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The Democratic Strategist

Political Strategy for a Permanent Democratic Majority

Month: February 2015

A Strategy for Better Voter Turnout

From Kira Lerner’s report on the Voting and Elections Summit 2015, “5 Ways To Fix America’s Dismal Voter Turnout Problem” at ThinkProgress:

According to a U.S. Census report from 2013, 14 percent of nonvoting respondents were unable to participate because of an illness or disability, 8.6 percent were out of town, 12.7 percent did not like the candidates or campaign issues and almost 19 percent were too busy. Some people cannot take time off from work on a Tuesday in November, which has led lawmakers including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) to call for making Election Day a federal holiday. Others may not feel engaged in politics or informed enough to vote, while 5.85 million U.S. citizens are prohibited from voting due to a felony conviction on their records.

Lerner observes, optimistically, that “Unlike laws that restrict access through voter ID laws, shorter registration and early voting periods and disenfranchising felons, these proposals are likely to have support from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and would not be difficult to implement to get voters to turn out in higher numbers.” But significant bipartisan support for any such reforms might not be so easy.
Still, Lerner notes,

…More states have been pushing to allow people to register online, a proposal that has bipartisan support. As of December, 20 states had implemented online voter registration and four others had passed legislation to implement the technology. A number of Republican election chiefs have supported the technology, including Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams (R) who told ThinkProgress that his state has developed a website which allows voters to register in minutes and helps avoid errors that occur when poll workers attempt to read voters’ handwriting. Ohio’s Jon Husted, notorious for attempting to suppress votes, has also recently called for online registration.

Among the creative reforms Lerner cites is a Virginia initiative, “Revive My Vote, “a digital workspace” connecting volunteers with convicted felons in to help thread the procedures to restore their voting rights.
It seems reasonable to hope that here and there a few Republicans in state legislatures and perhaps even some Republican members of congress will come forward to support expanding the franchise through various measures. But most of these reforms are unlikely to get much traction until we get a wave election favoring Democrats. What state and local Democratic party chapters can do on their own is make a more substantial commitment to recruiting, training and developing better candidates from blue collar America, as well as the “rising American electorate,” including women, people of color and younger Democrats.


Political Strategy Notes

From Adam Sneed’s report, “Poll: Good grades for Obama on unemployment” at Politico: “Fifty-one percent of those surveyed say the president is handling unemployment well, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll. The poll was conducted before Friday’s jobs report, which showed the strongest job growth in three months since 1997 as well as a notable growth in hourly wages for the private sector…The new numbers come with more good news for Obama’s party: The poll finds Americans are more likely to trust Democrats than Republicans on handling economic issues, but the numbers are low for both parties. Thirty-three percent trust Democrats on the economy, and 28 percent trust Republicans.”
At National Journal, James Oliphant’s “How Not to Run for President: What 2016 hopefuls can learn from former flameouts” has some well-stated advice that could apply to down ballot campaigns as well.
AP’s Ken Thomas and Thomas Beaumont report on the Democratic strategy to out Jeb Bush as a Romney political clone: “Mitt Romney opposed the government’s rescue of U.S. automakers. So did Jeb Bush. Both worked in finance and backed the Wall Street bailout. Both are advocates of tax cuts that Democrats contend only benefit the wealthy and big business…They also are eager to note how Bush, after leaving office, served on an advisory board for Lehman Brothers, a financial firm that collapsed in 2008 during the recession. They compare Bush’s work in private equity to Romney’s role at Bain Capital, which was criticized during the 2012 campaign for its leveraged buyouts of companies that in some cases led to job losses…”We don’t need to try to show that Jeb is like Romney. He pretty much is Romney,” said Eddie Vale, vice president of American Bridge 21st Century, a liberal group set up to conduct opposition research on Republicans. “When it comes to any ideas or policies, he’s the same as Romney.”
This could be fun.
At MSNBC.com Zachary Roth reports on the effort to undo the politicized felon disenfranchisement laws Republicans have passed in several states. Roth focuses on an Iowa case that reveals how low Gov. Terry Branstad has stooped to disenfranchise citizens of his state in service to the G.O.P. agenda.
NC Democrats have chosen former state legislator and congressional candidate Patsy Keever of Asheville to lead the state party to the 2016 elections, in which NC will elect a U.S. Senator, Governor and possibly, the President.
Despite all of the bragging rights the GOP has claimed about their improved campaign technology, conservative political consultant Adam B. Schaeffer explains “Why Republicans Haven’t Closed the Gap on Targeting and Tactics” at Campaigns & Elections.
At Family Studies.org Amber and David Lapp report on “One Idea for Renewing Friendship in Working-Class America” — weekend retreats to build trust and camaraderie between families, a technique that was used with some success in the wake of the Spanish Civil War.
For a funny take on a Republican Governor striving to present himself as a down-home dude, read Kurt Erickson’s “Rauner still tryin’ to be a regular guy.” As Erickson notes, “But even though the campaign is over, the Winnetka Republican is still working the working class, blue collar theme. The latest evidence came Wednesday when he delivered his first State of the State speech to a joint session of the General Assembly…Just a few minutes into his address, Statehouse denizens began noticing a dramatic change in his language…He was droppin’ his G’s…It was clear Rauner has decided — perhaps with the assistance of a speech coach — that he might better connect with the masses if he said “disappearin” rather than “disappearing.”…Infightin’ over infighting. Neighborin’ over neighboring” etc.


