“MIcrosoft Ditches ALEC In Latest Blow To Conservative Group,” reports Dylan Scott at Talking Points Memo Live Wire. Scott adds: “Microsoft joins Coca-Cola, General Motors, Bank of America, and Proctor & Gamble as some of the major corporations that have severed their relationship with ALEC, according to CNET. Others — like Google, Facebook, eBay, Yahoo, and Yelp — remain involved with the group.”
Via Plum Liner Greg Sargent’s “From a vulnerable red state Democrat, a strong pro-Obamacare ad“:

Nate Cohn explores several reasons why “Alaska Might Be More Friendly to Democrats Than It Appears” at The Upshot.
Also at The Upshot, however, Josh Katz argues that “Georgia Is the Reason the G.O.P. Is Edging Up in the Overall Senate Race.”
New Suffolk University/USA Today poll has Democratic U.S. Sen. Hagan up 2 percent with LVs in NC, a stat tie.
The New Yorker’s Jeffrey Toobin is not so dismissive as others of the likelihood that Texas Governor Rick Perry may lose a ruling on the two-count indictment (“abuse of official capacity” and “coercion of a public servant”) that has been filed against him, as Toobin explains in his article “Why Rick Perry May Be Out of Luck.”
At Fox News Latino Elizabeth Llorente explains why “Despite Expected Low Turnout, Latino Voters Could Prove Crucial In Some Midterm Races.” She quotes Fernand Amandi, a managing partner at polling company Bendixen & Amandi International: “The question for the midterm elections is, given the extra emphasis on immigration, and the economy and the impact of the healthcare program,…will that cause a Hispanic spike in voting, like we saw in 2006, or will Hispanics revert to the historical pattern of less than a regular turnout?”
A paragraph from Al Hunt’s latest Bloomberg View column suggests an important messaging point that might bear some repetition: “The U.S. economy has turned around with the unemployment rate dropping from as high as 10 percent in the first year of the Barack Obama presidency to a little over 6 percent now. That hasn’t registered with many voters. In the most recent NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll, the public was dissatisfied with the economy by an almost two to one ratio. Almost half of Americans thought the U.S. still was in a recession; the deep downturn caused by the financial crisis actually ended five years ago.”
Maybe not. But the gender gap suggests she will more likely vote Democratic.

Re the debate about “tax inversion,” loopholes allowing corporations to relocate their HQs overseas to avoid taxes, Justin Sink notes in his post “White House betting ’14 midterm elections on economic patriotism” at The Hill: “A poll commissioned by the Americans for Tax Fairness found that half of all voters were aware of the issue, and that large majorities — including 86 percent of Democrats, 80 percent of independents and 69 percent of Republicans — disapprove of it…”Tax fairness stuff polls really well across the board,” said ATF executive director Frank Clemente…He said voters are “very sensitive to offshoring of profits and offshoring of jobs, and this inversion stuff feeds very much into that.”..His polling leaves him “extremely” confident it will resonate with independent voters.”
Rand Paul tries to sell his “big government is to blame” snake oil to exploit the tragic slaying of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO for political gain. If you were thinking that budget cuts resulting in poorly-trained police had something to do with it, just never mind.
Other Republicans are treading gingerly around the Ferguson tragedy, but that probably won’t last, since they rarely miss an opportunity to gin up racial divisions. Ferguson may not be front-page news by November, but the development Republicans would fear most would be an energized movement to register African American voters emerging from it and spreading nation-wide. As Tommie Dale, a former resident of Ferguson who has set up a voter registration drive in the community, explains “It’s the only way we can make a change,” she said standing in front of a boarded-up Chinese restaurant, damaged during a night of violent unrest. “People don’t understand. Looting and rioting aren’t going to get it.”

