Following what HuffPo’s political commentaors Michael McAuliffe and Christine Conetta call “The GOP’s Epic Month Of Dysfunction,” Michael Tomasky puts the Republicans’ current situation in perspective with his Daily Beast post “The GOP: Still the Party of Stupid,” which calls the current GOP pack of presidential wannabes “an astonishingly weak field.” Tomasky notes the GOP field’s “hostility to actual ideas that might stand a chance of addressing the country’s actual problems,” and adds, “The Democratic Party has its problems, but at least Democrats are talking about middle-class wage stagnation, which is the country’s core economic quandary.”
“If Jeb Bush wants to be a different kind of Republican, he should end GOP war on voting,” writes Paul Waldman at The Plum Line. Walkman explained, “And while Jeb will happily tout his record on things like charter schools as helping African-Americans, one topic he didn’t raise [when he recently spoke at the Urban League] was voting rights. That may be because on that subject, his hands are as dirty as anyone’s…When he was governor of Florida, Bush’s administration ordered a purge of the voter rolls that disenfranchised thousands of African-Americans, in a happy coincidence that made it possible for his brother to become president. The private corporation they hired to eliminate felons from the rolls did so by chucking off people who had a names similar to those of felons; people who had voted all their lives showed up on election day to be told that they couldn’t vote….At a moment when his party is fighting with all its might to limit the number of African-Americans who make it to the polls, it’s going to be awfully hard to make a case that the GOP has their interests at heart.”
NYT’s Jonathan Martin presents an interesting argument that Jeb Bush benefits from Trump’s campaign because Bush wasn’t going to get those voters anyway, and Trump draws support away from Scott Walker. “Mr. Trump’s bombastic ways have simultaneously made it all but impossible for those vying to be the alternative to Mr. Bush to emerge, and easier for Mr. Bush, the former Florida governor, to position himself as the serious and thoughtful alternative to a candidate who has upended the early nominating process.” Bush can’t have Trump as his running mate, unless he wants to run alongside a loose canon. So how would he keep Trump from running a third party campaign? Cabinet post?
John Sides interviews David Shor at The Monkey Cage on the topic, “Do early campaign polls tell us anything? Let’s ask a campaign data guru.” Much of their discussion is about the utility of early polls to political scientists (they agree that early polls don’t help much with outcome predictions). But I think they missed an important benefit of early polls, which is they help candidates to better hone their messaging.
Marian Cogan’s “Everyone Is Already Freaking Out Over the 2016 Election Polls” at New York Magazine has more to say about the misuse of early polling.
At The Upshot, Lynn Vavreck mulls over “2016 Endorsements: How and Why They Matter,” and shows that there is a relationship between a presidential candidate’s success and his/her endorsements. It’s just not quite so clear that it’s a causal relationship.
In his post at AlJazeera America, “Most Americans don’t vote in elections. Here’s why,” Demos research associate Sean McElwee contends that “The rise of the donor class and the influx of corporate cash have caused many voters to lose faith in politics.”
But many want to vote, but are still being denied their voting rights by Republican-driven suppressive state legislation and court rulings. Jim Rutenberg’s excellent “A Dream Undone” in the New York Times Magazine takes a thorough look “inside the 50-year campaign to roll back the Voting Rights Act of 1965.”
For Kasich’s campaign, there’s good news and bad news.

