At The Atlantic Russell Berman reports on “The Invisible Democratic Majority: A new study finds broad support for the party among the general public in 2014, even as it was resoundingly defeated at the polls.” Berman explains, “A study released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center found that, over the course of 2014, American adults were far more likely to identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party than the Republican Party, by a margin of 48 to 39 percent. But in November, GOP candidates for the House of Representatives garnered millions more votes than their Democratic rivals, amassing a cumulative advantage of 51 to 45 percent. A decisive Democratic edge in the general population translated to a distinct Republican advantage at the polls…The survey of more than 25,000 adults throughout 2014–a much broader sample than traditional opinion polls–found that Democrats retain a wide advantage among younger Americans.”
Nate Cohn has some bad news for Sen. Rand Paul at The Upshot: “…You could argue that the libertarian wing of the Republican Party barely exists at all. According to a large Pew Research survey in 2014 of 10,000 respondents, 11 percent of Americans and 12 percent of self-identified Republicans considered themselves libertarian. They met a basic threshold for knowing what the term meant. But there wasn’t much “libertarian” about these voters; over all, their views were startlingly similar to those of the public as a whole…The likeliest explanation is that “libertarianism” has become a catchall phrase for iconoclasts of all political stripes.”
Joan McCarter’s Kos post, “Rand Paul, putting telecom profits over an open internet since 2011” flags his record on an issue that should prove unpopular with, well everyone who ain’t rich.
From Steve Holland’s Reuters post: “A majority of Americans believe businesses should not be allowed to refuse services based on their religious beliefs in the wake of controversies in Indiana and Arkansas over gay rights and religious freedom, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found on Thursday…The poll, conducted April 6 to 8, also found that 52 percent of Americans support allowing same-sex couples to marry, far more than the 32 percent who oppose it…The survey results suggest a split over the issue between Americans and some of the politicians who represent them…Fifty-four percent said it was wrong for businesses to refuse services, while 28 percent said they should have that right. And 55 percent said businesses should not have the right to refuse to hire certain people or groups based on the employer’s religious beliefs, while 27 percent said businesses should have the right.”
Some interesting stats from Shawn Kemp at Media Post: “Facebook says it saw 43 million unique individuals engage in political discourse during the midterms, despite the fact that the U.S. had its lowest midterm-election voter turnout since the early 1940s. Moreover, according to research by Pew, voters were three times more likely to track political candidates on social media, jumping from 6% in 2010 to 16% at the midterm….Most importantly, Pew finds that voters who are active online are more likely to engage in traditional political campaign activities, such as donating money or volunteering.”
Kathleen Wallace reports at Counterpunch on “…an open records lawsuit…in Sedgwick County filed by a Wichita State University statistician, Beth Clarkson. She wants the paper tapes from the Kansas voting machines. She became curious after a paper from Francois Choquette and James Johnson, two statisticians who noted strong statistical evident of election manipulation during the 2012 elections. She didn’t believe their findings at first so she checked their data and also looked at other elections they hadn’t analyzed. She found the same oddities that they did…Clarkson wants an explanation why there is a pattern that shows the percentage of Republican votes increase in a predictable manner as the size of the precinct increases. These things shouldn’t follow anything that resembles a formula…..right?”
At Campaign for America’s Future Gloria Totten’s post “The Weak Link: Winning State Elections” takes stock of 2014 and illuminates the really bad news for Dems: “Wisconsin imposed “right-to-work.” Nevada suspended prevailing wage rules for school construction projects. South Dakota lowered the minimum wage by a dollar an hour for workers under age 18. Many states are slashing funds for public education and social services. Several are legalizing the carrying of guns on college campuses or abolishing the 80-year-old requirement of a permit to carry a concealed firearm. Utah brought back firing squads as a means of execution. Even the Indiana “religious liberty” battle didn’t have a happy ending: the law they passed is not a good one, it’s just less bad…The GOP gained more than 300 state legislative seats in the 2014 elections. Republicans now control 69 of the 99 state legislative bodies in the U.S…while Democrats control only 30. That’s the most legislative chambers Republicans have ever held…Put another way, there are now 25 states where both the legislative and executive branches are entirely controlled by Republicans…In contrast, there are only seven states with a Democratic legislature and governor…” Totten has some good ideas for turning it around at her post.
NYT columnist Thomas B. Edsall sees an upside for Republicans regarding their large , bickering field of GOP presidential candidates: “The Republican Party in 2016 will need to persuade the general electorate that it is not locked into a moribund belief system. If Republican positions are subject to vigorous debate, past dogma will not stifle the party’s growth, especially if Republicans can demonstrate their willingness to consider a multiplicity of candidates and a diversity of views. In these circumstances, the airing of the party’s dirty linen and the exposure of its internal schisms have the potential to enhance the party’s prospects, not diminish them.”
At Salon.com Heather Digby Parton explains “What Tom Cotton’s warmongering reveals: It’s still Dick Cheney’s GOP: Bad news, America: The neocon playbook is getting plenty of use these days.”