February 6: Self-Deportation: Not Just for Immigrants Any More!

We all remember when Mitt Romney outsmarted himself in 2012 by calling his approach to the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country as “self-deportation”–a strategy of making life so miserable for the undocumented, via all kinds of petty harassment and denial of hope, that they’d find their way across the border without the messy expedients of police dogs, cattle prods or boxcars.
It worked pretty well for Mitt in the GOP nomination contest, but was a significant part of the reason he lost the Latino vote by 44 points in November and also burnished his reputation for being an unfeeling plutocrat.
If possible, Republicans may make “self-deportation” seem pretty humane by the end of the current presidential cycle. But in the mean time, the term isn’t a bad description of where they are going in their famously new attention to income inequality, as I noted this week at Washington Monthly:

If you read Brian Beutler’s review of Jeb Bush’s “big speech” at the Detroit Economic Club tomorrow, it’s obvious the former Florida’s governor’s idea of squaring conservative orthodoxy with a “right to rise” agenda for social mobility is to double or triple down on the idea that government assistance programs trap people in non-working dependence.

As metaphors for social insurance go, “spider web” sounds disgusting, but beats Paul Ryan’s idyllic “hammock” in that it at least treats beneficiaries as unwitting victims, rather than coddled malingerers. Ultimately, though, they amount to the same critique: When the government intervenes to support the poor and working classes, it captures them and saps them of ambition.

If you really believe people structure their lives around short-term money considerations, then anti-poverty programs, which by definition must phase down benefits as earned income increases, can easily look like traps, and conservative audiences who (a) don’t view the government benefits they receive as morally tainted, (b) resent having to pay taxes to support those people, and (c) bridle at any suggestion they might harbor prejudice, instinctively love this kind of “analysis,” implying as it does that abandonment is a sort of tough love. It’s kind of a general social-policy version of “self-deportation” for undocumented immigrants: make live less tolerable for the poor, and they’ll get themselves out of poverty.

The crocodile tears for those damaged via humane treatment are pretty much the same.


Self-Deportation: Not Just For Immigrants Any More!