Most political observers seem to have their favorite bellwether state, and NYT columnist Frank Bruni makes a good case for monitoring CO political trends. As Bruni describes the political demography: “In many ways, Colorado is the new Ohio, a political bellwether. The percentage of its voters who chose Barack Obama in each of the last two presidential elections almost precisely matched the percentage of voters who did so nationwide. And nearly all the currents that buffet national politics swirl around the Rockies…bursting with agriculture and booming with high tech, outdoorsy and urbane, a stronghold of the religious right (Colorado Springs) and a liberal utopia (Boulder)…In other ways, “Colorado is the new California,” in Hickenlooper’s words. It floats trial balloons — marijuana being one example, education reforms being another — while other states watch to see which take flight and which wheeze and crumple to earth.”
Moshe Z. Marvit of In These Times reports on a new labor organizing technique — creating “micro-units” of unions, which represent only workers who join the union. Marvit explains, “…A micro-unit is a traditional, NLRB-certified union, containing the majority of the workers in the unit and serving as the exclusive bargaining representative for the entire unit–it just represents a specific department or job classification…For labor, the potential advantage of micro-units is that they tend to draw from those departments that have higher levels of worker support, as opposed to wall-to-wall units, which may include departments where support is lower. Therefore, they’re harder to crush during the organizing phase.”
Meanwhile George’s Zornick’s post at The Nation, “A Bill to Get the Labor Movement Back on Offense” provides a backgrounder on a reform that would get the right to organize into labor unions included in both the Civil Rights Act and the National Labor Relations Act. The legislation, introduced by Reps. John Lewis and Keith Ellison, would “give workers a broader range of legal options if they feel discriminated against for trying to form a union. Currently, their only redress is through a grievance with the National Labor Relations Board–an important process, but one that workers and labor analysts frequently criticize as both too slow and often too lenient on offending employers.” This one may require a Democratic landslide to enact, but a dialogue about the concept is overdue.
Jack Healey reports at The Times that Montana Dems are running a 34-year old one-term state legislator/math teacher to replace Sen. John Walsh, who quit his candidacy after a plagiarism scandal. Amanda Curtis has no money and only three months to make her case to hold the U.S. Senate seat for Dems, who have held the seat for a century. Still, she has a populist message, a working-class background and an opponent who has lost his only two previous statewide campaigns.
Great headline, cute picture.

Campaign for America’s Future’s Dave Johnson argues “Dems Should Campaign On Trade And Jobs, Not On Being Like Republicans.”
Put Egberto Willies’s Daily Kos post, “Obama slams reporter’s right-wing adopted talking point as bogus” on your must-read list for the day. Willies does an excellent job of showing how President Obama shreds both the neo-con critique of his Iraq policy and shallow MSM reporting with surgical precision.
Meanwhile at Post Politics, Sean Sullivan reports that “Fully 65 percent of Americans say they approve” of the Iraq airstrikes ordered by President Obama. Only 23 percent disapprove.
“You can argue that the number of bills passed isn’t an ideal measure of how successful a Congress is. What you cannot argue is that there aren’t oodles of unresolved issues that people of all political stripes want to see addressed — and that could benefit from some sort of congressional action…Pennsylvania Avenue isn’t a one-way street, and the GOP controls the House…And just like it means Obama didn’t get more gun control, it also means Republicans haven’t gotten more border security.” – from Aaron Blake at the Fix.
Some politicians run against Washington. But, as Matea Gold reports, in NC Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan is doing pretty good running against Raleigh.
And The Nation’s John Nichols explains why Democratic candidate for Governor Mary Burke has a solid chance to defeat Scott Walker in Wisconsin.
Some states actually make it, gasp, easier to vote.
Shane Goldmacher reports at the National Journal that NRCC decepticons have launched two dozen faux news sites to reach low-information voters.
In shameless name-dropping, Hollywood celebs who have given the max ($5,200) to Alison Lundergan Grimes’s campaign to unseat Mitch McConnell include (according to Judy Kurtz at the Hill): Ben Affleck; Jack Black; James Cameron; Nicolas Cage; Danny DeVito; Cameron Diaz; Leonardo DiCaprio; Jennifer Garner; Steven Spielberg; Tom Hanks; Jerry Seinfeld; Mike Myers; Jon Hamm; producer J.J. Abrams; DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg; Woody Allen; Ted Danson; America Ferrera; Leonard Nimoy; Barbara Streisand; Aaron Sorkin; Ben Stiller; and Chris Rock. It appears that poor Mitch will have to make do with warbucks from his corporate masters.

