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The Democratic Strategist

Political Strategy for a Permanent Democratic Majority

Political Strategy Notes

More evidence of a Romney cakewalk to the GOP nomination going forward at Nate Silver’s five thirty eight blog.
So, how did the GOP frontrunner celebrate MLK Day? According to Amanda Peterson Beadle, writing at Nation of Change, “Mitt Romney plans to tout his extreme immigration positions during a campaign stop in South Carolina today — with Kris Kobach, the author of Arizona’s and Alabama’s immigration laws, at his side…But as extreme as Romney’s immigration stances have been, campaigning with an anti-immigrant official with ties to a hate group on Martin Luther King Day is beyond the pale.”
Eric Pape lays bare the cluelessness of Romney’s Euro-bashing at ForeignPolicy.com, riffing on Mitt’s insistence that President Obama “wants to turn America into a European-style social welfare state” in stark contrast to Mitt’s steely determination to “ensure that we remain a free and prosperous land of opportunity.” Pape notes for example, that “Since the global economic crisis kicked in, French unemployment increased by about 25 percent. (Then again, American unemployment increased by about 50 percent in that same period — and the U.S. rate is higher, at 8.5 percent, than the averaged unemployment rate of the eurozone’s two largest economies, France and Germany).”
Turns out the low information voter thing is a pretty big problem for Dems, especially when it comes to knowing what the GOP candidates are about, according to a recent Pew Research poll. Dems got work to do.
Michael C. Dawson has a thoughtful and informative rumination on “The Future of Black Politics” at the Boston Review, the lead essay of a forum with nine other experts on the topic.
While at the Boston Review, check out Stephen Ansolabehere’s post on “The Brown Majority,” featuring some worrisome statistics for GOP partisans, including: “Over the coming decade, aging alone will increase the number of Hispanics who are eligible to vote by 25 percent.”
Republicans, don’t read this. Keep blithering about the virtues of “creative destruction” and other elitist concepts from Austrian economists and/or Ayn Rand. Voters love to be patronized with cold, academic jargon. And Mitt, keep telling voters more about what a regular guy you are, being unemployed and stuff. Maybe get a beat-up pick-up truck and a NASCAR hat. Oh, and please talk more about Bain’s wonderful track record.
Get up to speed on the latest political buzz-terms at Katy Steinmetz’s Time Swampland post.
Huntsman’s website erasing in context of his Romney endorsement is a hoot. The Fixx’s Rachel Weiner explains: “In October, Huntsman called Romney a “perfectly lubricated weather vane on the important issues of the day,” who “has been missing in action in terms of showing any kind of leadership….”There’s a question whether he’s running for the White House or the Waffle House,” Huntsman said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” in November…He told ABC News around the same time that “the American people, the voters, are going to have a hard time finding, I think, a gut level trust when it comes to someone who has been on so many sides of major issues.”
Regardless of who wins the presidential election, the outcome of four key Senate races in Massachusetts, Montana, Nevada, and Virginia will likely be pivotal in securing majority control. Charlie Cook has a savvy update in his National Journal column, “Epic Battles’ Will Seal Senate’s Fate.”
Check out this GOP candidates Rushmore caricature, made, appropriately, of sand.

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