We all remember when Mitt Romney outsmarted himself in 2012 by calling his approach to the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country as “self-deportation”–a strategy of making life so miserable for the undocumented, via all kinds of petty harassment and denial of hope, that they’d find their way across the border without the messy expedients of police dogs, cattle prods or boxcars.
It worked pretty well for Mitt in the GOP nomination contest, but was a significant part of the reason he lost the Latino vote by 44 points in November and also burnished his reputation for being an unfeeling plutocrat.
If possible, Republicans may make “self-deportation” seem pretty humane by the end of the current presidential cycle. But in the mean time, the term isn’t a bad description of where they are going in their famously new attention to income inequality, as I noted this week at Washington Monthly:

If you read Brian Beutler’s review of Jeb Bush’s “big speech” at the Detroit Economic Club tomorrow, it’s obvious the former Florida’s governor’s idea of squaring conservative orthodoxy with a “right to rise” agenda for social mobility is to double or triple down on the idea that government assistance programs trap people in non-working dependence.

As metaphors for social insurance go, “spider web” sounds disgusting, but beats Paul Ryan’s idyllic “hammock” in that it at least treats beneficiaries as unwitting victims, rather than coddled malingerers. Ultimately, though, they amount to the same critique: When the government intervenes to support the poor and working classes, it captures them and saps them of ambition.

If you really believe people structure their lives around short-term money considerations, then anti-poverty programs, which by definition must phase down benefits as earned income increases, can easily look like traps, and conservative audiences who (a) don’t view the government benefits they receive as morally tainted, (b) resent having to pay taxes to support those people, and (c) bridle at any suggestion they might harbor prejudice, instinctively love this kind of “analysis,” implying as it does that abandonment is a sort of tough love. It’s kind of a general social-policy version of “self-deportation” for undocumented immigrants: make live less tolerable for the poor, and they’ll get themselves out of poverty.

The crocodile tears for those damaged via humane treatment are pretty much the same.


February 5: The Eveready GOP Agenda

What with Republicans all suddenly talking about wage stagnation and income inequality, it’s very important that Democrats understand how adept the opposition has become in adapting its eternal agenda to changing circumstances. I discussed this at some length at TPMCafe this week:

This is most obvious with economic and fiscal policy, where the conservative movement and the Republican Party have embraced a largely static agenda of deregulation, top-end personal and business tax cuts and sharp reductions in domestic spending, with periodic attacks on New Deal and Great Society entitlement programs, with “devolution” as an instrument for “reform,” for well over thirty years…..There has been a “minority report” on taxes among conservatives favoring a consumption tax–the “Fair Tax” promoted by Mike Huckabee and many others being the most popular contemporary iteration–but the distributional thrust is the same or even more regressive. And there has also been persistent interest among social conservatives in “family-friendly” tax policies, usually a big boost in the child tax credit. But it’s pretty much a regular menu with the occasional refresh.
What’s fascinating, though, is how these policies are offered again and again as an agenda for all seasons and all circumstances–good times (like the late 1990s), bad times (like the last few years), budget surpluses (in 2001, when George W. Bush marketed his huge package of tax cuts as a “rebate”), budget deficits (the 1980s through the early 1990s, and again since 2009), and just about every climate in between the extremes.
Lately we’re getting a slightly remixed version of the same old, same old as the “answer” to wage stagnation and income equality–essential topics for a number of reasons, notably the growth and unemployment indices making it tougher to attack Obama for a slow or nonexistent recovery from the Great Recession. But if you listen closely, there’s not a whole lot we haven’t heard before, as Bloomberg Politics‘ Ben Brody noted recently:

In July, Representative Paul Ryan’s Budget Committee issued a draft anti-poverty plan lamenting that “far too many people are stuck on the lower rungs” of the economy and recommending a combination of reformed social safety nets, state flexibility in education, and decreased regulations. Senator Mike Lee of Utah, meanwhile, has gone even farther, declaring on his website that “the United States is beset by a crisis in inequality” and that “bigger government is not the solution to unequal opportunity–it’s the cause.”