At The Wall St.Journal Laura Meckler notes in “Democrats Rethink Social Security Strategy,” that “The liberals’ argument is that Social Security benefits are meager and that people in retirement need more, not less, money. Some also contend that concerns about the program’s solvency are exaggerated. And inside the Democratic Party, that argument is gaining traction. Legislation increasing benefits, and boosting payroll taxes to cover the cost, now has 58 co-sponsors in the House.”
Re legislation giving lawmakers the final say over any nuclear agreement with Iran, Burgess Everett writes at Politico, “Many Democrats are demanding that the measure be amended so it doesn’t kill the deal before it can be finalized by a June 30 deadline. So the onus is on Republicans to work with Democrats — particularly if they want to assemble a 67-vote veto-proof majority — although it’s not clear exactly what legislative changes would preserve the complex and still-evolving agreement.”
“What mainly matters is income growth immediately before the election. And I mean immediately: We’re talking about something less than a year, maybe less than half a year.” — from Paul Krugman’s NYT column on “Economics and Elections.” Krugman mulls over some possible reforms and concludes that there is really no short cut to a better-informed electorate, which requires both improved reporting and a more alert electorate.
All of the caveats about an election 19 months away notwithstanding, Deirdre Shesgreen’s report on a new Quinnipiac poll showing broad-based strength for former Governor Ted Strickland offers well-grounded hope that Dems can pick up a U.S. Senate seat in Ohio.
Here’s hoping Wisconsinites aren’t too distracted by the big March madness upset over KY and making it to the Big Dance, because they have a hugely important election tomorrow. Mitch Smith’s “Wisconsin Supreme Court Election Raises Concerns About Partisanship” at The New York Times reports that out-of-state money has been pouring in to the state to force a hard right turn on the WI high court.
In another potentially transformative election tomorrow, watch Ferguson, MO for an object demonstration of the power of increasing African American voter turnout. A political earthquake in Ferguson just might reverberate elsewhere. Lauren Victoria Burke sets the stage at The Root.
Amrita Jayakumar explains how “Technology aims to improve the voting experience” in her WaPo syndicated article. There’s a lot of room for improvement, considering that only 21 states provide on-line registration.
Davide Weigels’ Bloomberg post “Rand Paul and the GOP’s New Civil Rights Movement” reviews the skepticism about Paul’s and the GOP’s outreach to African American voters with respect to criminal justice reform. I’m thinking Paul is trying to fog over his opposition to the Civil Right Act of 1964 and his father’s racist newsletter.
Jonathan Chait has an amusing goof on conservatives’ tortured conflating of the debates about the Iran nuclear program agreement and Indiana’s LGBT discrimination dust-up. Teaser: “Both places begin with “I,” and are in the news, and have leaders who care about religion. It’s basically the same thing.”

