of the five from a blue state, so it’s probably not surprising that she lost the most, 15 points. But Lisa Murkowski in Alaska lost about as much in net terms. Alaska’s other senator, Democrat Mark Begich, lost about half that. Republicans Rob Portman of Ohio and Jeff Flake of Arizona also tumbled.” As for the next vote on background checks, Tomasky sees “eight potential switches, where six are needed” if it comes up again in the not to distant future.
Further, “…59 percent of Americans are dissatisfied with the results of the Senate gun votes: 19 percent said they were angry about the votes, and 40 percent said they were disappointed by the results,” according to a new poll from CBS News and the New York Times, conducted April 24-29.
Jobless claims are down, although killjoy economists attribute it to ‘Spring swoon” pattern of recent years. The trade deficit is narrowing impressively as well. And the Monitor “What’s behind best April for Detroit’s Big 3 since 2007?” is also encouraging.
At Wonkblog, Brad Plumer’s “Is U.S. manufacturing making a comeback — or is it just hype?” provides a more informative and cautiously optimistic look at the economic recovery in the U.S.
Democracy is running a forum on “Winning the Voting Wars” featuring a number of articles of interest, including: “Playing Offense: An Aggressive Voting Rights Agenda” by Michael Waldman; “Make It Easy: The Case for Automatic Registration” by Heather K. Gerken; “The Missing Right: A Constitutional Right to Vote” by Jonathan Soros & Mark Schmitt; “Expanding Citizenship: Immigrants and the Vote” by Tova Andrea Wang; and “A Temporary Victory: Looking Ahead to 2014” and Beyond by Jeff Hauser.
Anthony Salvato of CBS News asks “Do the Democrats have a lock on the Hispanic vote?,” and notes: “Hispanic households earning under $50,000 were the most pro-Obama at 82 percent, but Obama support drops as income rises, to 64 percent for Hispanic voters in households of $50,000 to $100,000 and households earning more than $100,000 split almost evenly 51 percent Obama to 48 percent Romney.”
At Politics365, Dr. Jason Johnson has an update on Republican efforts to suppress the college vote in Ohio.
However, there are indications that voter suppression has a downside for its perpetrators, arguably costing the GOP more votes than it gains from suppression, at least in certain localities. The Nation’s John Nichols explains “How Voter Backlash Against Voter Suppression Is Changing Our Politics.”
In his Wall St. Journal column, “The GOP Sets Its Sights on the Senate in 2014,” Karl Rove says the Republicans have only “an outside chance of a Senate majority,” and adds: “Last year, Democratic Senate candidates outraised Republicans by $60 million (not including the Connecticut and Pennsylvania races with GOP self-funders). The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee outraised its GOP counterpart by an additional $20 million. Republicans won’t make big pickups if there’s a disparity like this in 2014.”
It’s never over until the last ballot is counted, but do not bet the ranch on this happening.

Tom Raum’s AP article “Economic gains may not help Democrats much in 2014” really deserves a subtitle like, say, “Unless of Course They’re Really Good.” The nut of Raum’s argument:

–Presidential claims of responsibility for economic gains rarely win plaudits from voters, yet presidents nearly always get blamed when things get worse.
–The historical odds for midterm gains in Congress by the in-power party are slim at best. Since World War II, the president’s party has lost an average of 26 seats in midterm elections and gained seats only twice — Democrats in 1998 under President Bill Clinton and Republicans in 2002 with George W. Bush in the Oval Office.
–Presidential elections are often referendums on the economy. That applies less often to midterms.

Raum adds that “there has been a feeling of incremental improvement after Obama’s first term in office. That’s the key word, incremental. Presidents have to make the people believe that things are getting better every month.”
Raum concedes the good news Dems are trumpeting: “Right now, surveys and reports show that the recovery is continuing, although more slowly than most, despite continued high unemployment and an environment of modest economic growth and inflation. Home prices are on the rise, manufacturing is slowly improving.” He cites an uptick in consumer spending and economic growth statistics. He says economists credit Obama’s policies with creating about 3 million jobs, while the Administration claims 6 million jobs added.
But Raum believes sitting presidents have to be very cautious about how much they brag about their economic accomplishments:

Democratic strategists James Carville, Stan Greenberg and Erica Seifert concluded from focus-group sessions with both Democratic and Republican audiences that Obama fares far better in speeches when he highlights economic progress without taking credit.
People “are very much on edge financially … because they live it every day. Every speech needs to start from a place that understands this is not theoretical or ideological,” they wrote in a policy memo. Obama must “thread a very careful needle,” they concluded.

