Obamacare-bashers are not going to like Rick Ungar’s Forbes article (flagged at Kos), “The Real Numbers On ‘The Obamacare Effect Are In-Now Let The Crow Eating Begin,” signifying the awakening of the reality-based business community.
Democratic strategist Bob Shrum argues that Dems should run hard on Obamacare. As Linda Feldmann reports in The Monitor: “And the right way, he says, is to play up all the popular aspects of the law: barring insurers from denying coverage to unhealthy people; a ban on lifetime limits; a ban on charging women more than men; allowing adult children up to age 26 to stay on their parents’ plan; and enhanced drug coverage for seniors.”
From The Fix: More evidence that the tea party is spinning wheels.
Hotline on Call’s Karyn Bruggeman explains why “Why Pot Won’t Help Democrats In 2014.” She acknowledges, however, that “Pot earned its reputation as a Democratic turnout trick in 2012, when measures to expand access to it appeared on the ballot in Colorado, Oregon, and Washington. In those states, turnout among voters between 18 and 29 spiked, increasing the youth share of the electorate between 5 and 12 percentage points from 2008. Nationally, the share of youth turnout grew by just 1 point between the two elections, from 18 percent to 19 percent.”
At The Progressive Ruth Conniff reports that progressives are bringing the heavy linguistic artillery to Wisconsin, framing wizard George Lakoff, to do battle with Scott Walker and his Republican minions in the state legislature.
Donna Brazile’s “3 lessons Democrats must learn after Florida loss” at CNN Politics notes that “Public polling in the run-up to Election Day showed that the electorate was going to skew toward Republicans by around 10%. The actual Republican margin of victory? About 2%….Luckily, we’ll have another chance to win this seat back in November — and with more people voting, we’ll have an even better shot at picking up the seat.”
For a graph-rich analysis of the historical relationship of the war on unions to accelerating economic inequality, read Colin Gordon’s Dissent article “The Union Difference: Labor and American Inequality.”
Here’s hoping that Democrat Jason Carter, running for Georgia Governor, and Michelle Nunn, running for U.S. Senate read the report “America Goes to the Polls: Voter Participation Gaps in the 2010 Midterm Election,” which notes “Black turnout – 44% in 2010 – continues to trail white turnout, with the gap widening during midterm elections… In several states, most notably Georgia and Alabama, the black turnout rate exceeded the white turnout rate.”
Neocon Chickenhawk gets TOLD.

Wesley Lowery’s post “Democrats’ anti-Koch strategy is risky” at The Fix assesses the pros and cons of Dems’ efforts to make the Koch brothers poster-boys for the evils of big money in politics. Lowery offers some interesting polling data to help gauge the efficacy of the Dems’ strategy:

A poll of registered voters conducted in January for the Democratic-aligned America Votes found that Kochs had relatively low name identification in five battleground states, ranging from 29 percent to 37 percent, according to a person familiar with the results. The exception was Wisconsin, where AFP helped Gov. Scott Walker fight off a recall effort. There, 50 percent of people recognized the brothers.

Fair enough. I’ve also wondered about their name recognition among voters and the cost-benefit calculations that determine how much money, time and energy should be invested in the anti-Koch brothers project.
But name recognition can be increased, which is one of the purposes of political ads. There is no question in my mind that Dems have to inform the public about the unprecedented influence of money in politics resulting from the Koch brothers’ meddling, and how they stand to benefit economically from it.
The weakest part of Lowery’s post is his suggestion that “Tom Steyer, the hedge-fund executive who plans to target Republicans over climate change” is somehow equivalent to the Kochs. The Kochs have already poured millions into campaigns to defeat Democrats and progressive reforms. When all of the spending is tallied at the end of the 2014 campaign, Steyer’s contribution will likely be small change compared to what the Kochs have already spent.
My hunch is that pretty soon we will see a spate of ads deifying the Koch brothers as “self-made” entrepreneurs who deserve our respect. Ludicrous as that sounds, it may just offset enough Dem messaging to the contrary.
The only question is, what is the wisest way to allocate resources so other Democratic messaging doesn’t suffer. Dems have a daunting challenge, for example, in convincing a large segment of the public that the Affordable Care Act is a good reform for their families. This is not unrelated to the Koch brothers bashing of Obamacare. But messaging shouldn’t get too complex for short television ads. Then there is the need to invest heavily in turning out the Democratic base, which many strategists believe is a more cost-effective investment than messaging to win/change hearts and minds.
There is also a danger of allocating resources away from publicizing another message that Dems must get across, loud and clear, by November — that the Republicans in congress are doing everything they can to prevent economic recovery. Again, the Koch brothers are part of the picture. But shifting focus away from the Republican members of congress toward the Kochs may have the unintended effect of letting them evade accountability. The Koch brothers could serve as sort of a ‘red herring,’ which I’m sure would please them immensely.
Democrats do have to go after the Kochs and big Republican donors. The unacceptable alternative is to allow them to buy elections.The critical questions Dems face in meeting this challenge have to do with timing, resource allocation and message emphasis.
At a minimum, Dems should always link their attacks on Koch brothers spending to specific Republican candidates at the congressional, state and local levels. Lots of current Republican office-holders have made some very risky policy calls, like GOP governors refusing funds for Medicaid expansion, forcing rural hospitals to close (e.g. GA, plus 18 other states not taking expansion funds) or state legislatures reducing early voting opportunities (e.g. OH, FL, GA, TN, WV, NC and others). Dems must make Republicans eat their blunders, not allow the Koch brothers to distract them from that imperative.

