Paul Krugman’s “Challenging the Oligarchy” in the New York Review of Books provides a perceptive review of former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich’s Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few. Of current progressive economists, Krugman and Reich are the most skilled at framing “the dismal science” for time-challenged readers who want a better understanding of economic policy options in the context of today’s political realities. In the concluding section of his favorable review, Krugman explains:

…Like a number of other commentators, Reich argues that there’s a feedback loop between political and market power. Rising wealth at the top buys growing political influence, via campaign contributions, lobbying, and the rewards of the revolving door. Political influence in turn is used to rewrite the rules of the game–antitrust laws, deregulation, changes in contract law, union-busting–in a way that reinforces income concentration. The result is a sort of spiral, a vicious circle of oligarchy. That, Reich suggests, is the story of America over the past generation. And I’m afraid that he’s right. So what can turn it around?
Anyone hoping for a reversal of the spiral of inequality has to answer two questions. First, what policies do you think would do the trick? Second, how would you get the political power to make those policies happen? I don’t think it’s unfair to Robert Reich to say that Saving Capitalism offers only a sketch of an answer to either question.

Krugman adds that Reich “calls for a sort of broad portfolio, or maybe a market basket, of changes aimed mainly at “predistribution”–changing the allocation of market income–rather than redistribution. (In Reich’s view, this is seen as altering the predistribution that takes place under current rules.)” Specific reforms would include “fairly standard liberal ideas like raising the minimum wage, reversing the anti-union bias of labor law and its enforcement, and changing contract law to empower workers to take action against employers and debtors to assert their interests against creditors.”
But Reich also urges reforms to “move corporations back toward what they were a half-century ago: organizations that saw themselves as answering not just to stockholders but to a broader set of “stakeholders,” including workers and customers.” Noting that the New Deal was “remarkably successful at creating a middle-class nation,” Krugman asks,

But how is this supposed to happen politically? Reich professes optimism, citing the growing tendency of politicians in both parties to adopt populist rhetoric. For example, Ted Cruz has criticized the “rich and powerful, those who walk the corridors of power.” But Reich concedes that “the sincerity behind these statements might be questioned.” Indeed. Cruz has proposed large tax cuts that would force large cuts in social spending–and those tax cuts would deliver around 60 percent of their gains to the top one percent of the income distribution. He is definitely not putting his money–or, rather, your money–where his mouth is.

As Krugman concludes, “Still, Reich argues that the insincerity doesn’t matter, because the very fact that people like Cruz feel the need to say such things indicates a sea change in public opinion. And this change in public opinion, he suggests, will eventually lead to the kind of political change that he, justifiably, seeks. We can only hope he’s right. In the meantime, Saving Capitalism is a very good guide to the state we’re in.”
All three Democratic presidential candidates will find much to agree with in Reich’s book and Krugman’s analysis. None of them favor wholesale nationalization of the economy, as the Republicans suggest they do. And though Senator Sanders has awakened broad interest in the ideas of democratic socialism, he too envisions a robust role for the private sector, especially small business entrepreneurs.
As the Republicans double down on government-bashing, increasing tax breaks for the rich and their war to obliterate the labor movement, Democrats have a unique opportunity and a clear field ahead as the party of reason and moderation. Indeed it is increasingly clear that the Democrats are the only American political party capable of negotiating and navigating the way to reduce economic inequality. That’s a pretty good brand for 2016.