Raum also quotes Rutgers political science professor: “Americans would say, ‘Well, that’s our judgment to make, whether you’re doing a good job or not….Facts speak for themselves,” Baker said. “If things are good, you don’t really need to make any extraordinary claims.”
President Obama is certainly smart enough to avoid crossing the line between skilfully defending his record with facts and bragging immodestly. He’s got articulate surrogates who can amplify his accomplishments in a way that allows him to preserve his dignity. he also has a good sense of just how much he can get away with in terms of explaining his challenges without sounding like a whiner. We will never hear him echoing his predecessor’s mantra in the 2004 debate with Sen Kerry “It’s tough…It’s hard work”
Most voters are smart enough to know that presidents can have undeserved good luck or bad luck. The 2012 vote suggests that a healthy majority apparently gets it that President Obama inherited an unholy mess from his predecessor, and increasingly, that he has done fairly well, especially considering that the Republican party has zero interest in doing anything that might help the country if it also means helping Obama.
Historical patterns suggest that the Republicans will take control of the Senate and hold their majority of the House. For that to happen, however, a majority of the voters who show up at the polls in 2014 will have to think continued gridlock is a good thing or believe, against all evidence, that their Republican incumbent is capable of bipartisan cooperation for economic recovery.
What Democrats have going for them in 2014 is the growing realization among most informed voters that President Obama needs a substantial congressional majority to get anything done. Most swing voters will figure out that electing more Republicans means even more gridlock. Getting rid of a few Republicans on the other hand, just might enable the President to kick-start the economy. If Democrats do indeed have a qualitative edge in ground game mechanics and candidate recruitment for 2014, an upset just may be in the making.

At Politico Ben White and Tarini Parti have an interesting post, “Democrats ask: What debt crisis?” which notes the growing confidence with which Democrats like Sen. Tim Kaine and Chris van Hollen are attacking austerity as an economic policy: “…aided by a pile of recent data suggesting the deficit is already shrinking significantly and current spending cuts are slowing the economy, more Democrats such as Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine and Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen are coming around to the point of view that fiscal austerity, in all its forms, is more the problem than the solution…This group got a huge boost this month with the very public demolition of a sacred text of the austerity movement, the 2010 paper by a pair of Harvard professors arguing that once debt exceeds 90 percent of a country’s gross domestic product, it crushes economic growth.”
In “Germany Should End Austerity, Not Ireland,” at Bloomberg Megan Green reports from a centrist perspective on the politics and economcs of relaxing austerity in Europe.
But Ezra Klein’s Wonkblog post, “Reinhart and Rogoff aren’t the problem. The Republican Party is” cuts straight to the chase: “The real debate right now is with a Republican Party that won’t permit any more stimulus, won’t permit any more deficit reduction if it includes tax revenues, and won’t even permit the federal government to make it easier for people to refinance their homes. That’s a position that often gets called “austerity,” and so cloaks itself in the work of more serious deficit hawks, but it’s actually something very different, and much less coherent…”
Hope Yen’s post “Black Voter Turnout Passed White Turnout For The First Time In 2012” at Talking Points Memo notes that “Unlike other minority groups, the rise in voting for the slow-growing black population is due to higher turnout. While blacks make up 12 percent of the share of eligible voters, they represented 13 percent of total 2012 votes cast, according to exit polling. That was a repeat of 2008, when blacks “outperformed” their eligible voter share for the first time on record.” Imagine what the turnout might have been if there was no voter suppression.
The online sales tax issue is driving yet another wedge into the GOP, reports Jonathan Weisman at The New York Times.
At Larry J. Sabato’s Crystal Ball, Geoffrey Skelley takes a look at state-by-state unemployment rates in the context of the 2012 elections and concludes that “Demographics Overtakes Economy as Prime Presidential Election Indicator.”
Also at The Crystal Ball Kyle Kondik’s “Senate Update: Baucus Leaving Could Be Blessing in Plain Sight” has the latest inside skinny on some key upcoming Senate races.
Historical patterns notwithstanding, Dems are in pretty good shape to wage battle for majority control of the House of Reps, according to DCCC Chairman Steve Israel, quoted by Abby Livingston in Roll Call: “”We are ahead-of-schedule on recruitment, ahead-of-expectations on fundraising, and ahead-of-the-curve on defining the Republican Congress,” Israel wrote of his second cycle leading the DCCC…To retake the majority, Democrats need 17 seats, which is the exact number of Republicans currently sitting in seats that President Obama won in 2012.”
Harold Meyerson’s Washington Post column, “It’s not the left that’s changed, it’s the economy” provides several perceptive insights, including “…Gallup released a poll showing that 72 percent of Americans, including a majority of Republicans, would support a major federally financed infrastructure repair program and a federal program creating 1 million jobs. Nearly 80 years after Franklin Roosevelt created the Works Progress Administration, it seems the American people would like the government to re-create it.”
As if any amount of “personal charm” would make Republicans negotiate in good faith.