Here’s a teaser from “Everyone Economics: New data supports economic populism as a Democratic strategy” by Ruy Teixeira and Guy Molyneux: “A new national survey we have conducted for the Center for American Progress Action Fund, supported by other public opinion data, suggests that what we’re calling “Everyone Economics”–a framework for advocating and explaining progressive economic policies–has tremendous appeal to voters in the center of electorate. It also unites the interests of the “coalition of the ascendant”–minorities, unmarried and working women, Millennial and more secular voters, and educated whites living in more urbanized states–with the white working-class voters who once formed the core of the Democratic coalition. And it deprives conservatives of one of their most powerful rhetorical weapons, while potentially dividing their political coalition.”
Also at TNR, Jonathan Cohn comments on Greg Sargent’s interview (also discussed below) with Paul Begala and distills their comments to come up with an apt description the GOP’s alternative to Obamacare: “The official Republican Party position is to restore the old order.”
Leveraging “March Madness” ads to sell Obamacare to young men is a good strategy. But a little more emphasis on the urgent need for young people to vote in 2014 would be even better.
E. J. Dionne, Jr. also has some solid advice for the president and Democrats: “Going on offense means, first, building on what Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is undertaking in his campaign against the Koch brothers and other right-wing millionaires trying to buy themselves a Congress…This is not just a tactical effort to turn tens of millions of dollars in negative advertising into a boomerang by encouraging voters to ask why the ads are appearing in the first place. It is also about drawing a sharp line between the interests and policy goals of those fronting that money and the rest of us…”
The “Screaming Siren” in this Monitor post by Scott Sappenfield may be a tad overstated. Alex Sink lost FL-13 by less than 2 percent. After all, had Sink persuaded a little more than half of this very small margin to cast their ballot for her instead, pundits would be talking about a “Republican debacle.”
For an excellent discussion of what a Democratic economic agenda should look like, read “The New Populist Movement: Organizing to Take Back America” by Roger Hickey, co-director of the Campaign for America’s Future.
America needs a lot more of this — large gatherings of religious leaders of all faiths standing up, united in their opposition to voter suppression: “The Rev. Dr. Jawanza Karriem Colvin, Pastor of Olivet Institutional Baptist Church in Cleveland explains: “We are drawing on the activist traditions of our faiths. The legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, and Mohandas K. Gandhi and so many others who not only inspire but challenge us to be voices and vehicles of social change.”
There are more Republican women governors, but “Female Democrats have an advantage over female Republicans of almost 2 to 1 in state legislatures; that ratio rises to more than 3 to 1 in Congress,” reports Albert R. Hunt at Bloomberg, via NYT.
Hoist a pint of Guinness, mateys, in tribute to a gutsy, stand-up company.