At The Minneapolis Star Tribune, Allison Sherry’s article, “Rep. Keith Ellison hones new voter-turnout strategy for Democrats: Democrats around the country have high hopes the new effort will lead to more victories in nonpresidential elections” explores an interesting idea. Sherry quotes Ellison: “As a fifth-term Minneapolis Democrat who routinely wins his elections by more than 65 percent, Ellison is increasingly convinced that the future of Democratic victories is hiding in apartment buildings and low-income urban areas across the country. Trust me, there’s 3 percent in every congressional district in the United States,” Ellison said. “If we had a good turnout strategy across the country, you could really turn things around.” To do this, Ellison has workers fanning out to apartment buildings and low-income communities to reach potential constituencies in more personal ways. His idea is that through more one-on-one contact, Democrats can drive more people to the polls and cement lifetime allegiances to the party.”
Maxwell Tani of Business Insider explains “Here’s how badly Democrats have to screw up to lose the election.” Tani quotes Whit Ayers on the challenge Republicans face: “Un­less you count on the Re­pub­lic­an getting Ron­ald Re­agan-like num­bers among whites, you’re go­ing to have to be some­where in the mid-forties with Hispanics.” Tani also quotes Ruy Teixeira, who notes that Dems will win of they hold an “11-point deficit among white college graduates, a 22-point deficit among white working-class voters, and a 64-point advantage among minority voters”
Matt Viser reports at Boston Globe Politics that “Number of GOP polls jumps 90 percent in four years.” Viser notes, “The number of polls of Republican voters in the first three primary and caucus states — Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina — has skyrocketed nearly 90 percent compared with the 2012 GOP primary, according to a Globe review of polls tracked by the news website Real Clear Politics…The trend toward saturation polling shows little sign of abating, with online polls now cheaper than ever and polling firms and universities competing to satisfy an insatiable media appetite for the latest upticks and downturns, the trends in the minute-by-minute drama of the contest.”
The question is “Would an independent Jim Webb candidacy pull more votes from the Dem nominee or the GOP opponent? Or does it even matter, since Webb has a history of getting very little national traction? It does indicate that Webb was not much of a committed Democrat to begin with and he appears more interested in pursuing his personal ambitions than leading the Democratic party to achieve meaningful reforms.
Albert R. Hunt explains why “Democrats See Chance to Reclaim Senate Majority” at Bloomberg View. Says Hunt: “This time, half of the seats are in states carried by President Barack Obama, and some of the most competitive are in solidly blue states.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders has developed an assertive pitch to win working-class voters away from Trump, including reminding them that Trump says the minimum wage is too high. Both Gallup and Pew Research polls show support for a significant minimum wage hike is over 70 percent.
“Trump is pushing the racial and cultural resentment button a lot harder than he’s pushing the economic button,” argues Heather Digby Parton at Salon.com (and Alternet). “In fact, he’s pushing the resentment button so hard that it’s activated some very serious racists who truly had been pushed to the fringes of the right wing fever swamps…This is not to say that all Trump supporters are white supremacists.” But it does appear that he is courting the racist vote.
A new Democracy Corps poll of LVs found that “72 percent favor a law to provide candidates with “limited public matching funds for small contributions they raise from constituents,” with 39 percent favoring it strongly. Only 21 percent oppose it, and of those, only 7 percent oppose it strongly…Support was strong across the political spectrum, with 76 percent of Democrats, 74 percent of independents, and 66 percent of Republicans favoring such a law.,” reports Jon Schwarz at The Intercept.
Krugman updates The Chart:

Harold Meyerson’s Washington Post column, “The right’s war against the spirit of Christmas” calls out the toxic stew of xenophobia, bigotry, resentment, fear and greed that the GOP is serving up for the holiday season. Meyerson raises interesting questions:

Who’s really waging a war against Christmas in 2015? Secular multiculturalists who, stealthily and nefariously, have somehow rendered Starbucks’s coffee cups a tad less festive? Or the self-proclaimed culture warriors on behalf of traditional values, who demand we leave refugees — even small children, as New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) has made pitilessly clear — at the mercy of the latter-day Herods? Who condemn entire religions? Who fear and loathe strangers?

Put another way, can you even imagine any of the Republican presidential candidates actually quoting Christ’s teachings about love, forgiveness, charity and peace? Meyerson continues,

It’s been a banner year for fear and loathing, xenophobia and racism. What has made the year genuinely ominous is the emergence of fictions presented (often, but hardly exclusively, by Donald Trump) as facts that legitimize a sense of both grievance and hatred: New Jersey Muslims celebrating 9/11; the quarter-million Syrians that the Obama administration is planning to bring in; a wave of black-on-white homicide. Concoctions all, but credible enough to the sizable share of Republicans who also believe the president is a Kenyan Muslim. Fed by talk radio, Fox News and paranoid websites, millions of our compatriots dwell in a parallel universe of alternative realities. My colleague Dana Milbank has noted that the fashion among conservatives is to dismiss hard facts that clash with their alternative realities as “politically correct.” That’s Republicanese for “empirically correct” — verifiable by research, but at odds with the stories they’ve created to justify their rage.
Such right-wing fictions have always hovered on the fringes of the body politic, but what has enabled them to go more mainstream is the sense of displacement — from their previous position as a majority race, a thriving class, a dominant religion — that is now widespread among the white working class Trumpites and the evangelical Christians flocking to Ted Cruz’s banner. The mission of right-wing media and pols has been to exaggerate some of that displacement (the threat to white America), play down other parts of it (the evisceration of blue-collar living standards by corporate America) and lay the blame for it all on minorities, foreigners, liberals, feminists, gays — you know the list.