From “Voter turnout during 2014 midterm elections ‘especially low among Latinos’” by Nicole Rojas of International Business Times: “Latino Decisions’ Matt Barreto points to data from the state of Florida as particularly crucial. Florida had a 50.5% state-wide voter turnout but only a 36.5% Latino voter turnout. According to Barreto, if Latino voter turnout had matched state-wide voter turnou, an additional 276,000 Latino votes would have been cast…”Given the Florida governor’s election was decided by just 64,000 votes, those additional 276,000 Latino votes could have proved critical,” Barreto wrote…All states where complete data was available showed a significantly lower Latino voter turnout than overall turnout.”
Paul Waldman explains at the Plum Line “Mike Pence just handed gay Hoosiers and liberals a significant victory,” noting: “Up until now, Pence has been saying that the law was not intended to give businesses in Indiana the right to discriminate against gay people. Now he’s saying that he wants to put that explicitly within the law itself. That’s a huge win for gay people who don’t want to be discriminated against, and makes it more likely that the next state that passes a law like this one — and there are similar bills pending in multiple states — will include a similar clarification.”
NYT’s Jennifer Steinhauer explains how “Rights Measures Expose Divisions in G.O.P.’s Ranks.” She quotes Michael D. Tanner a senior at the Cato Institute: “”There is no doubt that the continued opposition of gay rights is an electoral loser,” he added. “Younger Republicans are as pro-life as older Republicans, but gay rights is a huge generational shift and Republicans are going to have to find a way to deal with that issue.” Steinhauer adds “Now, 52 percent of Americans support gay marriage, according to a Pew Research Center poll, compared with 40 percent who oppose it; in 2001, Americans opposed it by a 57 percent to 35 percent margin in the same poll.”
In her article, “State GOP strategy makes them sound like Democrats,” Sandra Chereb of the Las Vegas Review Journal illuminates Republican strategy in the NV legislature — in a state where Dems have a 62,000 edge in registered voters.
President Obama’s “economic approval rating” is now in “net positive territory,” with an impressive increase among self-described “independents,” explain Dan Balz and Peyton Craighill at the Washington Post. “Obama’s approval rating today is 11 points higher among independents than it was last October and his economic approval is 15 points higher.”
Kali Holloway’s “WATCH: 10 of the Most Fear-Mongering Political Ads in Recent History” at Alternet discusses the psychology behind some of the worst offenders — and why they worked.
At Sabato’s Crystal Ball Kyle Kondik notes a slight tilt favoring Democratic candidates for Governor in IN and MO in 2016. At this point Kondik sees only two toss-ups of 15 governor’s races, MO and WV. He rates 3 states “Safe R,” vs. none safe for Dems. But Dems have an edge with 4 states “Leans D,” compared to 2 states “Leans R.”
National Journal’s Alex Roarty reports that Republican U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, “one of the Senate’s most vulnerable members in 2016,” is pegging his re-election hopes on foreign policy concerns — which pleases Democrats who believe the economy is still the overriding concern of swing voters.
At Roll Call Emily Cahn adds “The most vulnerable include Sens. Mark S. Kirk of Illinois, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania, who are running in states President Barack Obama carried by at least 5 points in 2012.” Also at Roll call, Alexis Levinson and Niels Lesniewski note “Of the 34 senators up for re-election in 2016, 24 are Republicans, several in highly competitive swing states. Just two Democratic incumbents are running in competitive states. Democrats need a net gain of five seats to secure the majority.

Derek Willis’s “The House Democrats Who Are Voting With Republicans More Often” at The Upshot can be read as an update on party unity. Among Willis’s observations:

A small group of House Democrats has begun moving to the right in the current Congress, breaking from a majority of colleagues on votes that pit lawmakers from liberal areas against those from more rural and conservative districts.
The lure of a Senate seat, which in many cases requires shifting from a narrower ideological focus to a broader one, and the threat of a well-funded challenger are among the reasons for this this shift.
A few members of this group, which numbers fewer than a dozen, are congressional veterans like Collin Peterson of Minnesota, who survived a tough challenge in 2014 and is voting with a majority of his fellow Democrats 64 percent of the time, down slightly from the previous Congress.