Alex Isenstadt’s Politico post “Running as a Dem, Sounding Like a Republican” suggests a “blue dog rising” trend aborning among Dems running for House seats in 2014, incumbents and challengers alike. Isenstadt argues that Dems are embracing Republican memes not only in red states, but also “in purple or even blue territory.”
Isenstadt does provide some examples:

Colorado Democrat Andrew Romanoff, who’s running in a district that Obama won in 2012 and 2008, has started airing a commercial that strikes a tea party theme. It highlights his record as speaker of the state House of Representatives when, he says, he helped balance the state’s budget…”It’s really pretty simple. You don’t buy things you can’t pay for,” Romanoff states.
As Romanoff narrates, a graph of the nation’s soaring debt pops up on the screen. The image looks strikingly similar to one that appears in a Web video Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan released in 2011 to sell his controversial budget plan, though a Romanoff spokeswoman insisted that the campaign hadn’t borrowed from the former GOP vice presidential contender.
New Hampshire Rep. Ann McLane Kuster, whose district broke for Obama by a yawning 11-percentage-point margin in 2012, is running an ad that touts her support for small-business tax cuts while showing her touring a local microbrewery. Separately, former Iowa state Sen. Staci Appel, in a district Obama won by 4 percentage points two years ago, underscores her record of fighting overspending in state government, a populist theme often heard from tea party-aligned conservatives.
Democratic Rep. Ron Barber, in a swing southern Arizona district that is slightly more conservative than the others, uses his first TV spot to highlight his support for increasing border security funds. The ad — complete with the image of a border patrol car — doesn’t mention elements of immigration reform that are typically more popular among Democratic voters.
Like the commercials aired by Romanoff, Kuster and Appel, Barber’s doesn’t mention his Democratic Party affiliation.
Democrats who have the especially high hurdle of competing in deep-red districts are striking multiple conservative themes. Democrat Patrick Henry Hays, the North Little Rock mayor who’s running in an Arkansas district that Mitt Romney won in 2012, uses his first TV ad to discuss the need for a balanced budget, limited government regulations and less wasteful spending. Like Romanoff, Hays includes a graphic to depict the national debt…”I approve this message because it’s simple,” Hays says. “You cut waste, you pay your bills, and you do everything in your power to create jobs. That’s what we need in Congress.”

Those are five interesting examples of Dems putting on a little blue dog lipstick to steal a quick kiss from high turnout seniors and other demographic groups who tend to show up at midterm polling sites. But it’s a bit of a stretch to imply that 5 races out of 435 constitute a big trend. Nor do Republicans have a monopoly on budgetary prudence. There have always been Democrats who are more concerned about moderation in spending than many of their party fellows, and there always will be. That’s life in the big tent.
Isenstadt quotes a grumbling Democratic strategist, who is concerned about Dems losing their populist edge and his Republican counterpart, who says it just goes to show how lame are Dems who copy Republicans. Both are stock characters in this biennial playlet.
What we are not seeing much of among such Democrats is the over-the-top government, immigrant, union or gay-bashing that prevails among many tea party types and, increasingly, Republicans in general. There’s none of the pod-people finger-pointing contagion that afflicts today’s GOP.
Maybe the better story is that so few Republicans are embracing moderate messages in their campaigns. Isenstadt offers only one example.
It’s pretty much biz as usual for Democratic mid term candidates. As congressional races begin to narrow, there will be some movement toward moderation in messaging, perhaps more so on the Democratic side. But anyone looking for a sea change in Democratic policy will likely be disappointed.