It was fifty years ago today (July 30, 1965) that President Lyndon B. Johnson signed Medicare into law. Pictured above with LBJ are: fellow Democrats former President Harry S. Truman; Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey; First Lady Lady Bird Johnson; former First Lady Mrs. Bess Truman and other Democrats: “At the bill-signing ceremony President Johnson enrolled President Truman as the first Medicare beneficiary and presented him with the first Medicare card.”
From a DCCC e-blast: “Before Medicare was signed into law 50 years ago, fewer than 50% of seniors had insurance; 35% of seniors lived in poverty; Life expectancy was 8 years less for men and 5 less for women. Now, 5 decades later, 54 million people are enrolled in Medicare! It’s helped millions of older and disabled Americans across the country access quality health care. It’s truly been life-saving! And as Republicans try to tear Medicare to pieces, President Obama has fought to protect it for decades to come. Thanks to his Affordable Care Act, we’ve extended the life of the Medicare trust fund by 13 years.” More Medicare stats here.
Jonathan Cohn notes at HuffPo that “In the years leading up to Medicare’s creation, conservatives fought it bitterly, with Ronald Reagan famously warning it would create some kind of socialist apocalypse: “We are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it once was like in America when men were free.” Here’s an audio clip of the sainted Reagan dissing Medicare:
Yet, back then Medicare was passed with significant bipartisan support — the House passed the bill 313-115 on April 8, 1965. The Senate passed another version 68-21 on July 9. All of today’s Republican presidential candidates want to eradicate, eviscerate or weaken the program. Jeb Bush recently said the U.S. needs to “phase out” Medicare. Send. Rand Paul and Ted Cruz recently voted against a measure to protect Medicare benefits from a “voucher” measure.
Economically, Medicare has proved to be a huge bargain for taxpayers. As NYT columnist/Nobel laureate Paul Krugman notes, “It’s true that for most of Medicare’s history its spending has grown faster than the economy as a whole — but this is true of health spending in general. In fact, Medicare costs per beneficiary have consistently grown more slowly than private insurance premiums, suggesting that Medicare is, if anything, better than private insurers at cost control. Furthermore, other wealthy countries with government-provided health insurance spend much less than we do, again suggesting that Medicare-type programs can indeed control costs..Medicare spending keeps coming in ever further below expectations, to an extent that has revolutionized our views about the sustainability of the program and of government spending as a whole.”
A major ‘side benefit’ of the program: Medicare Helped To Desegregate Hospitals.
Medicare is enormously popular. As Kenneth T. Walsh reports at U.S. News: “…The basic program of Medicare now covers an estimated 55 million people, and three-quarters of Americans consider Medicare “very important,” according to a poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Seventy percent say it should remain as it is. So politicians who propose major changes do so at their peril.”
Robert Pear’s New York Times article commemorating Medicare’s 50th anniversary concludes with this paragraph: “In a comment echoed by other Medicare beneficiaries, Judith M. Anderson, 69, of Chicago said: “After a lifetime of an utterly boring personal health care history, I was diagnosed with cancer in 2013. Without Medicare, I would be bankrupt and probably dead by now. I had three surgeries and chemotherapy and paid less than $1,000 out of pocket. I love Medicare.”

From “Latino turnout in congressional elections is low and falling” by Matthew Yglesias at Vox: “Overall turnout in 2014 was the lowest in a generation. Black turnout actually increased slightly over this period, but white turnout has fallen and Latino turnout has fallen a lot even as the Latino share of the population rose considerably…And this, to be clear, is turnout among eligible voters — i.e., US citizens over the age of 18. The overall Latino population in the United States is disproportionately likely to be too young to vote, so Hispanics are even more underweighted in actual congressional politics.”
At Daily Koz Leslie Salzillo flags a study by the CDC’s Violence Policy Center ranking the 50 states according to state firearm deaths in 2011. Guess which political party controls all of the top ten. As for the bottom ten states, where Americans are safest from firearm deaths, eight are solid blue states, with one (IA) purplish and one red (WI).
Washington Post syndicated columnist E. J. Dionne, Jr. explains why “Americans are polarized but ambivalent.” Dionne notes “…the Pew Research Center released findings that should alarm Republicans. Its survey found that only 32 percent of Americans had a favorable view of the Republican Party — down nine points since January — while 60 percent had an unfavorable view. For Democrats, the numbers were 48 percent favorable (up two points) and 47 percent unfavorable.” Dionne cites TDS and adds, “One key finding, from pollster Stan Greenberg: Such voters are “open to an expansive Democratic economic agenda” but “are only ready to listen when they think that Democrats understand their deeply held belief that politics has been corrupted and government has failed.” This calls for not only “populist measures to reduce the control of big money and corruption” but also, as Mark Schmitt of the New America Foundation argued, “high-profile efforts to show that government can be innovative, accessible and responsive.”
Zogby, NBC/Marist, Economist/YouGov and CNN/ORC polls show Trump still leads in GOP race.
Not to be outdone in awful taste by Trump, Huck tries a little grotesque bomb-throwing of his own, and draws this response: “Cavalier analogies to the Holocaust are unacceptable,” said Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee. “Mike Huckabee must apologize to the Jewish community and to the American people for this grossly irresponsible statement.”
Dartunorro Clark reports on a new app at the Albany Times Union, via Government Technology: “Electorate literally puts information on elected officials into the palm of your hands,” Krans said. “The biggest impact comes when we marry easily accessible voting information with the power of existing social networks…[It] allows registered voters…to find out information on local, state and federal elected representatives. Additionally, it allows users to verify and link their voting record with their Facebook account to display their full voting record and history, see upcoming elections and endorse candidates and also see who their Facebook friends have endorsed.”
Laura Lorek of siliconhillsnews.com reports more “High Tech and Low Tech Solutions to Low Voter Turnout,” and notes “To encourage people to be more civically engaged and to vote is one of the latest challenges the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation took on. On Wednesday morning, the foundation announced the winners of its Knight News Challenge on Elections. The foundation received more than 1,000 submissions and awarded $3.2 million to 22 winners. “Ten of the winners will receive investments ranging from $200,000 to $525,000 each, while 12 early stage ideas will receive $35,000 each through the Knight Prototype Fund,” according to the Knight Foundation.” Loren adds, “The largest grant for $525,000 went to a project titled “Inside the 990 Treasure Trove” by the Center for Responsive Politics and Guidestar. The project seeks to better inform the public about who is funding campaigns through a partnership with Guidestar to reveal the sources of so-called “dark money.”
The Berkeley News reports on a new study “Does the American Dream Matter for Members of Congress? Social-Class Backgrounds and Roll-Call Votes,” from the Political Research Quarterly. Among the findings: “Having a working-class background tends to make members of Congress (especially Democrats) more liberal,” explained Grumbach. “There are other factors that make legislators more liberal, too, such as coming from a district with liberal voters, or being nonwhite or female — but coming from a working-class background is especially impactful.”…Grumbach observed that “almost all members of Congress are upper-class and held elite occupations before being elected to seats in Washington, D.C…Few Republicans with working-class experiences get elected to public office, and upper-class Republicans in Congress do not back government support programs for the working class as often as Democrats even if they did grow up in families of modest financial circumstances.”
Betsy Woodruff’s “The Walker Slayers Dish: How They Beat Him” may come in handy.