At pbs.org, Judy Woodruff interviewed political analysts Susan MacManus and Stuart Rothenberg about the FL-13 election. Rothenberg noted: “Democrats do have — often have trouble with low-turnout elections. Remember, elections are not about what Americans think. They’re about what the particular voters think…So there’s no doubt here. But there is a problem for Democrats. The fact that the electorate was so Republican suggests Republican enthusiasm and maybe lack of Democratic enthusiasm. And Democrats are going to have to deal with this in November in the midterms as well.” MacManus added, “Democrats do well in Florida and elsewhere when they get a large share of younger voters. It’s exactly who helped Obama win in the last hours, were the younger voters that turned out higher than people ever anticipated in Florida…She wasn’t able to really engage them. And I think some of the fault comes with these national ads which featured just about 100 percent older people in there. There was nothing that really drew younger people to the polls at all, and it’s spring break time in Florida.”
The Fix’s Sean Sullivan argues that “Jolly’s win belongs more to the outside groups that rallied to his side than it does to him…the Republican groups spent money smartly, hitting the airwaves with complementary messages and avoiding stepping on each other’s toes or doubling up unnecessarily…The Republican organizations “actually talked to one another and spaced out their buys so there was coverage the whole campaign. Not everyone was up at the same time. “It’s a page from our playbook,” said one Democrat with an eye on the race, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide a candid assessment.”
At The Plum Line Greg Sargent probes the insights of Democratic strategist Stan Greenberg for lessons from the FL-13 election: “Greenberg said the Dem failure to turn out their voters in FL-13 – and not opinion on the health law — was the decisive factor. (The First Read crew noted today that turnout in the district was barely more than half that in 2012, and that Dem voters “didn’t show up.”) Greenberg said, if anything, that the closeness of the race (given GOP turnout superiority) indicated that Dem Alex Sink had mostly neutralized Obamacare as an issue, given all the outside GOP ads hammering her over it.”
In Zachary Roth’s MSNBC.com post, “Are Americans souring on voting restrictions?,” he writes: “A Des Moines Register poll released Monday found that 71% of Iowa voters–including two out of three Republicans–think it’s more important that every eligible registered voter has the chance to vote than that no ineligible voter is allowed to cast a ballot. Just 25% said the reverse…And focus groups involving swing voters in Columbus, Ohio found strong support for making voting easier…Both Iowans’ and Ohioans’ views on the issue might be shaped by recent high-profile investigation into voter fraud conducted by the secretaries of state in both places. Both probes were lengthy and costly, but neither turned up evidence of large-scale fraud or illegal voting.”
From Jack Craver’s report, “Rasmussen poll has Mary Burke, Scott Walker tied in Wisconsin governor’s race” at The Cap Times: “A new poll shows the race for Wisconsin governor in a dead heat, with Gov. Scott Walker and Democratic challenger Mary Burke tied with 45 percent apiece.
And it might have something to do with a anger at a new Republican voter suppression bill that has just passed the Wisconsin state senate. “The bill ends early/absentee voting on weekends. Early voting on weekends is something that has been popular in the state’s larger cities — like Madison and Milwaukee,” reports Mike Lowe.
The Hill’s A.B. Stoddard explores Rand Paul’s 2016 strategy and prospects, and concludes that he will be influential, win or lose. But “anarchist and racist voices within the libertarian movement” may present a significant problem for him.
As the Libertarian influence grows inside the GOP, Dems should read “3 inconvenient facts that make libertarians’ heads explode” by Lynn Stuart Parramore (Alternet, via Salon). It’s a good read, but Parramore doesn’t address what may be the Libertartian movement’s Achilles’ heel with young voters — their failure to offer any measures to protect the environment from pollution.
President Obama’s approval ratings are up 6 points from December in a new Bloomberg poll, reports Julianna Goldman.

After acknowledging that the sky is not falling In the wake of the narrow Republican victory in FL-13, Dems do have to face the fact that Koch Brothers money is a huge problem in this and future election cycles. Toward that end, check out the New York Times editorial “The Democrats Stand Up to the Kochs,” which states:

…By far the largest voice in many of this year’s political races, for example, has been that of the Koch brothers, who have spent tens of millions of dollars peddling phony stories about the impact of health care reform, all in order to put Republicans in control of the Senate after the November elections.
Now Democrats are starting to fight back, deciding they should at least try to counter the tycoons with some low-cost speech of their own. Democrats may never have the same resources at their disposal — no party should — but they can use their political pulpits to stand up for a few basic principles, including the importance of widespread health-insurance coverage, environmental protection and safety-net programs.
The leader of this effort has been Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, who has delivered a series of blistering attacks against the Kochs and their ads on the Senate floor over the last few weeks. In addition, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has set up a website, www.kochaddiction.com, to remind voters of just what the Kochs stand for, and why they raised $407 million in the 2012 election. And individual candidates are making sure voters know who is paying for the ad blitz.