What is most striking here is that “fewer than a dozen” is a pretty small faction. Take it as either a reassuring affirmation that Democratic Party unity is fairly impressive in 2015, or alternatively that there is a need for more healthy dissent within party ranks. Willis cites slipping party unity scores for them in recent years, though not dramatically in most cases.
Party disagreements among Democrats tend to be between moderates and liberals, while Republican bickering seems to be more between right-wingers and the extreme, fever-swamp types in the GOP, exacerbated no doubt by the size of the GOP presidential field. The “thunder” on the right seems increasingly shrill in comparison to internal debates within the Democratic Party.
The Dems identified by Willis disagree with their party over a few key issues, such as the Keystone XL pipeline, but Willis reports that “there are limits to their willingness to cross party lines. No Democrats voted for full [ACA] repeal in February, and none voted for the Republican-written budget that also repeals the law.” Most of the new House blue dogs identified by Willis come from the far west.
In terms of percentages, the numbers seem more or less in line with the percent of Senate Democrats who occasionally stray from the fold in key votes. Also noteworthy is the tame tone of their dissents with the majority of the Party, common to dissenters in both houses.
All in all, at this political moment Democrats are more unified than is usually the case, and unlike Republicans, they are not bitterly riven about a host of social and cultural issues. Hillary Clinton’s unusually high popularity in opinion polls may be more a reflection of Democratic unity on issues, despite a significant percentage of Democrats who prefer Elizabeth Warren and other candidates. At this juncture it seems a safe bet that an overwhelming percentage of Democrats will rally behind the presidential nominee, whoever it may be, and the positive effects will also be felt down ballot.

FiveThirtyEight’s Harry Enten examines “Why Harry Reid Chose Chuck Schumer,” while The Nation’s John Nichols explains why “Harry Reid’s Replacement Must Be Progressive and Effective.”
Meanwhile, National Journal’s Andrea Drusch profiles Catherine Cortez Masto, “The Woman Harry Reid Wants to Replace Him in the Senate.”
Associated Press reports on “Florida Democrats Look For A Way To End Election Woes,” and notes: “Then there’s money. Florida has 12 million voters and 10 media markets. It costs millions to get a message across the state and Democrats have been badly outspent in non-presidential years. Obama had the money to win in Florida, but that doesn’t help two years later when the governor and Cabinet seats are on the ballot…There just is no short-term answer to our money problem,” said Screven Watson, a Democratic political consultant. “The gubernatorial candidate has to be able to raise 40 to 50 million (dollars), and I don’t see anybody out there right now that can do that. Nobody.”
At The Upshot Brendan Nyhan argues that “Republicans Have Little to Fear From a Divisive Primary.”
At ThinkProgress Alice Ollstein explains why “California Looks To Take A Page From Oregon’s Voter Turnout Playbook.” Says Ollstein: “…Such a move in California could sweep millions into the political process…the nearly 7 million eligible but unregistered voters in the state, many of them low-income, people of color, and younger Californians — whose participation rates are in the single digits.”
Huckabee outs his strategy on “Face the Nation”: “”I think the untold secret is a lot of the support that I have, and that I anticipate I will have, is from the working-class, blue-collar people who grew up a lot like I did – not blue-blood, but blue-collar…”
More evidence that Democrats can cite in making a case to voters that democracy itself is under siege by Republicans, who protect only the wealthy: At Talking Points Memo Brendan James reports on a new Princeton study which finds that “U.S. No Longer An Actual Democracy.” As James explains, “Asking “who really rules?” researchers Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page argue that over the past few decades America’s political system has slowly transformed from a democracy into an oligarchy, where wealthy elites wield most power…Using data drawn from over 1,800 different policy initiatives from 1981 to 2002, the two conclude that rich, well-connected individuals on the political scene now steer the direction of the country, regardless of or even against the will of the majority of voters.”
Robert Kuttner’s post, “The Dance of Liberals and Radicals: As LBJ and MLK needed each other, so does today’s left-of-center establishment need the leftist vanguard–and vice-versa” at The American Prospect puts Democratic Party politics into some much-needed perspective, all but lost on too many commentators these days. As Kuttner writes, “Which role the state plays depends on the balance of activism. As current politics reveal all too vividly, government’s default setting in a capitalist economy is to serve the wealthy and the powerful. Liberals can write policy proposals to their hearts’ content. But unless they are backed by radicalism on the ground, they are playing in a sandbox…Policy is frozen politics–the legacy of an earlier era and earlier political struggles. But policy can always be reversed by elites. That’s why it takes hot politics–liquid politics, current politics, radical politics–to defend and refresh policy.”
Political map afficionados should peruse “Daily Kos Elections presents our fully interactive visualizations of the 2014 federal elections.”