Newsmax, frequently a source for Republican spin, has an interesting post, “Democrats Cashing In on Email Strategy” by Drew Mackenzie. Among the share-worthy nuggets is this one from Brandon English, hailed as the Dems’ top email fund-raising wizard: “English estimates that one-third of the people who read the DCCC emails do so on a mobile phone, so he makes certain that no messages are longer than 70 words before the first donation link…We know we have to get to the point quick,” he said. “I’m very incredibly nit-picky about every single word in our emails. Any extra words, extra sentences, unnecessary anything can just kill an email.”
There’s “No dominant issue leading into midterm elections,” say Washington Post opinion poll analysts.
NYT’s Adam Nagourney reports that “Midterms Give Parties Chance for Sweeping Control of States,” reminding Dems that a lot more is at stake in November than just control of the U.S. Senate. “Republicans now control 59 of the 99 partisan legislative chambers, and have complete political control — both legislative houses and the governor’s mansion — in 23 states, while Democrats control 13. The total number of states ruled by a single political party, 36, is the highest in six decades…Today, Republicans, even after losing some chambers in 2012, control about 55 percent of all state legislative seats.”
Amid pessimistic reports about Democratic prospects for actually picking up seats in the U.S. House in the midterms, Susan Davis notes that Charlie Cook sees only 16 or so seats as genuinely competitive, with 13 of them being defended by Democrats. However, writes Davis, “Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., who runs the House Democrats’ campaign operation, maintains that the election climate is still unfolding. He believes Democrats could easily benefit from mounting voter frustration at the House GOP’s ongoing struggles with governing. “You’re going into a midterm election with voter revulsion aimed at Republicans,” he says.”
At the Wall St. Journal Beth Reinhard’s “GOP Ads Go On Attack Over Border: TV Spots Slam Democratic Senate Candidates on Immigration Policy” exposes the Republicans’ media strategy to whip up nativist frenzy for the midterms.
Michael Barbaro writes at the New York Times that Republicans are exploring all kinds of gimmicks in a dubious attempt to distract Latino voters from their party’s embarrassing track record on immigration and other issues.
The Plain Dealer’s Thomas Suddes’s “Ohio’s out-of-power Democrats need to emulate ’80s GOP in the grass-roots grunt work that can turn the political tide” offers some advice for Ohio Dems that might work in lots of places: “…Three years and a cloud of dust…That is persistence, not spectacle…Rank-and-file grunt work – and that’s what electing state legislators is – seems to offer too little glamor (compared to, say, a Hillary Clinton appearance) to draw workers. But…running opponents even in politically hopeless General Assembly districts at least had a chance of distracting the other party’s campaign managers.” Suddes has other insights meriting consideration by Dems in other states.
Despite all of the pundit doom-saying for Democratic midterm prospects, Crystal Ball’s Kyle Kondik observes “…It’s possible — though perhaps not plausible — for Republicans to net the six seats they need to flip the Senate simply by winning six Democratic-held Senate seats in six states where President Obama won less than 42% of the vote.” As for the House of Reps, Kondik says “for now we’re sticking with a GOP gain of five to eight…Unlike this year’s Senate map, the competitive races this year are not being held on obviously Republican turf.”
Here’s some evidence that we may have reached a turning point at which Obamacare is becoming more of an asset in wooing voters. As Greg Sargent reports, “The other day, Gallup released a major new survey finding that the steepest drops in uninsured rates had occurred in two states that could decide control of the Senate — Arkansas and Kentucky. The sharpest drop in the nation was in Arkansas, where the uninsured rate was practically cut in half…Dem Senator Mark Pryor is greeting this development as good news, and — get this — is even noting that he voted for the policy that has helped make this happen.”

At The New Republic Andrew Levison explains why “Democrats Have a White Working Class Problem–and Not Just in the South.” Among Levison’s insights: “Every political campaign manager knows that in the practical world of political campaigns, white working class people in places like Wichita, Yuma, or Sioux City are not strikingly more “pro-Democratic” than white working class people in Baton Rouge, Augusta, or Memphis…If the notion that “the problem is just the South” fails to properly account for the real regional political divisions in America, however, it also fails to recognize the critical importance of another aspect of the political divisions within the white working class: the substantial difference between the more urban and less urban members of the group, regardless of the region of the country.”
The Guardian’s Dan Roberts reports that “Obama doubles down on threat to act against ‘tax inversions’ by US firms” — a good example of the kind of bold executive action that scares Republicans but enhances Democratic cred as the party of working people.
NYT columnist Charles M. Blow chronicles the GOP’s rancid history of race-baiting, of which Republican Rep. Mo Brook’s “war on whites” comment is merely the latest installment.
From Janet Hook’s “5 Takeaways from the August WSJ/NBC Poll“: “Republicans have a much bigger image problem than the president and his party, as the poll found that only 19% held positive views of congressional Republicans, while 54% held negative views. Frustration about the political system and ongoing economic problems is directed at both parties: Asked what message they wanted to send with their vote in November’s midterm elections a plurality of 33% said they wanted incumbents of both parties to lose.”
But new Associated Press-GfK poll gives GOP slight edge in ‘faith/trust,’ within MOE.
At Salon.com Jim Newell and Joan Walsh explain why Sen. Rand Paul is likely to tank in the glare of a presidential race.
Democratic political ad-makers have an angle to mine at At ThinkProgress.org, where Tara Culp-Pressler reveals that “The States With The Highest Uninsurance Rates Are All Led By Republicans.”
RMuse argues “The Truth Is That It’s Republicans Who Have Been Waging War On Poor Whites” at PolitcusUSA.
Chartheads may get a kick out of Phillip Bumps post, “Who wants to impeach President Obama? A visual scorecard” at The Fix, which provides a quick visual guide to the who’s who of GOP impeachment denialists, vacilators and advocates.