As for the motivation of the Koch brothers, the editorial explains:

Mr. Reid’s comments have gone to the heart of the matter. In his most recent speech, he pointed out that the fundamental purpose of the Kochs’ spending is to rig the economic system for their benefit and for that of other oligarchs. They own an industrial network that ranks No. 14 on the list of the most toxic American air polluters, and got their money’s worth in 2010 by helping elect a Republican House majority that has resisted environmental regulation.
“That Republican majority is, in fact, working to gut the most important safeguards to keep cancer-causing toxins and pollution that cause sickness and death out of the air we breathe and the water we drink,” Mr. Reid said. “Without those safeguards, the Koch brothers would pass on the higher health care costs to middle-class Americans while padding their own pocketbooks.” He called it “un-American” to spend lavishly to preserve tax breaks and end workplace safety standards.
…What the Kochs want — and polls show they have a strong chance of getting it — is a Senate led by Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, now the minority leader, who promises in his latest campaign ad to “be the leader of the forces that take on the war on coal,” the most polluting power-plant fuel. Nothing could be better for the owners of Koch Carbon, and they are willing to spend whatever it takes to make it happen.

It’s an excellent editorial, which says a lot about what is at the center of congressional dysfunction and governmental paralysis — big money pouring into GOP coffers from vested interests.
But the real fun begins in David Firestone’s follow-up article in the Times, “There’s a Difference Between Union Money and Koch Money,”in which he obliterates the much-parroted Republican argument that Labor contributions to political campaigns somehow justify unlimited donations from a few self-interested billionaires. Here’s Firestone, responding to a comment complaining about union money following the editorial:

…Two brothers, aided by a small and shadowy group of similarly wealthy donors, spent more than millions of union members. The fortunes of just a few people have allowed them an outsized voice, and they are openly trying to use it to turn control of the Senate to Republicans.
The Koch group Americans for Prosperity has also joined the right-wing drive to reduce union rights and membership around the country, with the goal — made explicit at last week’s Conservative Political Action Conference — of muzzling the voice of union members in politics.
…But for the most part, unions, unlike the Koch network, don’t try to disguise their contributions in a maze of interlocking “social welfare” groups. Their contributions on behalf of candidates or issues may be unlimited, thanks to Citizens United, but they are generally clearly marked as coming from one union or another. (They want Democrats to know which unions raised the money.)
Union members aren’t coerced into giving political money, either, despite the claims of several commenters. Thanks to a 1988 Supreme Court case, workers have the right not to pay for a union’s political activity, and can demand that their dues be restricted to collective bargaining expenses. The union members who contributed to that $400 million pot in 2012 opted in to the system.

It’s just another version of conservative “false equivalency,” this time focused on money in politics. As Firestone concludes, “…There’s a world of difference between a small group of tycoons writing huge checks, and a huge group of workers writing small ones.”

By all accounts Tuesday’s special election in congressional district FL-13 will be bellwether close, as Democrat Alex Sink tries to take the district from Republicans. According to Jennifer Leigh Oprihory’s Al.com post “Democrats, GOP test fall strategy in Florida House race,”: “…In an effort to deflect Republican attacks on the health care law and rollout problems, Democrats also plan to prominently feature proposed Republican curbs on Social Security and Medicare in competitive races across the country…”Those issues are paramount,” said Rep. Steve Israel of New York, who chairs the House Democrats’ campaign operation. “Having Republicans say that they want to cut Medicare but continue to fund massive subsidies to big oil companies … that will be a defining theme.” Those who want to help out with some last-minute calls on Sink’s behalf should click here.
Abby Rapoport explores “Why Does the National Media Get Texas so Wrong?” at The American Prospect and notes, “Arguing that the right is getting beat back because incumbents largely escaped unscathed misses the whole point. Many incumbents are Tea Party already.”
If you are looking for an apt description of Sarah Palin’s CPAC speech, Charles Pierce’s Esquire post “CPAC BONUS SATURDAY — THE PRINCESS IN EXCELSIS” should serve the purpose: “It was as singularly embarrassing a public address as any allegedly sentient primate ever has delivered. It was a disgrace to politics, to rhetoric, to the English language, and to seventh-grade slam books everywhere…She is the living representation of the infantilization of American politics, a poisonous Grimm Sister telling toxic fairy tales to audiences drunk on fear, and hate and nonsense…”
But Paul Begala explains why Ted Cruz’s bashing of war heroes Sens Dole and McCain as lacking in principles may be nearly as nauseating.
Those manly Republicans can’t stop gushing about Putin’s decisiveness. But former Secretary of Defense Gates sees it a little differently: “My own view is, after all, Putin invaded Georgia when George W. Bush was president. Nobody ever accused George W. Bush of being weak or unwilling to use military force…In the middle of a major international crisis, that some of the criticism, domestic criticism of the president ought to be toned down, while he’s trying to handle this crisis.”
Michael Tomasky reviews Lane Kenworthy’s “Social Democratic America” at The New York Review of Books and mulls over the possibilities for “A New Populism,” even under Hillary Clinton.
Sen. Sanders might contribute to elevating a new populism — if he runs as a Democrat.
Chris Cillizza doesn’t get into it in his post about the new Pew Research Center study, “Republicans’ young-people problem” at The Fix. But I suspect one of the most likely reasons why young people are turning off to the GOP in larger numbers than the Gen Xers is who they are blaming for the rapidly diminishing educational and career opportunities their generation faces.
The short answer would be ‘No.’