There’s nothing new about politicians pandering to the worst instincts and most irrational fears of voters. But in 2015 Republicans hit a new low, as Meyerson explains, “…Enmities, and most certainly not love, have become the core of the right’s appeal and message this year…They may well sweep Trump or Cruz to the Republican nomination; they have already infused the entire party with bigoted perspectives that will be hard to disclaim.”
It’s a sad turn for a political party that once tempered its conservatism with appeals to “bind up the nation’s wounds,” instead of inflaming them with expressions of contempt and exclusion. As Meyerson concludes, “They are most surely at odds with the spirit of Christmas. Walls on the border, religious tests for admission, despising the poor — good thing Joseph and Mary didn’t have to encounter our modern-day defenders of the right as they scrambled from one country to another, desperate to save their son’s life.”
It would be good if Democratic candidates and office-holders everywhere craft their holiday and New Years messages in stark contrast to the Republicans sour spirit by presenting a more healing and hopeful vision of shared prosperity, peace, brotherhood and sisterhood. These are the values that can lift up and unify all Americans of good will, and this is the brand that can inspire the best in voters and move America forward.

At The New Republic Brian Beutler notes that the Democratic debate revealed that all three of the Dem candidates talked about Trump as if he was the likely nominee. On the other hand, adds Beutler, the notion that Trump is “more reactionary than other candidates in the Republican primary” won’t stand up to intellectual scrutiny.
With its impressive civility, Saturday’s Democratic presidential campaign debate provided a stark counterpoint to any of the GOP debates thus far. Sanders apologized for his campaign’s abuse of database security and Clinton responded “I very much appreciate that comment, Bernie…It really is important that we go forward on this.” Imagine how such a conflict might have played out between Trump and Bush.
Bush on September 10: “You can’t insult your way to the White House.” Bush on December 15: “Donald, you’re not going to be able to insult your way to the presidency.” Bush on December 19: “Just one other thing — I gotta get this off my chest — Donald Trump is a jerk.”
At The Upshot Nate Cohn explains “How Donald Trump Could Win, and Why He Probably Won’t.” Basically, argues Cohn, Trump’s GOP opposition is weak and scattered, but polls indicate that he has “a high floor and a low ceiling,” a bit like Buchanan in 1996.
Perhaps the most telling indication that the budget omnibus agreement reflects well-played Democratic strategy is that the wing-nut press is livid about it, as ‘exhibit a‘ makes clear.
The GOP candidates are tripping over each other, exaggerating their respective working-class narratives as if significant numbers of voters cared all that much. They ignore examples such as FDR and JFK who had strong support from white working-class voters, even though they were from extremely wealthy families. Dems would be wise to avoid such ploys. Most voters, working-class and otherwise, know it’s more about who you are than what you were. How candidates communicate to the working-class may be more relevant. In 2004 Bush II and Kerry both came from big money. But Bush II had a more convincing “regular guy” persona, even though his economic policies were tailored by big bankers and oil barons to screw working people, while Kerry advocated progressive economic reforms.
Larry J. Sabato, Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley of Sabato’s Crystal Ball weigh “10 Factors That Will Determine the Next President.” Lots of pertinent insights here, including this nugget: “Without a major independent ticket and assuming a close election, there’s a high probability that about 40 states can effectively be called by Labor Day. The campaigning will thus concentrate on the closest swing states: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, and Virginia. Republicans will make some effort yet again to win over Pennsylvania and Wisconsin (and possibly a few others) while Democrats will try to replicate Obama’s 2008 win in North Carolina. Maybe the VP nominees will add a state or two to the competitive category.”
At Daily Kos Dave Jarman targets “The most vulnerable House members in 2016, in two charts.”
Stuart Rothenberg writes at Rothenblog that “While 81 percent of Democrats responded that they had a positive view of their own party in the late October 2015 survey, only 65 percent of Republicans had a positive view of their party. And while only 5 percent of Democrats had a negative view of the Democratic Party, a considerable three times that of Republicans, 15 percent, had a negative view of the GOP…And among independents, whom you probably assumed were the decisive group? More independents did have a more positive view of the Democratic Party than the GOP (24 percent to 15 percent), but neither number was very good. And just as important, independents had almost identical negative views of the two parties, with 38 percent having a negative view of the Democratic Party and 40 percent having a negative view of the GOP…Just as I reported in that March 2014 column, the Republican brand is now dramatically worse than the Democratic brand because Republicans have a much more negative view of their party than Democrats have of theirs.”

