The Elizabeth Warren-Scott Brown Senate race in MA is a stat tie in latest Boston Globe/UNH survey, according to CNN Political Ticker.
By now, most Americans with a shred of political awareness know that the voting rights of African Americans, Latinos and students have been undermined across the nation in a very serious assault. Christine Pelosi reports at HuffPo about another group of an estimated 3.2 million voters, which is experiencing obstruction of their voting rights: “Americans with disabilities face voting impediments too. A 2011 op-ed by Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, and Mark Perriello, president of the American Association of People with Disabilities, states: “There are more than 30 million Americans with disabilities of voting age, yet the Federal Election Commission (FEC) reports that there are more than 20,000 inaccessible polling places. Some are located in basements or buildings without ramps, and others only offer machines that are outdated and unworkable for a person who is blind, deaf, or physically impaired…”
Cameron Joseph reports at the Hill that the push is on among some GOP strategists for a Latino on their presidential ticket, with Sen. Marco Rubio (FL), NM Gov. Susana Martinez and NV Gov. Brian Sandoval atop the buzz.
In his Daily Beast post “How a Tweet Can Beat a PAC: Social Media Gives Voters Muscle in Politics,” Mark Mckinnon reports “…73 percent of adult Internet users went online to get news or information about the 2010 elections. Some 22 percent used Twitter or social networking sites in the months leading up to the midterms to connect to campaigns or the election itself. And this year, over 1.6 million watched President Obama’s re-election campaign film, “The Road We’ve Traveled,” on YouTube in just five days…Masters of leveraging technology four years ago, Obama for America already has spent more than $11 million on Web ads and text messages this election season.”
Tomasky ponders some interesting ways the high court ruling on the ACA could damage Romney more than Obama. “A ruling against the law, depending on its scope, has three possible effects. It takes a massive campaign weapon out of his hands. It forces him to answer a key question he has so far not had to answer. And finally, and it has the potential to put him on the defensive since he will have to align himself with an obviously political and unaccountable Court majority.”
Jonathan Chait ruminates at New York magazine on the pros and cons of fighting for a single-payer based system if the Supreme Court strikes down Obamacare.
Dems who want to be more savvy about the budget debate should read “The Budget for All: An Analysis of The Congressional Progressive Caucus Budget” by David Callahan and Jack Temple at Demos.
Now, here’s a Republican who gives excellent advice. At an ERA rally, Rep. Richard Hanna (R-NY) said: “…These are very precarious times for women, it seems. So many of your rights are under assault…I’ll tell you this: Contribute your money to people who speak out on your behalf, because the other side — my side — has a lot of it. And you need to send your own message.”
In her U.S. News post “Obama Trouncing GOP Candidates Among Female Voters,” Lauren Fox mines some nuggets about women’s political attitudes from the latest Pew Research Poll: “Younger women prefer Obama by greater margins than older women do. Women under 50 prefer the president to Romney by a 64 percent to 33 percent margin. But among women 65 and older, Romney actually leads Obama by a point…White women are evenly split between Romney and Obama.”
And Susan Page reports at USA Today that “President Obama has opened the first significant lead of the 2012 campaign in the nation’s dozen top battleground states, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, boosted by a huge shift of women to his side…The biggest change came among women under 50. In mid-February, just under half of those voters supported Obama. Now more than six in 10 do while Romney’s support among them has dropped by 14 points, to 30%. The president leads him 2-1 in this group.”