Walter C. Jones of Morris News Service takes a look at Democratic prospects for picking up the U.S. Senate seat currently occupied by Saxby Chambliss in “Georgia Democrats differ on strategy to win back state.” Jones says state Democratic party chairman Mike Berlon is trying “to broker an agreement between U.S. Rep. John Barrow of Augusta and Michelle Nunn, the daughter of former Sen. Sam Nunn and the head of a nonprofit organization.” A unified Democratic Senate campaign should have a decent chance against the divided GA GOP, considering that President Obama received 46.9 percent of the Georgia vote in 2012.
At PoliticusUSA Amy Morton’s “A Progressive Storm Brews in the South: Democrats Eye Georgia’s Open Senate Seat” mines the same vein: “No Democrats hold statewide office in Georgia, and the Georgia House and Senate are both controlled by Republicans. But, a perfect progressive storm may be brewing in the deep South.”
Nate Silver considers: “The Gun Vote and 2014: Will There Be an Electoral Price?.” Silver works the numbers and charts, and concludes that the GOP’s inflexible opposition to gun safety will hurt them mostly by adding to their image as an extremist party. Silver adds, “For Democrats to have much of a chance to win back the House — bucking the historical trend of the president’s party faring poorly in midterm years — the Republican Party will first and foremost have to be perceived as out-of-touch on the economy.”
At The Atlantic David Catanese’s “Why These 2016 Democratic Hopefuls Aren’t Shying Away From Gun Control” discusses the ramifications of strong support for gun safety reforms embraced by three potential Democratic candidates, Governors Cuomo, Hickenlooper and O’Malley.
This poll strikes me as weakened by a question that asks about feeling, instead of political intentions. The limited answer choices diminish the value further. Respondents were asked, “What word best describes how you feel about the Senate voting down new gun control legislation that included new background checks on gun purchases?” and they could chose 1 of 4 answers: ‘very happy/relieved’; ‘disappointed/angry’; ‘none/other’; and ‘no opinion.’ But no amount of polling distractions can erase the fact that about 90 percent of the public wants background checks.
Thomas B. Edsall reports at the NYT Opinionator on “The Shadow Lobbyist,” noting a disturbing trend: “Many of the activities most people would call lobbying now fall outside of its legal definition. They have become a large but almost invisible part of special interest influence on public policy.”
The politics of the sequester-driven FAA furlough are getting a little tricky.
NYT columnist Charles M. Blow probes evidence of paranoia on the right, culminating in Glen Beck’s recent unhinged tirade. Blow sees a “constant stream of desperate drivel that has fostered a climate of fear on the far right that makes common-sense consensus nearly impossible.”
“Republican effort to rebrand the party takes a hit” by Lisa Mascaro of the L.A. Times Washington Bureau, reports about Republicans rejecting a bill to help Americans with preexisting health conditions. So much for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s hopes for reviving the ‘compassionate conservatism’ meme.
Not easy to find a credible complement for a president who left the world economy in a mess, but this one will serve the purpose — to affirm the bipartisan custom of presidents supporting each others’ libraries.