“…You find broad agreement across almost every part of the American electorate that the system is essentially rigged, benefiting the rich and leaving everyone else behind. The share of Democrats who agree with that idea, 82 percent, is, not surprisingly, far higher than the share of Republicans, 51 percent, who said the same. But still, we are talking majorities in both parties here. That suggests that in a summer where the headlines have all but forced every presidential candidate to weigh in on all manner of social issues, for Democrats, in particular, the best way to engage and then animate a large portion of voters may be a pivot toward economic issues.” — from “Why in a summer full of social change you can expect to hear a lot more about pocketbook issues” by Janell Ross at The Fix.
Emily Flitter and Grant Smith of Reuters have an update on the battle for digital dominance between Dems and the GOP.
After documenting GOP presidential candidates previous praise for Donald Trump, E. J. Dionne, Jr. writes in his latest syndicated column “Sorry, but the real Donald Trump has been in full view for a long time, and Perry’s new glasses can’t explain his newfound clarity. I don’t credit Trump with much. But he deserves an award for exposing the double-standards of Republican politicians. They put their outrage in a blind trust as long as Trump was, in Perry’s words, “throwing invectives in this hyperbolic rhetoric out there” against Obama and the GOP’s other enemies.”
When Trumpmania subsides, the latest indications from a new PPP poll suggests Gov. Scott Walker (R-Koch Bros.) may become the GOP’s new lead dog, Jesse Byrnes reports at The Hill.
But Trump’s 3rd party trial balloon talk is likely freaking out GOP strategists.
In their NYT op-ed, “Socialism, American Style,” Gar Alperovitz and Thomas M. Hanna note a revealing paradox in Republican politician attitudes toward the debate over big government: “…One of the largest “socialist” enterprises in the nation is the Tennessee Valley Authority, a publicly owned company with $11 billion in sales revenue, nine million customers and 11,260 employees that produces electricity and helps manage the Tennessee River system. In 2013 President Obama proposed privatizing the T.V.A., but local Republican politicians, concerned with the prospect of higher prices for consumers and less money for their states, successfully opposed the idea.” Apparently, big government is bad for Republican leaders only when it benefits constituencies they don’t represent.
National Journal’s Josh Kraushaar i.d.s “The Four States That Will Make or Break Democrats’ Senate Hopes.” (FL; NC; NH; and PA).
S. Kumar explains at Huffpo “How Mobile Technology Could Revolutionize the U.S. Voting System.” Kumar recounts the impressive convenience and cost-savings potential and notes, “There are obviously risks in mobile voting such a lack of a paper audit trail and voting fraud. If a voter’s phone is hacked, his or her vote could be falsified, but that can be addressed with the right technology. As many other applications, such as mobile wallets, have evolved to become more secure, voting too can become a commonplace and safe activity.”
Gov. John Kasich, not a military veteran, wants boots on the ground vs. Isis. Opinion polls on military action vs. Isis suggest he may be on safe ground — primarilly with Republican voters.