In the 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Alabama Legislative Black Caucus v. Alabama, the majority rejected a lower court decision that upheld redrawing of state legislative districts packed African American voters into a small number of districts. Justice Anthony Kennedy voted with the progressives. Ian Millhiser reports at ThinkProgress: “Though the Court’s decision in Alabama Legislative Black Caucus v. Alabama does not necessarily ensure that the state’s maps will be struck down, it rejects a lower court’s reasoning which upheld the unusual, racially focused method the state used in drawing many of its districts.”
Sue Sturgis of Facing South has a by-the-numbers take on “The fight to restore the Voting Rights Act,” including this look at voter suppression, Texas-style: Number of days Texas officials waited after the Shelby ruling to announce that they would implement that state’s strict photo ID law, previously blocked by Section 5 because of its discriminatory racial impact: 0…Number of registered Texas voters without proper photo ID, according to early assessments: 600,000 to 800,000…Number of those voters who are Latino: over 300,000.”
Marking the fifth birthday of the Affordable Care Act, President Obama zinged the GOP’s response, as NYT’s Michael D. Shear reports: “We have been promised a lot of things in these past five years that didn’t turn out to be the case,” Mr. Obama said. “Death panels, doom, a serious alternative from Republicans in Congress…When this law was passed, our businesses began the longest streak of private sector job growth on record. Sixty straight months. Five straight years. Twelve million new jobs…It’s working, despite countless attempts to repeal, undermine, defund and defame this law.”
Huffpollsters Ariel Edwards-Levy, Janie Valencia and Mark Blumenthal note that “In 2014, our computation of the NCPP [National Council on Public Polls] statistics finds a rate of error in final week polls (2.2 percentage points) slightly higher than in 2006 or 2010, but slightly lower than 2002….While polling averages in Senate races appeared to miss by more than usual, broader measures of polling error were roughly in line with previous midterm elections, and the 2014 Senate polls collectively predicted the correct winners in all but one race.”
CT Gov. Daniel Malloy, Incoming chair of the Democratic Governors Association, has some provocative thoughts on Democratic messaging strategy going forward. As Buzzfeed’s Evan McMorris-Santoro reports, quoting Malloy: “You put together that [the GOP] is the party that wants to control your body, wants you work 35 or 40 hours per week and live in poverty, and, by the way, doesn’t want you to have access to health care,” he said. “You put those three things together? That’s a pretty powerful argument…Accept the Republican Party model that you’re constantly in an election,” Malloy said. Democrats “thought they could take a vacation” when they needed constant, persistent campaign-style messaging.”
Poll analyst Alfred J. Tuchfarber writes at Sabato’s Crystal Ball that Dems face six major challenges in the 2016 elections, including African American turnout after Obama, the rarity of Dems winning three presidential elections in a row and the increasing influence of high-turnout white seniors, among others.
At The Charleston Gazette, James A. Haught has a stat-rich profile of religious commitment in America. One nugget: “Those who don’t attend church generally are more tolerant of gays, more welcoming of blacks and Hispanics, more supportive of women’s right to choose, more approving of the public safety net. In other words, they tend to back compassionate progressive values — and they have become the largest single group in the Democratic Party base…Sociologist Ruy Teixeira predicts they will boost Democratic politics in coming decades and turn America more liberal. But they’re somewhat less inclined to vote. A couple of years ago, Dr. Teixeira wrote about America: “In 1944, 80 percent of adults were white Christians. But things have changed a lot since then. Today, only about 52 percent of adults are white Christians…By the election of 2016, the United States will have ceased to be a white Christian nation…”
National Journal’s Andrea Drusch previews a potentially-divisive Democratic primary in the race for U.S. Senate, featuring a “young, charismatic centrist,” Rep. Patrick Murphy vs. Alan Grayson, “one of the party’s foremost firebrands.”
Dems have a thin range of available leaders in IN for the 2016 open U.S. Senate seat — with one big exception. So, Run Evan Run!