From John Harwood’s New York Times article, “Democrats Seize on Social Issues as Attitudes Shift“: “Now the values wedge cuts for Democrats….Democrats profit politically — among young voters, college graduates, single women, blacks and Latinos — from the sense that they welcome these cultural shifts while Republicans resist them…”That’s why people are voting for us these days — not for our economic prowess,” said Mark Mellman, a Democratic pollster. “They all reflect an underlying attitude. It’s openness, it’s tolerance, it’s respect for others and who they are.”
At The L.A. Times Michael A. Memoli and Lisa Ascara explain why “Obamacare loses some of its campaign punch for Republicans.”
CNN’s Dan Merica reports: “For the first time, a majority of Americans said they disapproved of their representative and thought they were part of the problem in Washington, according to a Washington Post-ABC poll out Tuesday. The poll found that 51% of Americans disapprove of the way their own member of Congress is handling his or her job, while 41% approve.” It’s a significant change, as Merica notes: “For decades, most Americans approved of the way their member of Congress was handling his or her job, but disapproved of the legislative body as a whole.”
For a map updating Crystal Ball’s assessment of the 2014 governorship races, click here. Accompanying article here.
At Gannett’s Baxter Bulletin Dick Polman reports “We’re on track for record-low midterm turnout this November, at least based on the voting evidence collected thus far. According to a new report by the non-partisan Center for the Study of the American Electorate, turnout in the first 25 statewide primaries was so anemic — down 18 percent from the early primaries in 2010 — that we’re “likely to witness the lowest midterm primary turnout in history…Bill Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former Clinton White House adviser, tells NPR, “Gridlock is at an all-time high. The productivity in Congress is at an all-time low, and many Americans are asking themselves, ‘How much difference does it make who the people are, and what the party balance is, if nothing seems to change, election after election?'”
If Democrats needed another reason to get their midterm elections act together, Charlie Cook has it in his Government Executive post on “The Lessons of the 2010 Midterm Elections“: “While this year’s midterms won’t change the course set in 2010, what happens in the 2018 and 2020 gubernatorial and state legislative elections will be huge in establishing who controls redistricting in 2021, and which governors can veto or influence where the lines are drawn. For Democrats, those elections will determine whether they are going to be shut out of controlling the House for a second straight decade, or whether there will be a fairer fight for dominance of the lower chamber.”
Re Eric McWhinnie’s “10 States Most Dependent on the Federal Government” at the Wall St. Cheat Sheet, eight of the moochers delivered electoral votes for Romney and eight have government-bashing Republican governors.
Economist Jared Bernstein writes at The Upshot about findings from “the provocative new paper by the economists Alan Blinder and Mark Watson that rigorously examines how the economy has performed under presidents since the 1940s.”: “The American economy has grown faster — and scored higher on many other macroeconomic metrics — when the president of the United States is a Democrat rather than a Republican…The two looked at key macroeconomic variables averaged over 64 years (16 four-year terms), from Harry Truman to Barack Obama. Mr. Blinder and Mr. Watson focus mostly on the 1.8 percent annual difference in real G.D.P. growth. That is, over the full study, real G.D.P. growth averaged 3.33 percent per year. But under Democratic presidents the economy grew 4.35 percent and under Republicans 2.54 percent…Under Democratic presidents, the economy also spent fewer quarters in recession; added more jobs and more hours worked; and posted larger declines in unemployment and higher corporate profits than under their Republican counterparts. Stock market returns were a lot higher under Democrats as well, but because equity markets are so volatile, that difference is not statistically significant. (By the way, since March 2009, the S.&P. stock index is up 160 percent).”
Surely the good people of northern Alabama deserve better than this.