I know Ohio Governor John Kasich is considered a long-shot to win the GOP presidential nomination. But he does bring to the GOP field a more sober persona than any of his competitors at a time when Donald Trump is grabbing daily headlines with his bomb du jour. WaPo’s Dan Balz has some interesting observations about Kasich’s entry, including:

Ohio Gov. John Kasich joined the crowded 2016 GOP presidential race Tuesday, offering an optimistic message that blends fiscal conservatism with social welfare compassion that he hopes will shake up the Republican Party and vault him into contention for the nomination.
…He spoke of family and faith, of those left behind and those who wonder if the American dream is still alive. “If we’re not born to serve others, what were we born to do?” he said…Kasich begins the contest far back in the field. His advisers say they think he can become a credible threat to win the nomination by force of personality and record. His detractors question whether he has the discipline required for a long and grueling presidential race.

As for the dynamics of the GOP race, Balz notes that, “Collectively, the 2016 GOP field is more experienced and politically heftier than those who sought the nomination four years ago.” However, adds Balz,

At this point, two races are underway. One is a contest among some of the most conservative candidates for supremacy in Iowa. The other is a largely separate contest among those candidates considered less conservative who will need a strong finish in New Hampshire to stay alive…It is the New Hampshire contest that is most attractive to Kasich, who will spend several days there this week campaigning.

For now the media loves Trump, who provides them and late night comedians with endless material. But in a nation where TV still defines a candidate’s media persona, Kasich may have a longer-term edge in the GOP pack, provided he survives the next few months. I’ve noticed that WI Governor Scott Walker is pretty clever about projecting a much more moderate television persona than his extremist record indicates. Kasich, on the other hand, has good media skills, with less to hide. As Balz observes,

He ran for president in 2000 but was an early casualty. He spent a decade in business and television before winning the governorship in 2010 in a state that often helps decide presidential elections. He won reelection in a landslide last November…His supporters think he can connect more effectively than his rivals with his upbeat message and a personality that is direct, occasionally prickly and rarely reserved. Advisers hope that will brand him as authentic at a time of skepticism about canned or programmed politicians.
…In Ohio, he cut taxes and eliminated a sizable budget deficit. To the chagrin of conservatives, he engineered an expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. He called for spending more money on such things as treatment for drug and alcohol addiction. He cites his religious faith as motivating him to help those in need. He has said he is open to a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.

But no one should doubt that Kasich will tow the conservative line on major economic issues if elected. As Balz explains, “In his first term, he signed a bill to restrict collective-bargaining rights for public employee unions, along the lines of legislation that caused a partisan eruption in Wisconsin under Walker. When Ohio voters rejected the plan in a later ballot initiative, Kasich accepted defeat and has not clashed seriously with unions since over such issues, although he and organized labor have been at odds over spending and taxes.”
At The Washington Monthly, TDS managing editor Ed Kilgore notes that those who liken Kasich’s chances to those of GOP moderate Jon Huntsman have a point or two:

In theory, Kasich can fix his problem; the most efficient way would probably be to attack the godless liberal media whose adoration is helping crush him. But with just two weeks left before Fox News decides who makes the August 6 debate cut, and Kasich now definitely out of the top ten, it’s doubtful he can simultaneously elevate himself and change his ideological image that fast, particularly with the current fascination over Donald Trump soaking up so much attention.
And here’s the clincher: Kasich’s chief “strategist” is John Weaver; his ad man is Fred Davis; both were fixtures in the mighty Huntsman campaign.
So if you’re interested in Kasich-mania, watch closely. It probably won’t last.

Kasich does face a steep, uphill struggle in a party where an egomaniacal bomb-thrower leads the pack in current polls, and, as Kilgore notes, he is already in danger of not making the cut for the first televised debates. But the fact that he has done so well in a critical swing state makes him a little more of a threat to Dems than Utah’s Huntsman.
In the unlikely event that Kasich somehow gains enough momentum to survive the next few months and eventually get nominated, his ability to project a moderate image could give the Democratic nominee a fight. Win or lose, Kasich will provide an updated test of the GOP’s tolerance for even the appearance of moderation.

