Mark Blumenthal and Ariel Edwards-Levy explain why we shouldn’t take instant poll reactions to the SOTU very seriously. And despite the impressive audience for the SOTU, I find it hard to disagree with Charlie Cook’s take.
Paul Krugman has a gem of a blog post “Obama and the One Percent,” noting “…there’s a danger, especially for progressives, of confusing the proposition that Obama’s billionaire haters are stark raving mad — which is true — with the proposition that Obama has done nothing that hurts the plutocrats’ interests, which is false. Actually, Obama has been tougher on the one percent than most progressives give him credit for…the one percent does have reason to be upset. No, Obama isn’t Hitler; but he is turning out to be a little bit of FDR, after all.” How he gets there is worth the read.
At NBC Politics Domenico Montanaro’s “Christie numbers tank as scandals continue” pegs the NJ Governor’s favorable ratings at 22 percent in a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.
Regarding the weak responses of Republican governors to the weather disaster in the southeast endangering tens of thousands, the finger-pointing has begun. Jim Galloway reports at the Atlanta Journal Constitution that GA Republican Gov. Nathan Deal “opened a late-night press conference on Tuesday with this: “As you know, we have been confronted with an unexpected storm that has hit the metropolitan area.” Galloway quotes Marshall Shepherd, president of the American Meteorological Society: “Meteorologists from the National Weather Service (NWS) in Atlanta issued Watches and Warnings BEFORE the event and provided ample time for decisions to be made. Yet, as soon as I saw what was unfolding with kids being stranded in schools, 6+ hour commutes, and other horror stories, I knew it was coming…Some in the public, social media or decision-making positions would “blame” the meteorologists. I began to hear things like…”there were no Watches or Warnings until snow started falling or “weather is just unpredictable.” Wrong, Wrong, Wrong, and Wrong!” Gov. Deal’s weak management of the emergency relief effort could be a potent message point for Democratic candidate for Governor Jason Carter in the north GA suburbs.
Yet another important victory for VA Democrats. As Laura Vozella puts it at the Washington Post, “Democrats prepared to seize control of the Virginia Senate on Monday after winning a recount by just 11 votes in a razor-thin special election, giving Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s first-year agenda a crucial boost.”
In the comments following Politico’s “The Case Against Early Voting” by Eugene Kontorovich and John McGinnis, a commenter named “Jane” responds, “The article also seems to conflate extremely long periods of early voting with early voting in general; as the article suggests, a voting period of one to two weeks certainly wouldn’t interfere with the debate schedule, as the candidates would have ample time to debate whichever issues they wished in the preceding months, and it is..I would simply like to remind the authors of the lines in Ohio precints during the ’08 and ’12 elections, and to consider how many people gave up and went home, despite being in a fiercely contested state, simply because they didn’t have time left in the day to exercise their right to vote; isn’t that more likely to sway an election? Early voting is the simplest and easiest solution to address this problem, even if it is an imperfect answer – if other proposals cannot find support and be enacted before midterm elections, we should settle for expanding early voting to all precincts.”
The Nation’s Ari Berman reports on “The New Nullification Movement: Some states are reviving disenfranchisement schemes that date back to the antebellum South.”
But it’s not only the south. Cincinnati City Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld posts on “The Subtle – And Not-So-Subtle – Strategies of Voter Suppression” at HuffPo, noting the gamesmanship that goes on in selecting early voting poll locations even in Ohio: “The proposed relocation would place in-person early voting at a site far removed from downtown with severely less access by public transportation. Whereas the current downtown location of early voting has greater bus connectivity than any site in the entire County, for the vast majority of riders the new location would require any combination of long commutes, bus transfers, hour-long waits to catch the next bus, and half-mile walks from where the bus line ends.”
In a NYT op-ed Ezekiel J. Emanuel eviscerates the GOP’s long awaited “alternative to Obamacare.”