Miles Mogulescu’s “Message to Bernie: Transform Your Campaign Into a Permanent Movement or Fail” suggests how Sen Sanders can make an enduring contribution to progressive long-term strategy, whether he wins the presidency or not. Mogulescu begins with a challenge made by Sanders himself:

What this campaign is about is not just electing a president, it is transforming America. To do that we need millions of people–people who have given up on the political process, people who are demoralized, people who don’t believe that government listens to them. We need to bring those people together to stand up loudly and clearly and to say ‘Enough is enough.’ This country belongs to all of us, not just wealthy campaign donors.

Mogulescu responds:

..I suggest you utilize your campaign organization to create a permanent national organization of the democratic/socialist/social democratic left, even as you campaign for the Presidency.
If you win your unlikely campaign for the presidency, such an organization will be necessary to force our politicians to enact at least some of the change that you advocate. If Hillary gets the Democratic nomination and wins the presidency, such an organization will be necessary to pressure her against her natural inclination to move to the corporate center. And if a Republican should win the presidency, it may be necessary to literally put its bodies on the line to block the dismantling of the social safety net and the initiation of new foreign wars.
Yes, I realize that running a Presidential campaign is an immense effort which leaves little time or energy for anything else. Building a permanent mass political organization parallel to a national electoral campaign is something that’s never been done before, at least in recent times. (The Populist Party in the late 19th Century and the Socialist Party under Eugene Debs and then Norman Thomas may be historical exceptions, and though neither gained national political power, they were influential in bringing the changes of the progressive era and the New Deal.)

Mogulescu notes that President Obama “effectively dismantled the movement” his campaign might have become after he became President. Apparently he had a different job to do. As a consequence, Organizing for America morphed “into an email list run by his supporters” the “sole aim” of which was “to back his cautious policies, not push him and Congress to act more forcefully.” Further, adds Mogulescu,

Obama’s failures to support an independent mass movement that could push him and Congress to go farther and faster has resulted in the disillusionment of millions who worked in his campaign and, in many cases, low voter turnout from the “Obama Coalition” of young people, minorities, women, and progressives, which disillusionment helped right-wing Republicans gain control of Congress and many states, which in turn has strengthened Washington gridlock and led to further disillusionment.

That’s a lot of blame for a President who faced the unprecedented challenges Obama had to address when he took office, including economic catastrophe, war and the most obstructionist opposition in U.S. history. Thats not to deny the urgent need for a progressive mass movement and broad-based coalition, nor that maybe Obama could have appointed someone to make OFA a more effective force.
If Sanders does get elected president, however, he will certainly inherit a better situation than did Obama, thanks to Obama’s leadership. He may have a lot more wiggle room to create the progressive mass movement Mogulescu describes. If Sanders loses, however, Mogulescu argues that “your campaign will likely be little more than a blip on the historical map like Howard Dean’s or Gary Hart’s insurgent campaigns against the Democratic establishment unless you leave behind an organized movement.” Mogulescu adds,

So Bernie, here’s my proposal: Even as you campaign for president, set up a parallel organization as the precursor to a permanent national democratic/socialist/social democratic organization that would engage in both electoral and activist politics.
Use some of your millions in small dollar donations to hire organizers in most states and many cities and towns, and/or use your fundraising list to raise separate contributions to fund the founding of a new, permanent progressive organization. Build local, city and state chapters from activists in your campaign and others. Sign up members and solicit more contributions online. Hold a national organizing convention this summer to parallel the presidential nominating conventions.

