It’s a measure of how extreme and radical the Republican party has become that one of progressives’ favorite centrist/false equivalency whipping boys, Thomas Friedman, now recognizes that the GOP leadership has gone starkers. Here’s Friedman, from his recent NYT column, “We Need a ‘Conservative’ Party“: “We are not going to make any progress on our biggest problems without a compromise between the center-right and center-left. But, for that, we need the center-right conservatives, not the radicals, to be running the G.O.P., as well as the center-left in the Democratic Party.” Better late than never.
Is it just me, or does this much-hyped, but poorly-reported and rather extreme outlier of a forecast smell a wee bit funky?
According to the latest AP-GfK poll, reported by AP, most Americans disagree with the above-noted forecast at this point: “Asked to predict the race’s outcome, 58 percent of adults say they expect Obama to be re-elected, whereas just 32 percent say he will be voted out of office.” The poll also gives Obama a 47-44 edge over Romney.
For some clear thinking about the problem of slack youth voter participation, I highly recommend Ann Beeson’s ‘Campaign Stops’ post, “Scared Straight — Into the Voting Booth” at the NYT. Beeson, senior fellow and lecturer at the Annette Strauss Institute for Civic Life at the University of Texas, explains: “Three causes are worth exploring. First of all, many young people just don’t see the connection between voting and their commitment to improve their communities, advocate for a cause, or change the world. Secondly, there are very real grounds for political cynicism. And finally, let’s face it, civic engagement can be a snore.” She’s also got some interesting remedies the Democratic party would be wise to explore.
Looks like there has been an uptick in kinder public attitudes toward children of undocumented workers, which should encourage Democratic candidates to speak out in their behalf a little more boldly.
At HuffPo, Sam Stein has an encouraging post, “Obama 2012 Campaign Helped By MoveOn.org, AFL-CIO Super PAC Alliance.” The partnership, which was launched on Tuesday, brings together two organizations with a combined total of 17 million members to mobilize what could be the most extensive GOTV ground game ever, with an estimated 400K volunteers and 1.5 million phone calls.
The ‘Akin effect’ seems to be reverberating down-ballot. Birds of a crackpot feather…
Kenneth P. Vogel’s Politico post, “Liberal group targets Koch brothers with $500K ad buy,” suggests that Dems should monitor how much traction they can get from attacks on Big Money like Patriot Majority’s ad campaign targeting the Koch Brother’s attempt to flood the airwaves with nearly $400 million worth of right-wing propaganda. The election outcome may depend on people “seeing through” the GOP ad blitz.
Can Florida’s shameless Governor Rick Scott stoop any lower than this?
