Knew that headline would get your attention. We speak here of Florida Governor Charlie Crist, who last Thursday approved a measure to restore voting rights to an estimated 950,000 Floridian ex-felons, about 9 percent of the voting-age population of the Sunshine State. Crist’s initiative has political observers scratching their heads. How much of a political impact could it have? Salon‘s Farhad Manjoo puts it this way:

The ex-cons belong to traditionally Democratic demographics — many are African-American, and many are poor. If they’re allowed to vote, they’ll likely go to the polls at lower rates than everyone else; Uggen and Manza’s work suggests felons turn out to vote at about the half the general turnout rate in any given election. But in a state as closely divided politically as Florida, that could still make all the difference. In the past several decades, say Uggen and Manza, at least two Senate races in Florida would have gone to Democrats instead of Republicans had felons had the right to vote. Buddy McKay would have beaten Connie Mack in 1988, and Betty Castor would have beaten Mel Martinez in 2004. And, of course, the 2000 presidential election would have gone to Al Gore. Uggen and Manza’s research suggests Gore might have picked up 60,000 votes from felons……if the state’s ex-cons had been allowed to vote in 2000, George W. Bush would now be the commissioner of baseball.

Also check out Nancy Scola’s take on the topic at MyDD, “Felon Enfranchisement: Florida Vs. Rhode Island,” which puts the movement to restore voting rights to America’s ex felons in perspective.

Horse-race polls will get more interesting in September when voters pay increased attention. In evaluating the Party’s preparedness for a full-scale campaign, the Dems overall political image looks very good. Pollster.com’s Mark Blumenthal reports, for example, that a new Diageo-Hotline survey shows a generic Dem candidate leads a generic GOP candidate 47%-29% in a white house ’08 matchup.
Blumenthal’s link-rich article also provides some instructive insights about how generic candidate polls work, along with this thoughtful appraisal of their limitations:

…This far out, I believe that a generic vote question tells us mostly about the way voters perceive the national political parties. While those images apparently give the Democrats a huge early advantage – a finding that is certainly informative about the voters’ current attitudes – the ultimate nominees of each party and their campaign messages will likely reshape those images. So, for my money, the generic vote remains something of questionable value in tracking where the race will be in 18 months.

Very true about the limited predictive value, and same goes for candidate horse-race polls this far out. But any poll that gives Dems an 18 percent advantage with voters is welcome news in assessing the Party’s image, which needs to be strong if Dems want an ’08 sweep. Now it would be interesting to see polls showing which themes are resonating with those who prefer a generic Democrat and which motivate those favoring Republicans.

The first hump-day in April yields a trio of blogosphere articles of interest to political strategy-watchers. Start with the buzz about DLC Chair Harold Ford’s pitch for Democratic consensus on a half-dozen key issues at TPM Cafe, and the broad range of friendly and hostile reactions to his overture. (New Donkey Ed Kilgore fleshes out Ford’s proposal, and a progressives have at it.) The tone of discussion around Ford’s proposals gets a little strident on both sides, but, hey, that’s what Dems do.
Over at Slate, Joshua Glen has a provocative review article on Stephen Duncombe’s book ‘Dream.’ Glen’s review, entitled “Grand Theft Politics: Should Democrats look to video games for inspiration?” has this to say about the state of progressive activism:

In a new book, Dream, NYU media professor and political activist Stephen Duncombe laments that progressives have become … well, tedious. The people who built the New Deal and led the civil rights struggle are now engaging in old-fashioned, top-down political practices. These days, whether you attend a rally, sign a petition, or forward a MoveOn e-mail, it can be a disempowering experience. Duncombe is not contemptuous of the traditional anti-war demonstrations against Iraq, but, he argues, obscured within these and other well-intended political actions is “a philosophy of passive political spectatorship: they organize, we come; they talk, we listen.”

It does sometimes seem as if the day when big progressive demos were influential has come and gone, and the GOP is nowadays more imaginative with their political “spectacles.” On the other hand, there is probably more creative grassroots activism going on now than ever before through netroots projects, which have proven to be quite effective, judging by the ’06 elections.
Rob Richie and Ryan O’Donnell report on an innovative effort at electoral reform in their TomPaine.com article, “Making the Popular Vote a Winner.” The authors explain how the new initiative works:

Today most states give their electoral votes to the winner of the statewide popular vote, but they could just as easily award them to the national vote winner in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. If a group of states representing a majority of the Electoral College entered into a binding agreement to do so, then the nationwide popular vote winner would achieve an Electoral College victory every time.
…The National Popular Vote compact will go into effect only if in July of a presidential election year the number of participating states collectively have a majority of at least 270 electoral votes. At that point, the compact is triggered, with states accepting a blackout period during which they cannot withdraw from the agreement until the new president takes office. That new president is guaranteed to be the candidate who won the most votes from Americans in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
National Popular Vote has had remarkable success since going public in February 2006. California ‘s Assembly and Senate in California passed the plan in 2006, as did the Colorado Senate, Hawaii Senate and Arkansas House this year. Nationally nearly 300 state legislators representing nearly every state have sponsored the plan or pledged to do so.
…While it’s unlikely that enough states will be on board by next July to affect the 2008 election, we think it will be the last state-by-state election for president in our history. It couldn’t come any sooner. In today’s climate of partisan polarization, the current system shuts out most of the country from meaningful participation by turning naturally “purple” states into simple “red” and “blue.”

Sounds like a plan which could prevent a replay of the 2000 debacle, and that’s a good thing.

Presidential candidates, including Democrats, have historically been a little gun-shy when it comes to supporting liberalization of archaic drug laws. That may soon change, thanks to Governor Bill Richardson, who just signed into law a bill making New Mexico the 12th state to protect patients using medical marijuana from arrest. The other states are Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.
Asked by the Associated Press about the political risk involved, Richardson replied “So what if it’s risky? It’s the right thing to do…This is for medicinal purpose, for … people that are suffering. My God, let’s be reasonable.”
It’s not likely that Richardson’s presidential campaign will suffer as a result. Opinion polls taken in the 21st century indicate that between 70 and 80 percent of the public supports protecting medical marijuana users from arrest. Indeed, the interesting question is whether Richardson may win votes as a result. Federal government statistics indicate that 80 million Americans admit they have smoked marijuana, 20 million during the last year.
Yet more than 5 million Americans have been arrested for marijuana offenses during the last decade, 90 percent for simple possession. About 700,000 Americans were arrested for marijuana-related offenses during the last year. As former President Jimmy Carter has said “Penalties against drug use should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself. Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against the possession of marijuana in private for personal use.” In singing the legislation, Richardson may have enhanced his image as a practical problem-solver. Democratic Presidential candidates John Edwards and Dennis Kucinich have said they oppose arresting and jailing patients who use medical marijuana, as did former Democratic Presidential nominee John Kerry. Kucinich supports decriminalization of marijuana smoking. Senators Obama and Clinton have no information about their positions on medical marijuana on their web pages. Former President Clinton came out in favor of decriminalization of marijuana possession in 2000, softening his previous hard line position against medical marijuana.