Getting down to specifics, Mogulescu has some good ideas:

…A big focus would be a grassroots campaign to drive voter turnout…If you’re the nominee, much of the work would be aimed at winning the Presidential election, as well as supporting progressive candidates nationally and locally, all while developing a program to push for if you’re elected. If Hillary is the nominee, the organization would critically back her and mobilize your base to go to the polls to prevent a takeover by reactionary Republicans. (You’re old enough to remember that in 1964, when LBJ ran against Goldwater, much of the civil rights and anti-war movement critically backed LBJ under the slogan “Part of the Way With LBJ”, mirroring LBJ’s own campaign slogan of “All the Way With LBJ”. How about “Partly Ready for Hillary”?)
After the November election, the organization would engage in both electoral and activist politics. It would train, run or back sympathetic candidates in primaries and general elections at all levels of government…it would work to move the Democratic Party to the left, even running against centrist Democrats in appropriate primaries, much as the Tea Party has moved the Republicans to the right…
It would also engage in activist politics, demonstrations, and where appropriate, even non-violent civil disobedience. It would have its own publications…It would join alliances with other sympathetic organizations and movements including the new civil rights movement, the environmental movement, and labor unions. It would hold local, state, and national conferences.

It’s a challenge that fits with Sen. Sanders progressive left agenda better than President Obama’s progressive centrist focus in the early years of his presidency. As Mogulescu concludes, “Bernie, you have an historical opportunity to use your Presidential campaign — win or lose — to help birth the organized political movement you call for. Please don’t blow the chance.”

In must-read of the day for political junkies, Jim Rutenberg reports on “The New Attack on Hispanic Voting Rights” at The New York Times: “…Even now, Hispanic citizens are registering and voting at levels that are not much better than those of blacks near the end of Jim Crow — a 38.8 percent turnout in Texas in 2012, according to the Census Bureau, as opposed to more than 60 percent for both blacks and ”Anglos,” the widely used informal term for non-Hispanic whites…”
You won’t be surprised by a new WaPo/ABC News poll indicating that Americans fear “lone wolf” terrorist attacks. But I’m a little surprised that the same poll found that “regarding a specific national ban on assault weapons, 53% of Americans oppose such a policy, up from 42% in a Post/ABC poll in 2013, and the highest in Post/ABC polling since 1994.,” as David Wright reports at CNN.
At the Northern Kentucky Tribune, Col Owens, chair of the Kenton County Democratic party, has an interesting post-mortem on the recent election in that state, in which Democratic candidate for governor Jack Conway was badly beaten. Owens acknowledges the merit in some of the reasons given for Conway’s defeat, including “weak candidate, not good at schmoozing…wrong strategy, too much emphasis on fundraising, not enough on voter contact…too little of a ground game, did not reach out to our base or get out the vote,” etc.. But Owens also provides some suggestions to Dems for getting a better youth turnout in the future: “…We must look to where new converts can be won: young people. Many/most young people believe most of what we believe. But they do not affiliate, and many do not vote…They want education opportunities without huge debt…They want health care – polls show they favor keeping the Affordable Care Act…They want clean air to breathe, and safe water for drinking and for playing in…They want freedom from discrimination, intolerance and hatred…Most accept gay marriage, and believe abortion is a personal matter…They want effective transportation and communication – they want things to work…They want to be able to retire without being impoverished…They want the U.S. to be strong and to lead, but not to be engaged in endless war…When I review this list, what seems clear to me that most of these folks should be Democrats.”
More evidence that a Trump independent candidacy would doom Republicans next year.
But why should he go all indy, when trends are going his way. As conservative political analyst and InsiderAdvantage CEO Matt Towery recently noted, “In my years of polling these presidential races for the GOP nomination I have never seen one candidate so dominate the contest for so many months in a row. That said, Mr. Trump could face his first stumbling block in Iowa. The caucus there is known for its unusual and often out-of-step results. That said, Trump’s lead in states in the Southeast is powerful and appears to be gaining speed, based on other polls OpinionSavvy conducted this week in other neighboring states…”
Why Trump’s “chaos campaign” (a former Secret Service agent agrees with Jeb Bush) is starting to look more like the Jerry Springer Show.
Philip Bump explains at The Fix, however, why “When it comes to the polls, cellphones are not Donald Trump’s friend.” — a good read before you bet the ranch on Trump winning it all.
Al Tuchfarber, Emeritus Professor of Political Science at the University of Cincinnati and founder of the Ohio Poll, opines at Crystal Ball that “Trump has alienated many other Republican candidates and their followers. As second and third tier Republican candidates drop out after poor performances in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, it is unlikely that Trump will pick up many of their voters. Rather, those votes will mostly go to other top tier Republicans, both outsiders (Ted Cruz) and insiders (Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush)…Trump’s “ceiling” appears to be hovering at 25% to 30%. This is too low to do well in the winner-take-all Republican contests starting on March 15 in states like Florida and Ohio. There are several other winner-take-all contests throughout the rest of the primary season, requiring majorities or big pluralities to win significant numbers of delegates…It is nearly impossible to say now who will get the Republican nomination, but it is unlikely to be Trump…”
Bump also has a story that will keep the GOP’s climate change-denying spin-doctors busy: “For 2015 not to be the hottest year on record, December will have to be impossibly cold; It’s Not Going to Happen.”