Re MSM denial about the need for executive action, Greg Sargent says it well at The Plum Line:

Few pundits have been willing to reckon directly with the fundamentals of GOP obstructionism. A real reckoning would acknowledge that implacable GOP opposition to the Obama agenda, which began when the country was facing a dire, open-ended economic emergency, has for years been rooted in a combination of deliberate strategic choices and structural factors that have created a deeply unbalanced, unconventional situation. Commentators refuse to deal seriously with all of this — even though it is the actual cause of the very paralysis and dysfunction they regularly claim consternation about — and it will probably be absent from discussions of whether Obama’s planned executive actions are defensible

As for public opinion regarding Republican proclivities for bipartisan cooperation, Sargent explains:

…The new NBC/WSJ poll, for instance, finds that a majority of Americans, 51 percent, believe Republicans will be “too inflexible” with Obama, while only 25 percent say they have the balance right (one wonders about the faculties of the 17 percent who say Republicans have been “too quick to give in” to the president). By contrast, only 39 percent say Obama has been too inflexible with Republicans….Yesterday’s Pew poll found that by a huge margin of 52-27, Americans say Dems are more willing than Republicans to work with the opposition. While the GOP holds a narrow lead on the economy, it also found lopsided Dem advantages on which party is viewed as extreme and which party is more concerned with ordinary people — suggesting, again, awareness of the basic imbalance…Beyond all this, let’s remember that the minimum wage hike is popular – and Congressional Republicans aren’t.”

Republicans can whine all they want. But the public gets it, and it’s hard to see how the GOP’s complaining about popular — and much-needed — executive order is going to win them any swing voters in November.