Uh huh: You got your “entitlement reform,” your devolution, your deregulation, and your smaller government. And even more Republicans are eager to throw some tax preferences at the problem. That’s the standard formula from “Reformicon” intellectuals and the handful of Republican pols (notably Marco Rubio) listening to them . But it mostly revolves around the old social conservative indirect method of addressing economic problems by encouraging marriage and children.

So next time you hear of a Republican leader offering a proposal or batch of proposals to address a new national challenge, be sure to look first to see if the “solution” sounds familiar.


The Eveready GOP Agenda

What with Republicans all suddenly talking about wage stagnation and income inequality, it’s very important that Democrats understand how adept the opposition has become in adapting its eternal agenda to changing circumstances. I discussed this at some length at TPMCafe this week:

This is most obvious with economic and fiscal policy, where the conservative movement and the Republican Party have embraced a largely static agenda of deregulation, top-end personal and business tax cuts and sharp reductions in domestic spending, with periodic attacks on New Deal and Great Society entitlement programs, with “devolution” as an instrument for “reform,” for well over thirty years…..There has been a “minority report” on taxes among conservatives favoring a consumption tax–the “Fair Tax” promoted by Mike Huckabee and many others being the most popular contemporary iteration–but the distributional thrust is the same or even more regressive. And there has also been persistent interest among social conservatives in “family-friendly” tax policies, usually a big boost in the child tax credit. But it’s pretty much a regular menu with the occasional refresh.
What’s fascinating, though, is how these policies are offered again and again as an agenda for all seasons and all circumstances–good times (like the late 1990s), bad times (like the last few years), budget surpluses (in 2001, when George W. Bush marketed his huge package of tax cuts as a “rebate”), budget deficits (the 1980s through the early 1990s, and again since 2009), and just about every climate in between the extremes.
Lately we’re getting a slightly remixed version of the same old, same old as the “answer” to wage stagnation and income equality–essential topics for a number of reasons, notably the growth and unemployment indices making it tougher to attack Obama for a slow or nonexistent recovery from the Great Recession. But if you listen closely, there’s not a whole lot we haven’t heard before, as Bloomberg Politics‘ Ben Brody noted recently:

In July, Representative Paul Ryan’s Budget Committee issued a draft anti-poverty plan lamenting that “far too many people are stuck on the lower rungs” of the economy and recommending a combination of reformed social safety nets, state flexibility in education, and decreased regulations. Senator Mike Lee of Utah, meanwhile, has gone even farther, declaring on his website that “the United States is beset by a crisis in inequality” and that “bigger government is not the solution to unequal opportunity–it’s the cause.”

Uh huh: You got your “entitlement reform,” your devolution, your deregulation, and your smaller government. And even more Republicans are eager to throw some tax preferences at the problem. That’s the standard formula from “Reformicon” intellectuals and the handful of Republican pols (notably Marco Rubio) listening to them . But it mostly revolves around the old social conservative indirect method of addressing economic problems by encouraging marriage and children.

So next time you hear of a Republican leader offering a proposal or batch of proposals to address a new national challenge, be sure to look first to see if the “solution” sounds familiar.