From Laura Meckler’s Wll St. Journal article, “How Democrats Could Win the White House Again in 2016-Report“:

To win the presidency in 2016, Democrats must climb a steep hill: persuade Americans to keep them in power for a third straight term at a time of voter frustration at the status, heightened fear of terrorism and low approval ratings for outgoing President Barack Obama.
But they have a powerful force in their favor: demographics, and the fact that the party is strongest with groups of voters that are on the ascent-racial minorities, young people, college-educated professionals and secular voters.
A new report by demographics expert Ruy Teixeira and colleagues at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, does the math and comes up with significant advantages for Democrats heading into 2016, and also some potential pitfalls.
Based on demographic shifts alone, the report finds that if the 2016 Democratic nominee performs as well as Mr. Obama did in 2012 with various voter groups, she (or he) would win by six percentage points–up from Mr. Obama’s four-point win last time.

Meckler quotes the report’s authors, who credit the Democratic Party for keeping up with the demographic transformation, “enabling the party to grow markedly at the national level.” However, add the authors, “If Democrats are to retain the presidency in 2016, they will need to successfully transfer the enthusiasm and support of the Obama coalition to a new candidate and overcome the wide belief that the party had its shot for eight years and that it is now time for a change.”
That’s an enormous challenge, which Democrats must face, regardless of how crazy things get in the Republican primary season. Meckler notes that the white voter percentage of the electorate is projected to decline to 72 percent by November of next year (down from 74 percent in 2012), and the “percentage of white working class voters–who are particularly supportive of the GOP–is falling even faster.” Meckler cautions, however,

Huge numbers of black and Hispanic voters turned out to vote in 2008 and 2012, and 81% of them voted for Mr. Obama, the nation’s first black president. Most observers think that Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, or any other nominee, would face a challenge replicating those high turnout levels and such strong levels of support. The report notes that in 2000, Vice President Al Gore won 77% of the minority vote, and in 2004, Democrat John Kerry took just 74%. Both lost (though Mr. Gore won the popular vote).

But Dems do have some wiggle room, notes Meckler, with the rapid demographic transformation, plus a possible uptick in support from white women if Clinton wins the Democratic presidential nomination. If Sanders is nominated, he could also increase pro-Democratic turnout by certain segments of the electorate.
The report identified Ohio and Wisconsin as potential problem areas for Democrats. But Meckler quotes Teixeira’s colleague William Frey as putting Nevada, which has experienced rapid growth in Latino voters, is now likely a “safe” state for Dems.

Politico’s Nick Gass reports on an interesting new poll which suggests substantial party unity among Democratic registered voters:

According to the results of the latest national Monmouth University poll out Wednesday, 59 percent of those backing Sanders for the nomination said they would be enthusiastic or satisfied with Clinton as their party’s standard bearer next November. Overall, 80 percent of Democratic voters would be fine with Clinton as their nominee, while 11 percent said they would be dissatisfied and 5 percent said they would be upset.

Gass adds that Clinton still has a formidable lead over Sen. Sanders, 59 percent to 26 percent, while former MD Gov. Martin O’Malley increased his share to 4 percent, with 8 percent undecided. The poll had a small sample (374 self i.d. Demi/Independents), so all conclusions drawn from it should be considered in light of the 5.1 m.o.e.
Debates between Clinton, Sanders and O’Malley have thus far been remarkably free of the insults and put-downs which have characterized the G.O.P.’s demolition derby. While supporters of all three candidates still argue passionately for their respective candidates, internecine acrimony has remained extraordinarily low-key, compared to previous Democratic primary seasons.
U.S. Democrats are still a long way from the level of solidarity recently demonstrated by the French left, which pulled some Socialist candidates out of recent regional elections in order to cross lines and defeat nativist leader Marine Le Pen and the Front National. But perhaps we can hope that the stirrings of greater Democratic solidarity have begun, even if it is based on the shared realization that the Republicans are flirting with equally-dangerous forms of nativist bigotry and repression.