NYT columnist Paul Krugman has a message suggestion for President Obama’s Tuesday SOTU: “There’s an enduring myth among the punditocracy that populism doesn’t sell, that Americans don’t care about the gap between the rich and everyone else. It’s not true. Yes, we’re a nation that admires rather than resents success, but most people are nonetheless disturbed by the extreme disparities of our Second Gilded Age. A new Pew poll finds an overwhelming majority of Americans — and 45 percent of Republicans! — supporting government action to reduce inequality, with a smaller but still substantial majority favoring taxing the rich to aid the poor…of the two great problems facing the U.S. economy, inequality is the one on which Mr. Obama is most likely to connect with voters.
Yawn, as many do, at state of the union addresses. But Mike Dorning reports at Bloomberg.net that “Though the 33.5 million viewers Obama drew last year is half the number Bill Clinton had 20 years earlier, the address remains a major TV event, topping both the Emmy Awards and World Series in viewership.” And team Obama is putting a lot of digital muscle into leveraging the speech: “The speech, usually about an hour long, “is the biggest engagement of the year” for the White House’s digital media operation, said its acting director, Nathaniel Lubin…The campaign includes Google Hangouts and Facebook (FB) chats by cabinet members and senior administration officials, a flood of advance Twitter messages under the hashtag #InsideSOTU, and an “enhanced” web live stream of the speech with graphics and data amplifying Obama’s themes. As part of the build-up, speechwriter Cody Keenan did a one-day “takeover” of the White House’s Instagram Account featuring photos of preparations.”
For their part, NYT’s Jeremy W. Peters explains that the Republican response to Tuesday’s SOTU will be largely balkanized, with the official response from the relatively unknown Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers being drowned out by bomb-throwers like Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Marco Rubio, who will be capering all over social media.
At CBSnews.com, Walt Cronkite’s “Schumer offers Democrats a strategy to defeat tea party” explains: “…in framing the debate with the tea party, Democrats should focus on four or five simple and easily explainable examples where government can help the average family. Schumer’s examples included: raising the minimum wage, assisting with college affordability, investment in national infrastructure, promoting equal pay for women, and ensuring America has fair trading relationships and isn’t exploited by countries like China.”
Although only 17 states and Washington, D.C. now approve same-sex marriage, that’s nine more than just a year ago. Further, regarding key bellwether states, WaPo’s Juliet Eilperin reports, “A decade after 62 percent of Ohio voters approved a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, a recent Quinnipiac poll showed a narrow majority now backs gay-marriage rights…The changing political dynamics were on full display this week as Virginia Attorney General Mark R. Herring (D) announced he would not defend the state’s ban on same-sex marriage on the grounds that it was unconstitutional. Herring won a close election with strong support from gay-rights groups, and his decision infuriated conservatives, who accused him of violating his oath to uphold state laws.”
Re Michelle Nunn’s chances for picking up a U.S. Senate seat in GA for Dems: “Her campaign will test whether the rapidly changing demographics of Georgia — where state elections data show that the white vote dropped to 61 percent of the total in 2012 from 75 percent in 2000 — have shifted enough to return a Democrat to Washington. And it will reveal how much legacy still matters in politics. from Sheryl Gay Stolberg’s NYT article “Old Democratic Name (Nunn) Stakes Bid on Shifting Georgia.” Further adds Stolberg, “Two of his closest Republican friends, former Senators John W. Warner of Virginia and Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, are now donors to Ms. Nunn. Mr. Warner attended the breakfast, he said, and walked away impressed. So did Mr. Nunn; watching his daughter tackle military policy questions changed his view of her race…”That morning,” he said, “was when I said to myself, ‘Hey, she’s got as good a shot as anybody in this race, maybe better.’ “…If Ms. Nunn has a path to victory, Democratic strategists say, it will be by increasing minority turnout while attracting independent-minded whites, especially young voters and women. Democrats hope that a potentially fractious Republican primary, with eight candidates, will produce a far-right opponent whom Ms. Nunn could defeat.
Melanie Trottman of the WSJ reports a small gain for unions in the private sector during 2013.
At ThinkProgress Aviva Shen’s “Conservative PAC Targets Secretary Of States Who Won’t Back Voter Suppression Laws” alerts Dems to a new GOP focus: “A new conservative super PAC hopes to proliferate more voter suppression laws by pouring money into secretary of state races. The group, SOS for SoS, is looking to spend $10 million in nine states in support of candidates who will champion “smart voting,” such as restrictive voter ID laws, voter purges, and proof of citizenship requirements. Secretaries of state set elections procedures and can determine mundane but crucial aspects like voting hours, provisional ballot rules, and recounts…The announcement, per Politico, comes days after a judge overturned Pennsylvania’s hotly contested voter ID law because it could disenfranchise 750,000 voters. A Democratic counterpart, SoS for Democracy, launched in December to promote secretary of state candidates who are against voter suppression measures. Currently, 29 secretaries of state are Republican, while 21 are Democrat…A recent study found that states with higher minority turnout are more likely to try to pass voter suppression laws.”
At The Monkey Cage Alan I. Abramowitz crunches recent opinion data on reproductive rights explains why “Americans may be divided on abortion, but it won’t matter for the midterms”: “abortion could have been a major wedge issue in 2012 — potentially prompting defections among those whose views differed from those of their party’s candidates. But despite efforts by candidates in both parties to exploit divisions among the opposing party’s supporters, such defections were limited. Only a small minority of voters whose opinions on abortion conflicted with their own party actually voted for the opposing party’s presidential candidate. Moreover, these defections essentially canceled each other out. According to the data from the 2012 ANES, 17 percent of strongly pro-life Democrats voted for Mitt Romney, and an identical 17 percent of strongly pro-choice Republicans voted for Barack Obama. Neither presidential candidate gained a clear advantage from voter defections on the issue of abortion in 2012…This is likely to be true in the 2014 midterm elections, as well…” Moreover, adds Abramowitz, exceptions tend to favor Democrats: “In 2012, two Republican Senate candidates, Todd Akin in Missouri and Richard Mourdock in Indiana, lost what appeared to be very winnable races because of defections by Republican voters. According to state exit polls, Republican defectors outnumbered Democratic defectors by 21 percent to 4 percent in Missouri and by 20 percent to 7 percent in Indiana. It seems likely that Akin’s and Mourdoch’s outspoken opposition to abortion even in the case of pregnancies caused by rape contributed to these extraordinarily high defection rates among Republican voters and to their defeats.”