“Most Americans would support imposing a term limit on the nine U.S. Supreme Court justices, who now serve for life, a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll has found in the aftermath of major rulings by the court on Obamacare and gay marriage…Support for the 10-year term limit proposed by the poll was bipartisan, with 66 percent saying they favored such a change while 17 percent supported life tenure…The two big rulings in June were widely welcomed by liberals. Nevertheless, 66 percent of Democrats, 74 percent of Republicans and 68 percent of independents said they favored the 10-year term limit idea, according to the poll.”
Bush leads Rubio on home turf by double digits, according to a new poll by Bendixen & Amandi International — even among Cuban-Americans, reports Patricia Mazzei of the Miami Herald.
At fivethirtyeight.com Harry Enten explains why Gov. Chris “Bridgegate” Christie may not even qualify for the first televised GOP debate.
For some salient insights about progressive blogger takes on the 2016 campaign thus far, check out MSNBC’s “10 things to know from Netroots Nation 2015” by Nisha Chittal and Yasmin Aslam.
Lisa Neff reports at the Wisconsin Gazette that “The “land of the free and the brave” ranks No. 31 among 34 democratic countries in an analysis of voter turnout by the Pew Research Center.”
“…About two-thirds of the states allow in-person early voting, but the early voting periods range anywhere from four to 45 days. About two-thirds of states currently require voters to present identification of some kind at the polls, but they vary greatly in what kind of documents they require and what they do if a person doesn’t provide it…Three states — Colorado, Oregon and Washington — conduct all elections by mail, where a ballot is automatically mailed to every registered voter. At least 19 other states allowed some elections to be conducted by mail…Early voting periods range from four days to 45 days in length, and the average across the 33 states is 19 days, the National Conference of State Legislators said.” notes Meghann Evans of the Winston-Salem Journal.
Major squirmage for GOP expected when Pope Francis visits congress in September. Jennifer Steinhauer has the skinny at NYT.
OR Democratic Governor and self-described “people-person” Kate Brown pioneering a new, warmer style of retail politics, reports Kirk Johnson at The Times.
One Florida Republican state representative, Carlos Curbelo says Trump is part of a Democratic conspiracy to discredit the GOP. To which Paul Begala has jokingly responded, “I am a person of faith – and the Donald’s entry into this race can only be attributed to the fact that the good Lord is a Democrat with a sense of humor.” But the Republican’s Frankenstein needs a milieu in which to thrive, and Democrats should repeatedly point out that the GOP provides the perfect environment to nurture his brand of bellowing bigotry.

At HuffPo AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka explains the importance of President Obama’s initiatives to address a major injustice in America — mass incarceration: “Simply put, mass incarceration is ineffective, racist, and morally bankrupt. It is up to all of us — business and labor, Republican and Democrat, liberal and conservative — to do something about it.” Trumka expressed the Federation’s support for: Removing questions about criminal records from job applications (Ban the Box); Increasing job training to enhance prisoner reentry to society; The elimination of mandatory minimum sentencing in non-violent drug cases; A federal review of prison overcrowding and the use of solitary confinement; Restoring voting rights for ex-felons.
Details are still a little sketchy. But it appears that the killings in Chattanooga provide yet another tragic example of why sale of automatic/semi-automatic assault weapons to civilians should be banned, as a narrow majorities affirmed in 2013 Pew and CBS News polls.
Evan Halper of the L.A. Times posts on “The savvy tech strategy fueling Bernie Sanders’ upstart 2016 campaign.”
It’s encouraging that Democratic presidential candidates are putting more emphasis on reforms to improve workplace justice. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has proposed “a new tax credit on Thursday to encourage more businesses to offer profit-sharing to their workers, sharpening her campaign’s focus on raising middle-class incomes,” as John D. McKinnon reports at the Wall St. Journal.
The Cascadia Advocate’s Rennie Sawade writes about the deliberations of a Netroots Nation panel “A new fifty state strategy: Reversing the Democratic collapse in the states.”
Maria J. Stephan and Errin Mazursky make a strong case for reorienting U.S. foreign policy to give more support to authentic, home grown and nonviolent reform movements.
They keep saying he won’t last, but Trump leads the GOP field as Republican strategists cringe and grimace because…
…”Among Latino voters, 71% have an unfavorable view of Trump, compared with 17% who see him favorably, the poll showed. Matched in a hypothetical horse race against Clinton, Trump would lose 70%-16%,” according to a Univision survey by Bendixen & Amandi, a Democratic firm, and the Tarrance Group, a GOP firm, David Lauter reports at the L. A. Times.
Pundits are beginning to realize that Obama may be one of the shrewder long-term strategists to occupy the White House, as indicated most recently by Todd S. Purdum’s Politico post on “Barack Obama’s Long Game.”