In the New York Times Magazine, Jason Horowitz discusses “Do the Democrats and Israel Have a Future Together?” But the more interesting question might be “will the Administration’s policy toward Israel affect support for Democrats in the 2016 elections?” Not much, would be my guess.
CNN Polling Director Jennifer Agiesta reports findings of a new CNN/ORC poll: “The new poll finds 53% saying things are going well, 46% badly. That’s the highest share saying things are going well that CNN/ORC polls have found during Obama’s time in office…Assessing Obama’s presidency overall, 50% consider his time in office a success, 47% a failure. And for those who say his time in office has been a failure, 37% say that’s been because of his own actions, while just 9% attribute it to Congress blocking the President from action…Nearly two-thirds (63%) disapprove of the Democratic leaders in Congress, while 74% disapprove of the Republican leadership. That’s worse than in March 2011, when 64% said they disapproved of GOP leadership a few months after the party took control of the U.S. House of Representatives.”
From HuffPollster: “Support for gay marriage has become the majority opinion, and voters now also say they’re more likely to reject a presidential candidate opposed to gay marriage than one who backs it — something gay marriage advocates hope marks a political tipping point for 2016. In a new HuffPost/YouGov poll, more than a third of voters say they don’t care what position a candidate takes on the issue, but those who do care say they favor gay rights by an 8-point margin. Thirty-four percent of voters say they’d prefer a presidential candidate to support gay marriage, and just 26 percent say they’d prefer a candidate to oppose it.”
Here’s a good resource for Democratic campaigns — a quick guide to metro areas with the highest and lowest rates of L.G.B.T. residents.
I’m assuming John F. Harris overstates Hillary Clinton’s reaction to media probing about the emails fuss in this Politico post. Clinton has handled as much hostile questioning over the years as any elected official, and done pretty well. Still, even the most savvy political leaders get a little thin-skinned once in a while. Clinton and other Democratic candidates at every level should periodically review videos of their body language, tone and other temperament cues in pressers and interviews and get some guidance about it from media pros.
Kim Willsher’s “‘Abandoned’ French working class ready to punish left’s neglect by voting for far right” at The Guardian indicates that French progressives are struggling with some of the same internecine conflicts that plague the American left. It will be interesting to see how a progressive party with a strong identity and tradition of solidarity navigates against the rapidly-rising nativist right. And only the French could coin the term, “Bobos” (bourgeois bohemians) for a political demographic. (Correction: Looks like David Brooks invented the term in his 2001 book, “Bobos in Paradise”)
Once again, it appears that the MSM has gotten suckered by the conservatives’ manipulation of the terms of debate. “Mandatory” or “compulsory” voting are loser terms. Nobody wants to be forced to do anything, even vote. Call it a “voter incentive” or whatever, but the concept that just might resonate better is, “No, you don’t have to vote. But you do have to pay a small fee ($50 fed or state tax surcharge?) for the luxury of sitting on your ass and allowing your fellow citizens to do the work — and absorb the cost in time & money — needed to maintain democracy.” Coupled with strong protection against voter suppression, that’s an easier sell.
On April 7 the voters of Ferguson, MO will have a unique opportunity to provide an emblematic example of the game-changing power potential of the African American electorate, reports Mariah Stewart at HuffPo.
The follies begin today.