To commemorate the MLK holiday in a relevant way, begin by reading Ned Resnicoff’s “Four ways Martin Luther King Jr. wanted to battle inequality” at MSNBC.com, which includes this nugget: “The 1968 Memphis strike was not the first time King had reached out directly to the labor movement. He had been delivering speeches before crowds of union members for years, calling for greater cooperation between the civil rights movement and the labor movement…”The labor movement was the principal force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress,” he told the Illinois State AFL-CIO in 1965. “Out of its bold struggles, economic and social reform gave birth to unemployment insurance, old-age pensions, government relief for the destitute, and, above all, new wage levels that meant not mere survival but a tolerable life.”
From Toluse Olorunnipa’s post “Christie Meets Florida Donors in Private Amid Democratic Taunts” at Bloomberg.com: It’s not every day that we have a governor visit Florida whose scandals burn so brightly that they outshine even those of our own scandal-plagued governor, Rick Scott,” said U.S. Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Florida Democrat and head of the DNC, at the press conference.
Nicole Hemmer’s “The Conservative War on Liberal Media Has a Long History” at The Atlantic illuminates the development of he environment that lead to the Roger Ailes/Fox News era.
Obama is cranking up the bully pulpit for the midterm elections, reports Jules Witcover at the Baltimore Sun.
Julian Zelizer’s CNN politics post “Five big questions on 2014 elections” offers this observation: “There are certain must-wins for Democrats if they are to show that they are capable of taking advantage of this moment. In Florida’s 13th District, Alex Sink, a well-known and well-respected Democrat, is attempting to win the seat of long-term Republican veteran Bill Young, who recently died, leaving open this highly competitive district. If Democrats can’t win this special election on March 11, it will signal trouble…Democrats will also be looking for a win in Florida’s 2nd District, where Gwen Graham is trying to defeat Rep. Steve Southerland in a test of whether the South has really softened as conservative territory. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has been pouring resources into the district to paint Southerland as a poster child for the House GOP. “Congressman Southerland’s reckless plan to repeal the entire Affordable Care Act would mean 614,200 consumers in Florida would be left without health insurance rebates,” said one party spokesperson.”
And Kyle Kondik notes at the Crystal Ball that “we’re changing the rating in the FL-13 special election from Toss-up to Leans Democratic. Unless national factors become so unfavorable for Democrats that they lift Jolly, we think this race is Sink’s to lose.”
From The Salt Lake Tribune, in the mother of all red states: “Poll: Utahns favor stricter air quality rules for industry.”
Roxana Hegeman writes at AZcentral.com that “The U.S. Election Assistance Commission on Friday rejected requests by Kansas, Arizona and Georgia to modify federal registration forms to allow their states to fully implement proof-of-citizen voting laws for their residents…The agency found that granting the states’ requests would “likely hinder eligible citizens from registering to vote in federal elections,” undermining the core purpose of the National Voter Registration Act.”
Meanwhile, Michael Muskal reports at the L.A. Times that “Pennsylvania voter ID law struck down by judge as unconstitutional.”

Another political myth appears ready for obliteration, the current fav which says that America is a ‘center-right’ nation. Democratic strategist and former AFL-CIO political director Steve Rosenthal wields the stake in his WaPo op-ed “America is Becoming More Liberal,” and he rams it straight into the heart:

…After two consecutive elections in which the Democratic candidate for president garnered more than 50 percent of the vote — a one-two punch last achieved by Franklin Roosevelt — it is worth questioning that assumption. The country is getting more diverse, and as the proportion of white voters shrinks, so, too, does the conservative base. As demographics shift, so do political preferences — in this case, toward the left. A close examination of U.S. attitudes in the past decade-plus reveals that the United States is steadily becoming more progressive.
It’s been well publicized how America has “evolved” on marriage equality. Washington Post/ABC News polling last year found that, by a margin of 58 percent to 36 percent , people believe their fellow Americans should be able to marry whomever they choose — something that would have been unthinkable less than a decade ago.
This progressive trend isn’t isolated to this issue. Over the past 10 or so years, national polls have shown that the general public is becoming more liberal on:
● Immigration. The last time the nation considered immigration reform, in 2006, 52 percent of respondents told Gallup that the priority should be halting the flow of illegal immigration. Just 43 percent preferred to deal with the undocumented immigrants already here. When Gallup asked the same question last July, the numbers had flipped: 55 percent thought the focus should be on immigrants already here, while 41 percent said the priority should be strengthening U.S. borders.
●Marijuana. In 2000, just 31 percent of Americans believed marijuana should be legalized, Gallup found, and 64 percent were opposed. The pro-legalization number has since tracked steadily upward. In October Gallup polling, 58 percent of respondents favored legalization and just 39 percent were opposed.
● Big business. Americans have grown more mistrustful of big business since 2002, when 50 percent of respondents told Gallup they were “very or somewhat satisfied” with the influence of major corporations. This number bottomed out at 29 percent in 2011 and 30 percent in 2012.

Looking at the states, the trend prevails, as Rosenthal explains:

…In recent elections, states that were once reliably Republican red in presidential elections — including Colorado, North Carolina and Nevada — have become competitive or even solid Democratic blue.
In the November election in Virginia, issues well to the left of the “Old Virginia” (read: conservative) mainstream not only failed to hurt Democrats but might even have helped them. Gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe (D) was vocal about his support for expanding Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, while Republican Ken Cuccinelli harped on Obamacare to curry favor with voters unhappy with the law. In the end, of course, McAuliffe won, and there was little evidence that health care hurt him or helped Cuccinelli’s final numbers. In the attorney general’s race, Democrat Mark Herring defied long-standing conventional wisdom and played up his position on gun safety. Herring defeated his opponent by pointing out Republican Mark Obenshain’s weak record on common-sense gun legislation such as comprehensive background checks and closing the gun-show loophole.
In the swing state of Iowa, recent extreme weather has convinced more people that the science behind climate change is real. In an Iowa State University annual poll of farmers — a traditionally conservative set — the share who believed in climate change last year was 74.3 percent, a significant jump from 67.7 percent in 2011, when the question was first asked.

Rosenthal argues, further, that “This should be a guiding light for politicians…Democrats no longer need to fear running on their beliefs. They should stop letting special interests on the right hold ideas and ideals hostage and start listening to voters.”
He concludes that “Progressives have an opportunity not only to come into the mainstream but also to lead — and shape public opinion…Democrats ought to argue for populist solutions such as raising the minimum wage, raising taxes on millionaires and corporations, rebuilding infrastructure, investing in education and instituting paid sick leave. Americans crave solutions, and they are moving to the left to find them.”
The “America is a center-right nation” myth will continue to resurface as a conservative meme targeting low-information voters. But those who read and reason should recognize it for what it is — the death throes of a long-discredited ideology.