It looks like strategic voting by the French left has dashed Front National leader Marine Le Pen’s hopes for the presidency, report AP’s Elaine Ganley and Angelina Charlton.
Waleed Shahid, political director of Pennsylvania Working Families Party, has a perceptive post on “Donald Trump and the Disaffected, White, Working Class Voter” at Colorlines. Shahid observes, “Today the political poles are again moving farther and farther apart. An angry base of White, working and middle class voters emboldened by the Tea Party movement, Fox News and Trump are pulling Republicans in the direction of xenophobia and racism which Millennial movements for racial and economic justice and immigrant and LGBTQ rights are pushing Democrats toward a more inclusive society. Just like before the Civil War, these differences concern central, competing ideas about the heart of the United States. They explain why common sense reforms on gun violence, immigration, welfare, policing and finance have virtually no chance in passing in our broken system.”
Apparently the “back room deal” trial balloon of the GOP establishment isn’t playing so well.
Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball sketches “The Down-Ballot Outlook as 2016 Approaches,” noting that “The upcoming battle for the Senate depends to a large extent on the presidential race; Democrats should gain House seats but not truly threaten the GOP’s big lower chamber majority; and Republicans are positioned to add to their already-substantial majority of governorships. That’s the early line on next year’s down-ballot contests…”
At Demos Policy Shop Sean McElwee reports on a new study “by political scientists Stephen Ansolabehere and Brian Schaffner, the most comprehensive examination of voters and nonvoters that has ever been performed,” reveals serious problems regarding voter turnout and the data behind it, including: “…Very few Americans vote regularly, in fact, only 25% of Americans voted in all four elections. A whopping 37% voted in none of the elections. The other 39% of the population participated with varying frequency: 13% voted in only one election (generally Presidential), 12% in two, and 14% voted in three (most missed a single midterm)…Ansolabehere and Schaffner find that a stunning 63% of those who did not actually vote in 2010 reported that they did vote on CCES.”
“In 2008 only 8.1 percent of voters reported voting for a different party than in 2004. In 2012, it hit an all-time low, with only 5.2 percent of Americans voting for a different major-party nominee,” reports Peter Grier in his Monitor cover story, “Why swing voters are vanishing from US politics.” Grier adds, “Meanwhile, the percentage of “standpatters” – people who vote for the same party over a series of consecutive elections – has risen correspondingly and is now approaching 60 percent of Americans of voting age. (Nonvoters and periodic voters account for the rest.).”
GOP voter suppressers on a roll in Michigan.
WaPo columnist E. J. Dionne, Jr. explains why “Trump should be no match for the moderate majority.” Dione says “We have heard the words “Trump leads in the polls” for so long, you’d think he had taken the entire country by storm. In fact, Trump is not broadly popular. He leads only in a minority subset of the population — depending on the survey, projected Republican primary voters or Republicans combined with Republican-leaning independents. Neither of these groups represents a majority of Americans…But it also matters that Republican primary voters constituted only 38 percent of those interviewed by the Times/CBS pollsters. If you take 35 percent of 38 percent, you are talking about 13 percent of Americans. This is almost exactly the same percentage that George Wallace, who ran a racist-populist third-party presidential campaign, won in 1968 against Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey….Was the Wallace campaign important? Yes. Did Wallace speak for anywhere close to a majority of Americans? No. The same is true of Trump.”
National Journal’s Jake Flanagin explains why “Ted Cruz Is More Dangerous Than Donald Trump”: Flanagin notes, “The thing is, Cruz isn’t merely a toned-down ver­sion of Trump. He’s just as con­ser­vat­ive, just as volat­ile, though prob­ably a little less er­rat­ic. And this makes him all the more dan­ger­ous, from a pro­gress­ive point of view…Es­sen­tially, he matches Trump tit-for-tat on most every con­ser­vat­ive idea­lo­gic­al mark­er. But un­like Trump, Cruz is ut­terly and com­pletely de­voted to a pur­ist, con­ser­vat­ive cause. And his abil­ity to mask zealotry with polit­ic­al rhet­or­ic renders him an ex­po­nen­tially more po­tent can­did­ate.”

