Hotline on Call’s Adam Wollner flags “The 8 Primary Races to Watch Tuesday.” For Dems CA-33 looks like the marquee contest, followed by CA-31.
The American Prospect’s Paul Waldman mulls over “How Conservatives Will React to Obama’s New Climate Regulations.” Hint: expect to hear terms like “lawless job-killing socialism,” which Waldman shows will not be too hard to rebut.
Democrats should seek out more candidates of color, as well as women. But take this as a challenge to also elect more members of congress who actually come from blue collar America.
NYT columnist Russ Douthat discusses prospects for “the small world of reform conservatism” in light of Jonathan Chait’s critique. Douthat’s mild optimism seems a little premature. It will take a proper drubbing of the Republicans by a blue wave before ‘reform conservatism’ can establish a beachhead in the GOP.
Addressing the same topic at Democracy: A Journal of Ideas via The Atlantic, E. J. Dionne, Jr. concludes in a long article, “…Reform conservatism must still prove itself to be more than a slogan, more than a marketing campaign, more than that new pizza box. The Reformicons can be part of the historic correction the conservative movement badly needs–or they can settle for being sophisticated enablers of more of the same.”
At Roll Call Emily Cahn notes “The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has reserved $43.5 million in television airtime in dozens of targeted House districts this fall — a signal the party is attempting to play defense and offense in a challenging midterm cycle…The money is split across 36 districts, including 17 pickup opportunities, according to a DCCC aide. More districts and more money could be added to the reservations as the cycle progresses, the aide said…The DCCC had $43.3 million in the bank at the end of April and has raised more than its Republican counterpart by large margins this cycle.”
Taegan Goddard shows “Which State has the Most Gerrymandered Districts?”
Paul Krugman ruminates “On Inequality Denial”: “…This latest attempt to debunk the notion that we’ve become a vastly more unequal society has itself been debunked. And you should have expected that. There are so many independent indicators pointing to sharply rising inequality, from the soaring prices of high-end real estate to the booming markets for luxury goods, that any claim that inequality isn’t rising almost has to be based on faulty data analysis.”
I like this a lot. Regardless of Hillary’s decision and prospects re 2016, she has enormous cred right now and it’s good that she is leveraging it in service to Dems’ 2014 campaign.