Timothy Egan has an interesting column at The Times, “Traitors to Their Class,” which takes a jaundiced look at three children of the white working-class, who have become advocates of screwing the poor and privileges for the rich.
Egan is talking about U.S. Senator Joni Ernst, Speaker John Boehnor and Governor Scott Walker, all of whom love citing the economic hardships of their upbringings as preface to their advocacy of large tax cuts for the rich and deep cuts in social programs benefitting the poor and working families.
Egan doesn’t get into the phenomenon of good class treason, which would include such exemplars as FDR, Sen. Ted Kennedy and perhaps Warren Buffet. FDR’s class treason still excites extraordinary animosity from conservative historians and the like, and his “I welcome their hatred” may be the most frequently cited utterance of class treason in modern memory. Senator Kennedy, also born into wealth, fought like hell throughout his career for social programs to benefit working people, supported unions and greater economic justice. Warren Buffet’s call for higher taxes on the rich has earned him the distinction of being the most well-known living class traitor — in a good way. Hats off to these class traitors who didn’t let self-interest prevent them from urging a better deal for their fellow citizens.
Egan’s treasonous trinity is quite another matter. They carry on about bread bags on feet (Ernst), serving fries at McDonald’s (Walker) and bartending through college (Boehner), just before they urge tax cuts for the rich and budget cuts for social programs. They prattle on about picking themselves up by their bootstraps and being self-made success stories — just before they pull up the ladder for others.
Never mind that they attended public schools they would now privatize for everyone else. They sure as hell used government roads and public transportation throughout their respective government-bashing careers and quietly accept the privileges of their office without any noise about cutting their perks. And don’t be surprised if revelations surface that they did in fact benefit from government programs of one sort or another in their respective journeys to success.
All of three of them get downright splenetic in denouncing proposed modest increases in the minimum wage or calling for repeal of the Affordable Care Act. As Egan concludes:

Giving the people who flip burgers, clean floors and stock grocery shelves a few dimes more an hour is not a handout. Offering working people some help on their insurance premiums does not promote dependence. Nor do those things hurt the economy — just the opposite.
So where is this coming from? The class traitors guiding the Republican Party, and the harsh new federal budget unveiled this week, usually promote their policies using personal anecdotes. Their condescension toward the poor springs from their own narratives: They are virtuous because they made it, or vice versa. Those who haven’t made a similar leap are weaklings. It’s a variant of Mitt Romney’s view that 47 percent of Americans are moochers. Stripped to its essence, it’s a load of loathing for their former class, delivered on a plate of platitudes.

They’ve got the megaphones now. But one day they will be seen as narcissistic elitists who turned their backs on the working people they grew up with, when they could have used their offices to awaken the conscience of their party and make life better for all Americans, instead of just the wealthy patrons of their political campaigns. A missed opportunity and a sad legacy indeed

An excerpt from TDS co-founding editor William Galston’s contribution to a CNN forum on “mandatory voting”:

Let’s imagine a future in which Americans must vote, or face a penalty.
It’s April 2021. Media outlets around the country headlined major agreements between Democrats and Republicans on the long-stalled issues of tax and immigration reform. Commentators marveled at the momentous shift in American politics away from the polarization and gridlock of the previous two decades.
What happened? Although opinions differed, observers agreed on one key point: The decision to follow the lead of countries such as Australia and institute mandatory voting in national elections transformed the political landscape. As turnout rose from 60% to 90%, citizens with less intense partisan and ideological commitments flooded into the electorate. Campaigns could no longer prevail simply by mobilizing core supporters. Instead, they had to persuade swing voters to come their way. They soon discovered that these new voters preferred compromise to confrontation and civil discourse to scorched-earth rhetoric. Candidates who presented themselves as willing to reach across the aisle to get things done got a boost while zealots went down to defeat.
…And somewhere, James Madison was smiling. Reforming institutions to change incentives is always the most effective course, and once again it had worked.

It’s an appealing vision, one which Democratic strategist Donna Brazile supports in her contribution to the same forum:

I know some bristle at the idea of having to cast a vote, even a protest vote for Lassie. Yet, voting is the essential, central and indispensable feature of democracy. We require jury attendance, paying taxes, and public education attendance because those are also essential functions. Is voting less important?

In his Washington Monthly post on the topic, Ed Kilgore notes that Obama didn’t actually come out in support of “mandatory voting” per se, and getting a Constitutional amendment such as that passed is not going to happen anytime soon.
Kilgore is surely right. Is it possible, however, that a few blue states could experiment with economic incentives for voting? But fergawdsake, let’s not call it “mandatory” or “compulsory” voting, as do Fox News and other right-wing media outlets. Dems need not let wing-nuts define the terms of debate about reforms without challenge. We’re not talking about criminal penalties for those who don’t vote.
Galston’s vision and Brazile’s point about voting as a civic duty merit more consideration, as do a range of other electoral reforms. Accepting the current low levels of voter participation is not an option.