In her NYT article “New Democratic Strategy Goes After Koch Brothers,” Ashley Parker quotes Democratic pollster Geoff Garin: “In 2012, Mr. Garin produced a research project for Patriot Majority PAC, an outside Democratic group, looking at the public awareness that swing voters and traditionally Democratic constituencies have of the Koch brothers. He found that his focus group respondents had an “overwhelmingly negative” reaction to the Kochs’ political involvement, with their top concern being that “the Koch brothers’ agenda will hurt average people and the undermine the middle class….Our research has shown pretty clearly that once voters recognize the source of the attacks, they tend to discount them substantially.”
Democratic message fact for the day: “According to the Commerce Dept. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Obamacare accounted for about three quarters of the overall rise in Americans’ incomes in January.” — from Tara Culp-Ressler’s ThinkProgress post, “Obamacare Is Already Helping Boost Americans’ Personal Incomes.”
Call me crazy, but I’m more encouraged than discouraged by this headline and the story behind it by Dan Balz and Scott Clement: “Poll: Democrats’ advantage on key issues is not translating to a midterm-election edge,” since most voters don’t start paying attention until the last month or so before the election.
Scott Bland has a National Journal update on the Democrats’ difficult “red to blue” campaign targeting 16 House seats.
Given Hillary’s impressive polling numbers, even with Republicans, might it be a good idea to send her out on the trail now to help a few competitive Democratic congressional candidates, since her lead will likely diminish later? The idea is to leverage popularity of Democratic leaders while we have it.
At The Hill Jessica Taylor explains new developments in the battle for control of the U.S. Senate, and sees Democrats’ best hope for pick-ups in GA and MS, with a tough map to overcome elsewhere.
in his WaMo post, “Limits of the Republican Senate Wave,” however, Ed Kilgore flushes GOP fantasies about picking up Senate seats in the double digit range.
Quite an opportunity for the Arizona Democratic Party in this ArizonaCentral.com report by Daniel Gonzalez and Erin Kelley “From 2008 to 2012, the number of eligible Latino voters in Arizona increased 24 percent, to 989,000, up from 796,000, according to the report. But only 52 percent of eligible Latinos were registered in 2012, and only 40 percent of those eligible actually voted, according to the report…By comparison, 71 percent of eligible White voters were registered in 2012, and 62 percent voted.”
Looking ahead, Chris Cillizza’s “The one chart you need to understand why Republicans should be worried about 2016” merits a peek.

