First, the good news. Tuesday begins the reformation of health care in America. As the New York Times editorial board puts it, “…Millions of uninsured Americans who can’t get health insurance, or can’t afford it, to obtain coverage with the aid of government subsidies. It is a striking example of what government can do to help people in trouble…After decades of debate and bitter political battles, millions of uninsured Americans will soon be able to get health coverage they can afford, a right that has long been universal in other advanced nations.”
From Paul Steinhauser’s “CNN Poll: GOP would bear the brunt of shutdown blame” at CNN Politics: “According to the poll, which was conducted Friday through Sunday, 46% say they would blame congressional Republicans for a government shutdown, with 36% saying the president would be more responsible and 13% pointing fingers at both the GOP in Congress and Obama.”
For those who would like all of their shutdown reporting distilled into one headline that comes closest to nailing the nitty-gritty, try Greg Mitchell’s post at The Nation, “Media Coverage of Shutdown Threat: A Journalistic ‘Disgrace.'”
From Laurie Goodstein’s NYT post “Hispanics Grow Cool to G.O.P., Poll Finds,” here’s the skinny on a new poll by the Public Religion Research Institute on current politcal attitudes of Latinos: “More than 6 in 10 Hispanic respondents said they felt closer to the Democratic Party than they had in the past, while only 3 in 10 said they felt closer to the Republican Party. When Hispanics were asked to offer descriptions of the parties, 48 percent of the responses about the Republicans were negative associations like “intolerant” and “out of touch,” while 22 percent of the responses for the Democrats were negative.”
Please, Dems. Don’t forget the huge role of unfair trade policies in our economic troubles. Here’s a refresher from Robert E. Scott’s “Trading away the manufacturing advantage: China trade drives down U.S. wages and benefits and eliminates good jobs for U.S. workers” at the Economic Policy Institute.
Wanna reach young voters? Former Bush speechwriter David Frum notes at The Daily Beast that a new survey of young voters recently conducted for the college Republicans found that “44 percent of young voters cited Yahoo as a regular news source and 30 percent cited MSN…Something like half the country continues to use some version of Internet Explorer. Many of these people open up to whatever Microsoft has set for them as their home page, and they gather their news from whatever happens to show up there.”
Jonathan Martin’s “Populist Left Makes Warren Its Hot Ticket ” reveals that the Massachusetts senator is setting fund-raising records for Democratic senators, concurrent with her emergence as the Dems’ most popular champion of economic justice “…in seizing on issues animating her party’s base — the influence of big banks, soaring student loan debt and the widening gulf between the wealthy and the working class — Ms. Warren is challenging the centrist economic approach that has been the de facto Democratic policy since President Bill Clinton and his fellow moderates took control of the party two decades ago.”
The Democratic Party already has an impressive number of presidential-caliber women serving as U.S. Senators, including Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar and Claire McCaskill, to name a few. But the list of formidable women senators could be even more impressive after the 2014 elections, according to James Hohmann’s Politico post, “Democrats recruit women to compete in red states,” which includes updates on the campaigns of Alison Lundergan Grimes in Kentucky, Michelle Nunn in Georgia and Natalie Tennant in West Virginia.
Re David Corn’s Mother Jones suggestion, “Should Obama Reveal His Inner Pissed-Off President?,” maybe a few well-crafted zingers a la Bill Maher or John Stewart would be good.