“Other countries have mandatory voting…It would be transformative if everybody voted — that would counteract money more than anything,” said President Obama in calling for mandatory voting in an Ohio speech. Eleven other nations have mandatory voting, reports Stephanie Condon at CBS News. Might be strategically better to call it a “nonvoter surcharge” instead of a “fine” or “tax,” or pitch it more colloquially as “the slacker surcharge” on those who are eligible to vote, but don’t. Assess all taxpayers a $50 federal elections charge, with refunds to those who vote in presidential or congressional general elections. It would have to be coupled with easier access provisions, like internet voting, expanded early voting and a universal federal i.d. (photos on social security cards?). Why should voters bear all of the hardships of the elections needed for a viable democracy?
One reason why Colorado ranked third in voter turnout in 2014, as reported by Adrian D. Garcia at the Coloradoan: “The 2014 Colorado election cycle was the first time ballots were mailed to every registered voter two to three weeks in advance of Election Day. Last year, the state also implemented Election Day Registration (EDR), meaning voters could correct registration problems at polling centers Nov. 4….Seven of the top 10 turnout states have EDR; none of the bottom 10 turnout states do…”
Jonathan Chait shreds the GOP’s health care “plan”: “Six years after the start of the health-care debate, Republicans keep telling reporters that they’re working on a plan. (Jeffrey Young has a hilarious, frequently updated timeline of the perennially just-over-the-horizon Republican Obamacare replacement plan.) In fact, the Republicans do have a health-care plan: It is to repeal Obamacare and replace it with what we had before Obamacare. They don’t want to admit that’s their plan, but it is. It’s right there, in the new budget released by House Republicans this week…”
“Could Pot be a Game-Changer in 2016?” Megan R. Wilson mulls over the possibilities at The Hill. “Efforts to revive marijuana policy reform for next year’s elections have begun in a half-dozen states, including Nevada, Florida, Arizona and California. All of these states will be important in the presidential primaries and/or the general election.” Wilson quotes Democratic pollster Celinda Lake: “”It could have major, major impacts. Point No. 1 is, marijuana definitely increases [voter] participation of young people…The other nice thing about marijuana is that there’s no backlash. It doesn’t motivate [opponents] to vote — so it’s a unilaterally net positive effect.”
…And Phillip Smith’s “March Is a Big Month for Marijuana! 5 States Move Toward Legalization” sets the stage. “…we’re not even talking about medical marijuana or decriminalization bills, we’re talking about outright legalization bills.”
In his HuffPo post, “A Bumper Crop of Banana(s) Republicans,” John Bradshaw, Executive Director of the National Security Network, nails a worthy meme: “Under the new “Cotton doctrine,” unveiled in the now-infamous letter from Senator Tom Cotton and 46 other Republican Senators to the government of Iran, America’s commitments are only good for as long as the President who signed them remains in office. This is the way banana republics do business, not the United States…”
NYT’s Abby Goodnough reports that the Affordable Care Act’s “favorables” are up 4 percent since July in the Kaiser Health Tracking Poll. Further, “Forty percent of respondents said they would like to see Congress repeal or scale back the law, while 46 percent said they would prefer that Congress move forward with carrying out the law or expand what it does.”
Arguments about the effectiveness of televised political ads will rage on. But there isn’t much doubt that television news analysis of political issues falls somewhere between the “miserable” and “poor” spectrum. As David Knowles explains in his Bloomberg Politics article “Study: Political Ads Dwarfed News Stories About Actual Political Issues in 2014”: “A new study by Philly Political Media Watch finds that during evening newscasts leading up to the 2014 midterm elections the airtime given to political ads dwarfed stories about political issues by a ratio of 45:1.” In his USA Today report on the study, Rem Reider notes that Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, finds the performance of the television stations “pathetic.” Also, “There’s no way for a citizen to make his way through the bombardment and onslaught (of political ads) and make an informed decision,” says the study’s author, Danilo Yanich, a professor at the University of Delaware…The short answer is that political reality is bought,” it says. “Political ads spout their versions of the truth and, with all that money, the sponsors make their claims over and over again. The repetition works.”
Could this actually be a very shrewd plot to make some other GOP presidential candidates, like Huck, Paul and Cruz look a little less silly?