Political Strategy Notes

NPR’s Pam Fessler has an update on the counter-offensive against voter suppression: “There are many such proposals among the 1,200 voting bills already introduced in state legislatures this year…There are also proposals in Arizona, Georgia, Hawaii, New York and Oregon to do something completely new — automatically register eligible citizens to vote, unless they opt out…Underhill says there are also many measures that would expand early and absentee voting…”Right now, there are 37 states that offer such an opportunity for their voters,” she says. “But that leaves another 13 states that don’t have one of those options. And it looks like there is legislation in nine of those.”
So how important is same-day registration? At The Daily Pennsylvanian Dan Spinelli reports, “A study conducted by the public policy organization Demos concluded that states with same-day voter registration average a 10 percent greater turnout than states without the policy. According to the study, same-day registration especially increased voter turnout among blacks. In North Carolina, which recently eliminated its same-day registration program, 41 percent of voters who registered on the 2012 Election Day were black, compared to just 20 percent of the population.”
In not-absolutely-all-Republicans-are-into-voter suppression news, here we have a, gasp, Republican, OK state Sen. David Holt, pushing for expanding early voting hours, online registration (20 states now have it) and, get this — all mail elections by 2020 (3 states now have it, CO, OR and WA). Interestingly, the conservative Oklahoman editorial board supports his proposals.
Legislative obstruction is not such a bad thing — when it prevents harassment of immigrants under the cover of “homeland security.”
Yes, it’s early and it’s only one poll. But even in the wake of Jeb Bush’s big media offensive, Jim Saunders of the News Service of Florida reports that “A Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday shows former Gov. Jeb Bush and former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a virtual tie in a hypothetical 2016 presidential race in Florida. The poll gave 44 percent to Clinton and 43 percent to Bush…the poll also shows the Democrat Clinton leading another native son, Republican U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, by a margin of 49 percent to 39 percent in Florida.”
Heady days for Koch brothers’ fav WI Gov. Scott Walker, who now leads in IA, NH and Drudge polls in quest for GOP presidential nomination. But he lags in FL, OH and PA polls.
But Walker’s “boots on the ground” “anywhere and everywhere” interview with Martha Raddatz is likely to bring some blistering heat from opponents in his own party, as well as progressives. Conor Friedersdorf adds at The Atlantic, “the GOP consensus on foreign policy remains sufficiently ill-considered that even thoughtless comments often go unchallenged within the party…This shortcoming may well hand Election 2016 to Democrats.”
Just in time for 2016, here comes a new era of political video ads, custom-tailored for facebook.
Greg Sargent puts the latest GOP noise about repealing Obamacare into the context of the upcoming Supreme Court decision King v. Burwell. “The repeal vote is a reminder that the only consensus GOP position on health reform is to blow up Obamacare and replace it with nothing. That could have important implications for King v. Burwell…today’s repeal vote — symbolic or not — confirms, doing away with Obamacare subsidies for everyone in the country who is receiving them is the actual consensus GOP position.” Could be a very tough sell in 2016.


DCorps: “Middle Class Economics” Succeeds with White Working Class & Unmarried Women

The following article is cross-posted from a DCorps e-blast:
As reported by Thomas Edsall in the New York Times, Democracy Corps conducted dial testing during the 2015 State of the Union address with white swing voters and follow-up online focus groups of two groups critical to the Democrats in 2016 – white working class voters and white unmarried women. These dials suggest that key demographics:

  • Appreciate the President’s empathetic narrative in identifying with the tough times that millions of Americans continue to endure
  • Balk at Obama’s assessment of a recovered, ‘strong’ economy and his confidence in its direction
  • Endorse the President and Democrats’ forward-looking, middle class-focused economic agenda, including bold plans for free community college, closing tax loopholes, investing in innovation and modernizing our nation’s infrastructure, paid sick leave, and affordable childcare

Swing voters respond to the idea that, like the Erler family whom the President cites frequently, this nation faced a monumental struggle, endured tough times, and has clawed its way back. But, they do not accept the idea that the State of the Union is strong – that the nation’s economy is robust and that they are sharing in it. They don’t think middle class economics has worked yet.
Nonetheless, these voters embrace the President’s agenda for middle class economics in the future. In particular, the President’s proposals to take on issues facing working families hit home. This agenda appeals greatly to voters across party lines, resonating especially well among white unmarried women and white working class voters, groups which are among the main strategic targets for Democrats for the next several years and who share a set of priorities for middle class prosperity.
Voters’ main concerns with this agenda regard its potential cost implications and the reality that a gridlocked government makes it unlikely many of these policies will come to fruition. Moving forward with a bold and aggressive agenda that calls for real reforms on waste in government and closing loopholes for special interests that can help middle and working class families turn the page to a new economic prosperity will be crucial in attracting these voters in 2016.
Read the Full Memo Here.