For those who are fed up with despairing about the Republicans’ obstructionist stranglehold on congress, I suggest reading Taylor Malmsheimer’s “The Future of Minimum Wage Will Be Decided in Cities” at The New Republic. It’s a little tonic for progressives who may be wallowing in mid-summer political doldrums. Have a swig:

In June, the City Council of Seattle made headlines when it voted unanimously to raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour, the highest in the country. While Seattle wasn’t the first city to take minimum wage legislation into it’s own hands, it seems to be at the forefront of a national trend toward significant minimum wage hikes at the local level. In just over a year, at least six other cities and counties have mandated minimum wages as high as $15, and several more have legislation in the works.
In 2003, Santa Fe and San Francisco became the first cities to institute their own minimum wages, distinct from their states–and it wasn’t without opposition. Each city faced significant resistance from the business community: In San Francisco, organizations like the Chamber of Commerce and the Association of Realtors campaigned against the ballot proposition, arguing that it would lead to worker layoffs. In Santa Fe, the local chamber of commerce joined with New Mexicans for Free Enterprise and four other plaintiffs to sue the city, arguing that the municipality did not have the power to enact a minimum wage higher than the state’s. Despite the opposition, the San Francisco raise passed with 60 percent of a ballot vote, and the New Mexico Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Santa Fe’s legislation. But over the next eight years, only three other localities raised their minimum wage above the state level.

Malmsheimer cites three reasons why the cities are driving the trend: It’s easier to pass legislation at the city level; Concerted targeting by advocacy groups, and; Cities have higher costs of living. It’s not a cakewalk, and big biz is fighting tenaciously against the trend. But Malmsheimer points out that there is “no evidence of appreciable job losses or job relocation from urban-focused minimum wages.”
Might this may be the dawn of a new era of cities filling the void left by Republican obstructionists in Washington? The minimum wage increases in cities are significant. But there may be a lot more to look forward to in other urban reforms that can’t get traction in congress, such as environmental regulations, housing and education, as well as needed economic incentives and disincentives.
Democrats need to keep up the good fight to win elections to secure needed national reforms. But let’s also keep an eye on the cities and get more involved in local reform movements. There is something to be said for keeping faith that workable reforms are contagious.

Julia Preston reports at the New York Times that a new poll by the Public Religion Research Institute found that 69 percent of respondents said that the 57,000 plus unaccompanied migrant children from Central America who have come to the U.S. should be permitted to stay “if authorities determine it is not safe for them to return to their home country.” Only 27 percent said they should be deported. However, notes Preston, “There is broad consistency for a policy offering support for the unaccompanied children and a determination process, not just an open door,” said Robert P. Jones, the chief executive of the research institute. “At the same time, there are concerns that policy may bring some negative consequences, and the situation has raised people’s concerns about immigrants over all.”

At The Upshot Derek Willis reports on Kansas Democrats’ promising new emphasis on demographic modeling and micro targeting persuadable/mobilizable voters.
In her Washington Post column, “Building a progressive alternative to ALEC,” The Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuval observes, “Recently, the American Legislative and Issue Campaign Exchange and the Progressive States Network announced a merger to build an organization that will be focused on moving a progressive policy agenda in the states. While the goals of the new undertaking may resemble those of ALEC, their methods are vastly different. They will operate transparently, use no lobbyists, and make their model legislation and resources available to everyone; their database already showcases 1,800 examples of progressive legislation. And they will engage with people, not corporations…As [executive directory Nick] Rathod underscores, “For nearly a generation, conservatives have outpaced us at the business of movement-building in states. They have focused hard on it, poured resources into it and have been ruthlessly efficient at it. Starting now, we will do the same.”