Early though it is, Dante Chinni explains “Why the GOP Should Worry About Hillary Clinton’s Poll Numbers” at NBC’s MTP web page: “The Urban Suburbs (about 29 million votes in 2012) should be the place the GOP nominee aims to sway voters, and going by these numbers, Rubio would be the best candidate there. He loses by only 17 points. But, it’s very early — and losing by 17 points probably isn’t going to get it done for the GOP. That’s worse than Romney did.”
Here’s a revealing tidbit which shows how low the NC GOP will go, from Bob Geary’s “It’s time to rise up against voter suppression by Republicans” at IndyWeek: Geary explains that NC’s “monster” voter suppression law “reduces the number of early-voting days from 17 to 10. (In the 2012 elections, 70 percent of black voters came early, compared to 52 percent of whites.) It eliminates same-day registration and voting during the early voting period. (Blacks, who are 22 percent of the voting population, were 34 percent of the same-day registrant-voters.) And if you vote in the wrong precinct–say, because you moved–none of your votes count, even for president….One upshot is that people who come to an early-voting site and aren’t properly registered will be too late to get properly registered in time to vote on Election Day. North Carolina, in the top 12 states for voter turnout since same-day registration began in 2008, may sink back to the bottom.”
Freddie Allen reports at The Charlotte Post that “”The number of voters silenced because of the new [NC voter suppression] law likely exceeds 30,000 and could reach 50,000 or more,” according to analysis by Democracy North Carolina, a watchdog group that monitors elections.”
On a more positive note, at Newsweek, Fred Askin’s excellent update “The Battle to Keep the Vote: State by State” notes, “A number of states have adopted online voting registration, making it easier for eligible voters to get on the rolls in states like Illinois, Virginia and West Virginia. And Maryland expanded early voting and allowed same-day registration during early voting…But most significantly, Oregon adopted universal registration of anyone over 18 who does not opt out….Democrats have successfully extended Election Day registration in the blue states of Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, California and Rhode Island, bringing the number of EDR states to 13 plus the District of Columbia…Republicans in Maine went so far as to repeal their long-standing Election Day Registration law (EDR); however, voters reinstated it in 2011 when Democrats managed to place the issue on a referendum ballot.”
Paul Krugman shreds “The Laziness Dogma,” which undergirds much Republican myth-mongering, most recently in Jeb Bush’s clumsy, walked-back diss of American workers.
In his syndicated column, E. J. Dionne, Jr. writes on Hillary Clinton’s emerging economic policy strategy: “Her package includes new benefits for individuals (family leave, child care, more affordable access to college)…Other incentives will promote profit-sharing, and…proposals on executive compensation along the lines of a bill introduced by Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md. It would give CEOs less favorable tax treatment for their bonus packages unless they offered wage hikes to their workers matching increases in productivity and the cost of living…Ms. Clinton’s ideas reflect a wide center-left consensus on behalf of bottom-up or, as many progressives call it, “middle-out” economics. They also underscore how the nomination challenge she faces from Sen. Bernie Sanders differs from the problem created for Republicans by Mr. Trump.”
At National Journal, S. V. Date takes a look at “Hillary Clinton’s White Male Voter Problem.” Date quotes Democratic campaign activist Steve Schale: “Every point of white share you lose, you have to win Hispanics by 4 to 5 points more” to make up for it, Schale said. “In ’08, we knew if we really focused on keeping whites above 40 (percent), we couldn’t lose. To me, that makes more sense than always trying to cobble out a tight win. And at some point we are going to max out (with) Hispanics.” But Date adds, “Republican pollster Bill McInturff scratches his head while watching all this hand-wringing over a demographic group that will continue to decline in significance. For one thing, he said, the 27-percentage point advantage Republicans built among white men in 2012 is probably about as bad as it can get for Clinton, given that a sizeable percentage of white men are white-collar liberals…McInturff has prepared an analysis that even increases the Republican advantage with white men, to 31 percent, and decreases the GOP’s disadvantage among black and Latino voters slightly. But it still shows Republicans losing the next election by 3 points.”
Alex Seitz-Wald reports at MSNBC that Democratic presidential candidate former Sen. Jim Webb is crafting his pitch as a centrist, appealing to white working-class and southern white voters, while dissing Dems on the left.
But in his NYT Sunday Review article, “The Dream World of the Southern Republicans,” long-time observer of racial politics in the south Howell Raines explains “…Republican officeholders live in a dream world where they think rhetoric and repetition will somehow cause minority voters and center-left whites to turn into Republican voters. Alarmed Republican political professionals warn that unless their candidates stop obstructing on health care and make progress on gender issues, the party will lose the White House in 2016 and in quadrennial spurts see its Southern hegemony dismantled by new voters in the New Sunbelt….The longer they take to get it, the greater the odds that multiethnic Democrats will finally break the Republican lock on the solidly red South.”