Is Targeting Koch Bros an Effective Strategy for Dems?

The revelation that the Koch Brothers plan to spend at least $889 million on the 2016 elections has reignited the discussion about what progressives can do about it. At National Journal Scott Bland’s “Should Democrats Double Down on Attacking the Koch Brothers?” tackles the question:

No Democratic strategy got more attention in 2014 than the party’s ritualized slamming of the conservative Koch brothers. From Harry Reid’s floor speeches to TV ads broadcast across the country, Democrats bloodied the billionaire brothers and they candidates they funded–yet most of the Koch candidates won anyway.
…Not every Democrat wants to double down on the Kochs. It’s expensive, for one thing, to raise the profiles of businessmen most people have never heard of in order to attack them. “I think the Kochs are a great fundraising foil, but I continue to believe they’re not the best line of attack for Democrats,” said Travis Lowe, a Democratic ad-maker.

No doubt there are plenty of potential Democratic voters who don’t resent those who acquire as much wealth as they can, but who might be troubled to learn about the myriad Koch conduits like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and Americans for Prosperity, which support legislation and candidates who protect polluters, undermine unions, cut needed social programs, oppose the minimum wage and reduce employee benefits, health and safety protection for working people. Educating the public about such Koch brothers projects is a challenge. But not doing so is giving one of the most regressive political institutions in American history a free ride to do their worst, which is pretty bad.
As Jane Mayer wrote in The New Yorker,

The Kochs are longtime libertarians who believe in drastically lower personal and corporate taxes, minimal social services for the needy, and much less oversight of industry – especially environmental regulation. These views dovetail with the brothers’ corporate interests. … Greenpeace issued a report identifying the company as a ‘kingpin of climate science denial.’ The report purported to show that, from 2005 to 2008, the Kochs vastly outspent ExxonMobil in giving money to organizations fighting legislation related to climate change, underwriting a huge network of foundations, think tanks, and political front groups. Indeed, the brothers have funded opposition campaigns against so many Obama Administration policies – from health-care reform to the economic-stimulus program – that, in political circles, their ideological network is known as the “Kochtopus.”

Some have advocated boycotting Koch products. But it is more problematic. The tentacles of Koch Industries include massive petrochemical holdings, refineries, manufacturers, energy, minerals, paper products, fertilizer, ranching, commodities trading and other subsidiaries employing an estimated 70,000 people world-wide. Koch Industries is the second largest privately held company in the U.S. (If Koch Industries were publicly-held, it would have ranked 17 in the Fortune 500).
Georgia-Pacific is probably the most vulnerable Koch Industries company in terms of a possible consumer boycott, since they are the top producer of household paper products. But it takes some research for consumers to find Koch-free alternatives. Many grocery chains carry few other options, so ubiquitous are the company’s paper products. If a consumer wanted to get totally off the Koch industries grid, it would probably require walking to work and using tree leaves for toilet paper. Even a successful boycott of Georgia Pacific would likely have limited influence, since Koch Industries is so broadly diversified.
That’s not to say that other protest tactics, such as picketing their homes or demonstrating against their union-bashing would not help educate the public about their destructive influence on legislation at the federal, state and local levels. Doing nothing to protest against their increasing funding to prevent needed social reforms makes even less sense than overreacting.
Is it possible that targeting the Koch brothers in the 2014 midterm elections failed mostly because it wasn’t sharply focused or done with sufficient repetition? Bland reports that targeting the Koch brothers got impressive results in at least one state:

Paul Tencher, who managed Democratic Sen. Gary Peters’s victorious 2014 campaign in Michigan, says his team’s efforts demonstrate that the strategy is too potent to give up, especially with the Kochs’ political network planning to spend a gargantuan $889 million in 2016. Tencher says their methods are the only way to keep the ever-growing influx of Koch-network money from swinging elections.
…Peters’s campaign in Michigan was one of the few November bright spots for his party, and it came after months of relentless TV ads linking Republican nominee Terri Lynn Land to the Kochs and a trio of environmental and economic issues with Koch-owned companies in the state. According to analysis from Kantar Media/CMAG and The Cook Political Report, 35 percent of Democratic TV ads in Michigan’s 2014 Senate race attacked the Kochs–the highest rate in the country.
When Tencher started as Peters’s campaign manager last winter, Koch-affiliated groups such as Americans for Prosperity had been advertising against Peters for months, and Land was doing better in both public and private polling. So Peters’s campaign shifted resources to opposition research–but on the Kochs, not Land.
…Democratic outside groups picked up on the campaign’s research, which highlighted chemical storage along the Detroit River and major layoffs in northern Michigan, and aired TV ads attacking the Kochs’ motivations for backing Land. And from the spring through the early fall, as Peters pulled away and Land’s unfavorable ratings grew in Democratic polling from 25 percent to the 40s, the Kochs’ name recognition and unfavorable ratings grew in lockstep, too.
“We have to be smarter and more disciplined about shutting off the spigot of outside money,” Tencher said in an interview. “… This isn’t just about bruising up the Koch brothers and raising money. It’s about shutting off that spigot and making their brand incapable of carrying the Republican message
…”The Kochs left in August,” Tencher said. “Whether it was because she became a non-viable candidate or they became a non-viable messenger, one way or another we stopped their money.”…I think other campaigns could and should have bought into this messaging better.”

It appears that targeting the Koch brothers can work, when it is properly focused under the right conditions. If a campaign teams do a good job of educating voters about the Koch brothers’ business practices, environmental record and role in politics, and then persuasively connect them to Republican candidates in a substantial way, it can help elect Democrats.


Political Strategy Notes

From Sean McElwee’s “One Big Reason for Voter Turnout Decline and Income Inequality: Smaller Unions” at The American Prospect: “…As unions have declined, so has working-class political mobilization. Jan Leighley and Jonathan Nagler find that “the decline in union membership since 1964 has affected the aggregate turnout of both low- and middle-income individuals more than the aggregate turnout of high-income individuals.” Using a cross-country comparison across 32 nations, political scientists Patrick Flavin and Benjamin Radcliff find that unions boost voter turnout, not only for union members, but for non-union members as well. Vincent Mahler ran a unique analysis for this piece and finds that union density is strongly correlated with voter turnout for the period of 1960-2012… McElewee also has a lot of good in formation about the political role of unions in preventing rising inequality.”
Stuart Rothernberg’s early take on the 2016 battle for Senate control sees Dems picking up between 3 and 6 seats, with a net of 5 wins needed to secure a majority.
But no one should be too surprised that “Republican Takeover Bumps Women in Senate From Leadership Posts,” as Sheryl Gay Stolberg explains at The New York Times.
It appears that the GOP’s impressive party discipline of recent years is fraying into an eruption of policy disagreements, now that they have majority control of both houses, as Scott Wong and Mike Lillis report at The Hill.
Here we have Brian Resnick’s National Journal post, “Are Men What’s Wrong With Politics?” probing psychological advantages women may have for better negotiation and bipartisanship as elected officials. What deserves more buzz, however, is the simple notion that our political institutions should look more like America, with similar gender representation.
A president who is politically savvy enough to get re-elected and pass the first national health care reform in nearly a half-century could be clueless enough to meddle in Israel’s internal politics? As if.
With NC emerging as a must-win for the Democratic presidential nominee in 2016, Allie Yee’s insightful post, “The growing power of North Carolina’s voters of color” at Facing South should be required reading for Democratic presidential candidates and their staffs.
New post, “Obamacare is costing way less than expected” by Ezra Klein suggests Obamacare may be morphing into a campaign asset for Dems.
It almost had to happen — Rand Paul pandering to the anti-vaxxers. Christie waffling too.