Oppo alert: Time magazine’s Jay Newton-Small reveals how House Republicans are planning to get a larger share of women voters.

The National Journal’s Lucia Graves and Stephanie Stamm crunch the data, explain “What Keeps Women from the Polls?” and find that the voter turnout of women, and African American women in particular, is adversely impacted by disproportionate caretaking responsibilities.

From the Christian Science Monitor: Jared Gilmour’s “Why Democrats are campaigning on your student loan debt: Student loan debt is a big issue, and Democrats are increasingly talking about it in an effort to get voters to the polls in key states this November” notes that “Student loan debt is a big issue with big reach. In fact, 37 million Americans currently face a record $1.2 trillion student debt load. And nearly 7 million borrowers are in default on $100 billion in loans, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.” Gilmour quotes DCCC Chair Rep. Steve Israel: “Show me a suburban district, and I’ll show you a district where that’s going to be a motivating issue” and notes that Democratic candidatures are advocating reforms in major Senate races.

At Brookings Elaine C. Kamarck discusses reforms for “Increasing Turnout in Congressional Primaries”

Take a gander at this nifty political demographic map of North Carolina at the American Communities Project web page. You hover over the color-coded regions and it tells you which demographic group (i.e. “working-class country,” “college towns,” “military posts” “evangelical hubs,” “African American south,” “graying America” etc.) dominates the population. The analysis accompanying the map bodes well for Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan.

The headline of Steve Benen’s Maddowblog post “The GOP loses control of its Frankenstein monster” sums up the impeachment follies nicely. Benen observes, “Republican leaders created a monster, doing nothing to tamp down the right’s crusade to tear down the Obama presidency, and they suddenly find themselves scrambling now that the monster is running lose. As Arit John put it, Republicans have “lost control of the impeachment plot they hatched.”

Dan Balz’s “If voter turnout is key, why is it so low?” rounds up the reasons and possible cures for low voter participation in mid term elections.

Brendan Nyhan has a good post at The Upshot on the folly of the ‘Green Lantern Theory of the Presidency.”

Long-term unemployment is plummeting.

The GOP appears ready to squander many millions of taxpayer dollars on a doomed impeachment effort —even though 65 percent of voters think it is a bad idea, according to a CNN/ORC International poll released Friday.

How many millions would the Republicans spend? One clue is that they spent more than $40 million taxpayer dollars on Ken Starr’s impeachment ploy, and Republican leaders are even less anchored to prudent management of taxpayer dollars today.

From The Hill, Mike Lillis quotes DCCC chair Steve Israel on Democratic strategy to use the House’s August break to underscore who is really responsible for “the do-nothing congress”: “August will be about our action versus their inaction,” Israel said…”We’ll be talking about how they have stalled on everything, and we have a specific series of initiatives to jumpstart the middle class. That is going to be August.”

Tim Devaney writes, also at The Hill, that “Business groups alarmed by rise of ‘micro-unions’ in workplace.”

Some disturbing stats from Robert Reich’s “The rise of the non-working rich” at The Baltimore Sun: “In 1979, the richest 1 percent of households accounted for 17 percent of business income. By 2007, they were getting 43 percent. They were also taking in 75 percent of capital gains. Today, with the stock market significantly higher than where it was before the crash, the top is raking even more from their investments…The six Walmart heirs have more wealth than the bottom 42 percent of Americans combined (up from 30 percent in 2007).”

So why aren’t voters more ticked off about inequality? Eduardo Porter mulls over some possible answers at The Upshot. “Researchers at the University of Hannover in Germany propose a simpler reason: Voters don’t demand more redistribution because they don’t grasp how deep inequality is…Evidently, nobody has a clue: In every one of the 26 nations, most of them in the developed world, for which they collected data, people believe that the income gap is smaller than it really is. And using perceived rather than actual inequality, the median voter theory works much better: Where people believe inequality is worse, governments tend to redistribute more…Unsurprisingly, Americans suffer from a pretty big perception gap. They think an American in the middle of the income distribution makes only 4 percent less than the national average, according to Ms. Engelhardt and Mr. Wagener’s research. In truth, the American in the middle makes 16 percent less.”