New PPP poll has Trump leading pack of GOP prez candidates in NC with 16 percent, with Jeb and Huck 4 and 5 points back, respectively (both within m.o.e.). A key swing state, NC also has one of the fastest-growing Latino populations.
Jamelle Bouie notes at Slate.com that Scott Walker is deploying a more subtle form of immigrant-bashing than Trump, and adds that “As of October, notes Latino Decisions, just 32 percent of Latino voters would consider a vote for Jeb Bush, just 35 percent would consider a vote for Sen. Marco Rubio, and just 24 percent would consider a vote for Sen. Ted Cruz.”
Andrew Perrin and Maeve Duggan have an interesting report at Pew Research Center, “Americans’ Internet Access: 2000-2015. As internet use nears saturation for some groups, a look at patterns of adoption.” Among their findings, which political ad-makers may find of particular interest, “Older adults have lagged behind younger adults in their adoption, but now a clear majority (58%) of senior citizens uses the internet…African-Americans and Hispanics have been somewhat less likely than whites or English-speaking Asian-Americans to be internet users, but the gaps have narrowed. Today, 78% of blacks and 81% of Hispanics use the internet, compared with 85% of whites and 97% of English-speaking Asian Americans…Those who live in rural areas are less likely than those in the suburbs and urban areas to use the internet. Still, 78% of rural residents are online.”
Patrick Healy and Maggie Haberman make a case in their NYT article that “Hillary Clinton’s Economic Agenda Aims at a Party Moving Left.” The hope is that “Mrs. Clinton is revealing her natural political self: a blend of progressive and pragmatic, an apostle of government policy as a force for change, and a more left-of-center leader than her husband.”
Dare we hope that Republican SC State Rep. Jenny Horne’s moving — and successful — appeal to remove the Confederate battle flag from the state capitol will herald the beginning of more decency on racial justice issues in the GOP?
The Upshot’s Nate Cohn crunches polling data and concludes that, to win the nomination, Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign should focus more on the “less liberal and less educated Democratic voting blocs, whether white, black or Hispanic.”
David Byler explores “the reason for GOP Down-Ticket Dominance,” including demographic, structural, mid-term turnout and gerrymandering factors, at Real Clear Politics.
“The Fed’s charter was amended in 1978 by the Humphrey-Hawkins bill to give it what is known as the “dual mandate.” Unlike other central banks, the Federal Reserve is charged with maintaining both price stability and high employment. It is a sign of how far right the Republican Party has moved that this latter goal has now become controversial…While some Republicans have introduced legislation to remove employment from the mandate, political prudence has kept them from putting it on the floor. Blaming Obama because unemployment has not fallen fast enough is hard enough in the face of the numbers, without explicitly repudiating a national pro-jobs goal. Instead, they seek its de facto elimination by denouncing any actions the Fed takes to execute it as not only mistaken but illegitimate.” — from “The Republican War on Wages” by former Rep. Barney Frank.
Silver spooner Jeb Bush says Americans, who are already working an average of 47 hours per week, according to the Gallup poll, should work “longer hours.” Oliver Willis tweets in response: “yeah. im gonna need you to come in on the wknd. me? no, going to the family compound for some r+r.”