Jackie Calmes reports at The New York Times that “Democrats Try Wooing Ones Who Got Away: White Men” Calmes quotes TDS founding editor Ruy Teixeira: “”You can’t just give Republicans a clear field to play for the votes of white working-class men without putting up some sort of a fight because that just allows them to run the table with these voters, thereby potentially offsetting your burgeoning advantage among minorities, single women, millennials,” said Ruy Teixeira, an analyst at the left-leaning Center for American Progress.”
Pot is a big, possibly pivotal issue in the PA governor’s race. Thomas Fitzgerald of the Philly Inquirer explains why.
At HuffPo Sabrina Siddiqui takes a look at MoveOn’s billboard campaign, and notes: “MoveOn’s billboard campaign, which begins on March 3, will detail how many local residents have been denied health care coverage without the expansion. The Texas billboard, for example, takes aim at Republican Gov. Rick Perry and reads: “Welcome to Texas! Where Gov. Perry has denied 1,046,000 Texans health care and now all Texans are paying for it. It’s like a whole other country…A similar billboard in Florida knocks Republican Gov. Rick Scott, who endorsed the Medicaid expansion but went silent after the state’s GOP-led legislature rejected it. “Welcome to Florida! Where 763,000 people are denied health care because Gov. Scott won’t fight to expand Medicaid,” the sign reads.”
Half of all Republican U.S. Senators running in 2014 face primary challenges, reports Sean Sullivan at The Fix.
Jennifer L. Clark and DeNora Getachew report at MSNBC that voter suppression is finally getting some serious push-back in the states: “In fact, state legislation introduced this year shows real momentum toward improving our elections in every corner of the map. In the first three weeks of 2014 alone, at least 190 bills that would expand access to registration and voting were introduced in 31 states, compared to only 49 bills in 19 states that would restrict access, according to an analysis from the Brennan Center for Justice.”
At In These Times Sarah Jaffe reports on the emergence of the progressive Working Families Party, its successes and how it may affect Democratic prospects in key races.
From Lloyd Green’s Daily Beast post, “Republicans Better Mind the Modernity Gap To Catch Up to Clinton“: “Sasha Issenberg, the politics and tech watcher summed-up the Republicans’ tech predicament this way, “With an eager pool of academic collaborators in political science, behavioral psychology, and economics linking up with curious political operatives and hacks, the left has birthed an unexpected subculture. It now contains a full-fledged electioneering intelligentsia, focused on integrating large-scale survey research with randomized experimental methods to isolate particular populations that can be moved by political contact.” In other words, the art of electioneering is stacked in favor of the Democrats.”
At Crooks & Liars Howie Klein makes the case that the DSCC ought to be providing strong support for Maine’s Shenna Bellows in her campaign for senate against Republican Susan Collins. Klein notes that President Obama got 56 percent of the vote in Maine and Bellows is an astute progressive, much like Elizabeth Warren. Bellows’ ActBlue page is right here.
A better question than this one might be, can Democrats craft a message that resonates with both progressives and moderates?

An interesting tidbit from a New York Times story, “G.O.P., Though Deeply Split, Has Election Edge, Poll Shows” by Megan Thee-Brenan and Jonathan Martin, about an otherwise ho-hum NYT/CBS News poll showing the GOP having a less-than-m.o.e. lead over Dems: “At least one Republican leader is faring far worse in the public mind than Mr. Obama. Speaker John A. Boehner had an approval rating in the poll of just 26 percent. More notable, perhaps, was that it was just a bit higher, 33, percent, among Republicans.” The report also notes that “most Americans agree more with Democratic policy positions.”
According to Andy Sullivan’s Reuters post “Insight: How Obama alums aim to turn Texas toward the Democrats,”: “Turnout analysts say that Hispanics made up a disproportionate share of those who stayed home that year. Democrats also see opportunities to win over suburban white women who may feel alienated by the Republican Party’s rightward drift and support of cuts in education.”
Republicans kill another veterans benefits bill.
At the Rachel Maddow Show web page, Steve Benen (via Zachary Roth) notes the key statistic that explains Republican voter suppression in Ohio: “In 2008, black voters were 56% of all weekend voters in Cuyahoga County, Ohio’s largest, even though they made up just 28% of the county’s population.” Further, adds Benen, “Mike Brickner, a spokesperson for the Ohio American Civil Liberties Union, told msnbc, “By completely eliminating Sundays from the early voting schedule, Secretary Husted has effectively quashed successful Souls to the Polls programs that brought voters directly from church to early voting sites.”
According to Anna M. Phillips’s Tampa Bay Times Post , “Early voters may hold key in U.S. House District 13 election,” early voting is even more pivotal in parts of Florida: “Of those who have voted in this election, nearly 80 percent are age 55 and up. And though voters over the age of 65 make up about a third of the district’s electorate, they account for more than half of the people who have sent in mail ballots thus far…Two years ago, absentee voters in this district surpassed Election Day voters by more than 60,000 people.”
Now Canadian right-wingers are trying to copy Republican voter suppression policies.
Dems looking for some good messaging points challenging GOP economic policy should check out WaPo’s The Monkey Cage, where Larry Bartels pulverizes the Ryan-Rubio cliches about the free market being the most potent antidote to poverty: “…One of the clearest lessons of the past 50 years is that, in the modern American economy, we do not “rise or fall together…Virtually none of the gains of economic growth have gone to the bottom 40 percent of American households. Their real incomes, before taxes and transfers, are no higher than they were 40 years ago. Our “best anti-poverty program,” the free market, has done nothing at all to improve their lot…Republicans held the White House for most of the past 50 years, and they presided over even slower growth for poor and middle-class families than Democrats have…Far from being “incapable” of alleviating poverty, federal programs are responsible for much or all of our progress on that score since the 1960s.”
Meanwhile, the GOP war on labor unions in PA is gathering steam, with Republican Gov. Tom Corbett pledging to sign legislation designed to severely restrict organizing rights. Democratic U.S. Sen Bob Casey explains the stakes, “I think we have to be cognizant in states where this kind of threat was underestimated, it didn’t turn out very well for workers,” Casey said, citing the cases of Michigan and Wisconsin, where GOP-controlled legislatures passed similar right-to-work laws. “The real goal here is political and ideological, to weaken workers’ right to fight for better wages and benefits.”
Clearly, America needs a lot more of this.