So which measures to reduce income inequality attract the most support? Suzy Khimm reports at The New Republic: “A recent study conducted by economists from Princeton, Harvard, and University of California, Berkeley professor Emmanuel Saez–one of the most prominent researchers on inequality–put the political challenges of the issue in sharper relief. Based on a survey of 10,000 Americans, the study found that those who received more information about inequality were more likely to believe that economic disparity was a problem. At the same time, “they show no more appetite for many government interventions to reduce inequality”–such as an expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit and food stamps–“with the notable exceptions of increasing the estate tax and the minimum wage…The study hypothesizes that Americans are more comfortable with government solutions when they’re narrowly targeted or otherwise limit government involvement. That suggests that any kind of broad government intervention will be a hard sell to the broader public, even if the public believes the scales are unfairly tipped because of government policies.”
At The Monkey Cage Kyle Dropp’s “This new tool puts 50,000 poll questions and 100 demographics at your fingertips” reports on an early Xmas present for political opinion wonks: “This year, we at Morning Consult have addressed that problem by building out a platform called Morning Consult Intelligence. This free platform allows anyone to search and analyze over 50,000 current and historical survey questions from top polling organizations.”
Bill Cotterell, correspondent for the Tallahassee Democrat has an insightful update on Democratic electoral prospects in Florida. Among Cotterell’s observations: “Democrats figure to pick up two, maybe three, seats in the Florida congressional delegation under the redistricting plan approved last month by the state Supreme Court…When a state in which Democrats outnumber Republicans in registration has 17 Republican and 10 Democratic members of the U.S. House, that’s no accident. Not coincidentally, Republicans are the controlling party of both chambers of the Legislature – the same people who fought the “Fair Districts” amendments all the way…All things being equal – which they’re not – Democrats would probably deserve a 14-13 majority in the state’s congressional delegation and Florida’s two U.S. Senate seats would be equally divided – which they are – by the parties.”
As for the sleazier tactics Republicans use to suppress pro-Democratic votes in the Sunshine State, check out Spencer Woodman’s excellent post at The Intercept, “Thanks to Republicans, Nearly a Quarter of Florida’s Black Citizens Can’t Vote.” Woodman explains, “No other state has a larger number of disenfranchised citizens than Florida, where more than 1.5 million people have lost the right to cast a ballot on Election Day, according to the Sentencing Project, a nonprofit prison reform group. Nationwide, nearly 6 million Americans are barred from voting due to felony convictions. Although most states restrict the voting rights of imprisoned felons, Iowa currently is the only one that joins Florida in imposing a lifelong disenfranchisement on ex-felons.”
Tony Monkovic reviews the pros, cons and realities of strategic voting at The Upshot, and notes “Research shows that the rate of so-called party-crasher voting in primaries is generally low. Voters in open primaries, in which you can vote in the primary of either party, are more likely to pick a candidate they like. He notes one failed example: “…Radio host Rush Limbaugh’s “Operation Chaos” to help Hillary Clinton defeat Barack Obama did not prevent an Obama presidency.”
Hard to wrap your head around it now, but there was a time when the GOP hoped to benefit from the Muslim vote in the U.S. David A. Graham has the story at The Atlantic.
A new AP/GFK poll indicates Trump’s xenophobic take on immigration is shared by too many, even though the poll was conducted before his latest call for a ban on Muslim immigration to the U.S.: “…54 percent of Americans, including about three-quarters of Republicans, about half of independents and over a third of Democrats, said the United States takes in too many immigrants from the Middle East…By contrast, 46 percent of Americans, including 6 in 10 Republicans, slightly under half of independents and 3 in 10 Democrats, said the U.S. takes too many immigrants from Latin America…Just 28 percent of Americans said the same of immigrants from Europe, with little variation by party identification.”
If Trump wins the GOP nomination, what would his Republican rivals do? The New York Times editorial board offers this clue: “After his remarks on Muslims, how many of Mr. Trump’s rivals have said they would reject his candidacy if he won the nomination? As of Wednesday, none.”
You probably can guess who says “I. Will. Never. Leave. This. Race.”