In connection with the Trump dust-up, Marcus Brenton makes a compelling argument at the Sacramento Bee that Latino consumer power is a more mighty force at this juncture than Latino political power. “Latinos were only 15.4 percent of California voters in 2014, Romero said. Of course, voter turnout was awful in 2014 – it’s usually lower for all groups during midterm elections. But in the previous midterm cycle, Latinos were 16.7 percent of voters…”In the Texas race for governor, Democrat Wendy Davis won the Latino vote 55 percent to 44 percent but lost the election to Republican Greg Abbott,” wrote Jens Manuel Krogstad and Mark Hugo Lopez for the Pew Research Center. “In Florida, Gov. Rick Scott won re-election despite losing the Hispanic vote to Democrat Charlie Crist by a margin of 38 percent to 58 percent, according to the state exit poll. That’s a marked decline from 2010, when 50 percent of Hispanics voted for Scott, and from 2006, when the Latino vote was split 49 percent to 49 percent between the two parties,” Krogsad and Lopez wrote…The Nielsen Company recently published a study showing that the average age of Latinos in America is 27, meaning they have more years of prime purchasing power than any other group…But if these consumers don’t find their ways to the polls, they will never realize their true power to affect change…Focusing on the numbers, it is clear that Latino purchasing power is a force in American culture – one that caused those big companies to move away from Trump for fear of offending customers.”
At The week Paul Waldman’s “Donald Trump is a complete lunatic on immigration. But he’s no crazier than much of the GOP” puts Trump’s Latino-bashing in perspective: “A Pew poll from last month asked people whether they thought that “Immigrants today are a burden on our country because they take our jobs, housing, and health care,” or that “Immigrants today strengthen our country because of their hard work and talents.” Republicans preferred the first statement by 63-27, while Democrats chose the second statement by 62-32.”
Here’s an encouraging post by Murphthesurf3 at Daily Kos: “A GOP strategist, columnist at the Houston Chronicle who goes by the handle GOPLifer, Chris Ladd, has declared that the week of the Midterm Elections “was a dark week for Republicans, and for everyone who wants to see America remain the world’s most vibrant, most powerful nation.”…In a careful analysis, Ladd builds a case: The Midterms of 2014 demonstrate the continuation of a 20 year old trend. Republicans are disappearing from the competitive landscape at the national level where the population is the largest utilizing a declining electoral base of aging, white, and rural voters. As a result no GOP candidate on the horizon has a chance at the White House in 2016 and the chance of holding the Senate beyond 2016 is vanishingly small.”
Here’s why pundits who jabber about “social issues” are probably wasting your time.
Peter Grier’s Monitor post “Honey, we shrunk the undecided voters” notes that “At the beginning of President Obama’s reelection campaign about 20 percent of voters overall were persuadable, since they were either undecided or committed to a candidate other than Mr. Obama or Mitt Romney, according to John Sides and Lynn Vavreck, another pair of political science professors…Mr. Sides and Ms. Vavreck then followed this cohort of the undecided through the ups and downs of the campaign. They found that dramatic gaffes made little difference to these voters, as the miscues were lost amid the tsunami of general campaign coverage…Then came the kicker: In November, almost half of the persuadable voters didn’t vote at all. Those that did vote, split. About half went for Obama, and half for Mr. Romney.”
Jamelle Bouie has an interesting argument at Slate.com, “Why Hillary Clinton Should Go Full Nerd: The Democratic front-runner should offer voters her authentic, geeky self.”
In his New York Times op-ed “The Democrats’ Fractured Views on Trade,” Vikas Bajas explains: “…Both sides assign far too much importance to individual trade agreements, pro or con….The economic gains from the agreement will most likely be modest. The most frequently cited study on the impact of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, by the economists Peter Petri, Michael Plummer and Fan Zhai, says it will boost gross domestic product in the United States by 0.4 percent by 2025 — hardly a significant economic stimulus. Economists who are more skeptical of trade deals say the income gain could be even smaller and would mostly benefit people at the top of the income distribution…The way to shore up the economy and expand job creation is to make investments in public goods, like transportation systems, better housing, stronger schools and skills training, especially for the most disadvantaged Americans.”
Both major political parties will likely spend considerable time, energy and verbiage trying to paint the opposition as “the party of the past” in 2016. At The Plum Line Greg Sargent explains why Democrats will have the edge on issues in this contest of memes, while Republicans will probably focus on the Democratic nominee’s “longevity.”
After spending a weekend in Blue Ridge, GA, I was somewhat surprised to see that a huge Confederate battle flag usually seen above a gas station on the main highway had been taken down and replaced by an American flag, perhaps for the Independence Day weekend. But there were lots of pick-up trucks flying the Confederate battle flag, driven by young men, who I gather were being egged on by local reactionary ideologues. But most of the people on the street, locals and visitors alike, seemed bored or indifferent about all of the flag fuss. Mary Francis Berry, former chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, has a good article on the subject, “The Confederate Flag is Just a Distraction.” putting it all into sensible context. Yes, take it down from all government facilities. But don’t let the issue become a substitute for needed racial justice reforms.