At The Fix Chris Cilliizza explains why “Obama is right: Democrats’ ‘meh’ attitude toward midterms is a major problem“: “Obama is exactly right. His party — from the donor community to the activists — gets very excited about presidential elections but tends to lose interest (at least when compared with Republicans) in midterm elections…Republican gains in 2010 led to a redistricting process nationwide in 2011 that entrenched the Republican House majority, making it very difficult — though not impossible — for Democrats to recapture the chamber any time soon…And the impact of the 2010 midterm elections at the gubernatorial and state legislative level also had considerable policy consequences…More abortion restrictions were passed in state legislatures between 2011 and 2013 than in the entire previous decade. In the first six months of 2011 alone, six states passed stricter voter ID laws.”
Sen John McCain further damages his foreign policy cred.
Paul Krugman outs the GOP’s “Health Care Horror Hooey,” the phony ads and examples used to attack Obamacare. “Even supporters of health reform are somewhat surprised by the right’s apparent inability to come up with real cases of hardship…the true losers from Obamacare generally aren’t very sympathetic. For the most part, they’re either very affluent people affected by the special taxes that help finance reform, or at least moderately well-off young men in very good health who can no longer buy cheap, minimalist plans. Neither group would play well in tear-jerker ads.
At The National Journal Daniel Libit reports on “Democrats’ Southern Money-Suck Strategy: Someday they’d like to retake the South. For now they’re happy to make Republicans pay to keep it.” Libit notes the role of the Southern Progress Fund, which “seeks to build up the forgotten political infrastructure for Democrats below the Mason-Dixon Line…The group has committed itself to small-ball politics, deciding, for now, to concentrate on state and local races, while beefing up the technological capabilities of state Democratic parties.”
Also at The National Journal, Dems still have an edge in ground game strategy, and apparently the staff needed to implement it, as Alex Roarty reports in his article “The GOP’s Talent Gap: The party doesn’t have enough smart people working on its campaigns, and those who do are playing out of position.”
Don’t pay too much attention to reports on the latest University of Texas poll showing Democrat Wendy Davis lagging 11 points behind Republican Greg Abbott in the race for governor of Texas. It was conducted Feb. 7-17, and news reports that Abbott was campaigning with virulent hater Ted Nugent began appearing on the 18th.
At The New York Times Jeremy W. Peters “G.O.P. Leaders Draw Re-election Challenges From the Right” provides an insightful update on the GOP’s internecine strife.
Hofstra Proff Alan Singer’s HuffPo post “Only Aggressive Action Will Save the American Labor Movement” discusses the trade union movement’s current predicament — and how to get out of it. One of his observations: “Aggressive, illegal, actions may be the only way to save the labor movement in the United States. As Martin Luther King Jr. advised social activists in a “Letter from Birmingham Jail”: “One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”…Unions need to have muscle, they need to be willing to strike, they need to be willing to defy unjust laws, they need to welcome new members and not just represent those who hold onto relatively privileged better-paying jobs, and to they need to be more responsive to their members and potential members.”
Big mistake.