Sarah Kliff’s Wonkblog post “Don’t believe the hype: Health insurers think Obamacare is going to be fine” provides a welcome antidote from industry experts to the GOP hysteria.
HuffPo’s Jason Linkins illuminates Christie’s ‘Shadow Primary’ problem with this quote from Matthew Yglesias: “…in order to win, any candidate needs to first gain the allegiance (or at least nonhostility) of a wide range of elites outside his immediate political circle. House members from South Carolina. State senators from Iowa. Anti-abortion activists in New Hampshire. Talk radio hosts. Fox News executives. Donors. Lobbyists. State-level Chamber of Commerce chiefs. These people are paying attention right now, and they’re thinking about who they want to back and who they want to bandwagon against. And there’s just no way this bridge thing is making any of those people more likely to support Christie than they were six months ago. Republican elites are mostly looking to find a candidate who is both conservative, effective, and electable and this makes him look less electable and less effective without making him look more conservative…” Linkins adds, “When you consider that Christie is likely to draw competitors like Jeb Bush, Paul Ryan and Scott Walker, as opposed to Tim Pawlenty, Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain, there’s no reason for party elites to be desperate or settle early.”
WaPo’s Paul Kane discusses prospects for a Blue Dog resurrection.
But at The Hill, Mario Trujillo’s “Blue Dogs recruit four vulnerable Dems” notes that “All the new members won their last elections with less than 55 percent of the vote. The National Republican Congressional Committee has singled out both Barber and Rahall, who represent red-leaning districts that went to Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential election.” However, “Democrats have also looked to protect the swing districts held by the new Blue Dog members. All but Rahall have been named to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s Frontline Program, which protects vulnerable incumbents.”
In an NYRB cover story, Gary Wills concludes that Joe Scarborough’s plan to save the GOP from itself has a few major blind spots: “Scarborough’s silly picture of American politics leaves out most of the things that matter–including (but not restricted to) race, religion, and money. And the greatest of these is money.”
Politico’s Tal Kopan, Politico and Gallup headline writers have what strikes me as a textbook example of biased poll interpretation for government-bashing. Here’s her lede: “Americans continue to identify government itself as the biggest problem facing the nation in a new poll, although the numbers have come down since the end of the government shutdown…Asked to name the most important problem facing the country today, 21 percent of those surveyed in a Gallup poll out Wednesday cited government and politicians.” But the exact wording of the choice that received a 21 percent response to Gallup’s question was “Dissatisfaction with government/Congress/politicians/poor leadership/corruption/abuse/power.” Some of the blame, however, should be shared with the ejits who crafted the response choice, which is so broad as to make the poll worthless.
Politico’s Manu Raju and Carrie Budoff Brown have a more nuanced analysis of “Obama’s Plan to Save the Senate.”
E.J. Dionne, Jr.’s profile of Rep. George Miller, “The Lost Art of Tough Liberalism” merits a thoughtful read by m.c.’s and their staffers and offers an interesting suggestion: “Congress could use more liberals who can brawl and negotiate at the same time. Perhaps Miller will now open a school for progressive legislators. He could name it after Ted Kennedy.”
Can the Koch brothers buy a U.S. Senate seat for the Republicans in N.C.? Kris Kromm discusses the disturbing possibilities in his Facing South post “Hagan, Southern lawmakers targeted in Obamacare attack ads.”

Even Christie’s mentor, the respected former Republican Governor Thomas H. Keane has serious doubts that the NJ governor is ready for prime time. Paul Steinhauser reports at CNN Politics that “Plenty in his own party happy to see Christie get comeuppance.”
With congress in gridlock, Nicholas Confessore writes in The New York Times about how “A National Strategy Funds State Political Monopolies.” Confessore notes, “”People who want to see policies enacted, and see things tried, are moving their activity to the states, and away from Washington,” said Ed Gillespie, a longtime Republican strategist who has played a central role in efforts to swing state legislatures to Republican control. “There is a sense that you can get things done.”…At a time when Washington appears hopelessly divided and gridlocked, elected officials in one-party states have aggressively reshaped government policy, whether legalizing same-sex marriage and marijuana, abolishing taxes and regulations, or restricting guns or labor unions.”
At New York Magazine, Jonathan Chait writes about “That Awkward Moment When Republicans Have to Hurt the Poor Before They Can Love Them.”
Chait, like TDS’s James Vega, also wonders if the Republicans’ top newspaper columnist is losing it.
For an interesting mini-history of Republican-driven voter suppression in a major swing state, read “Manipulating voting laws to win elections has long been a GOP game in Ohio” by ThePlain Dealer’s Thomas Suddes. Chrissie Thompson of the Cincinnati Enquirer explains the latest round of Ohio’s voter suppression laws here.
At the Social Worker Helper Shoshannah Sayers, deputy executive director of the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, explains how “Redistricting: The Hidden Side of Voter Suppression” disenfranchises minority voters in NC. Also at SWH Lydia Long writes about NC college students getting mobilized against voter suppression.
Even a right wing group’s commissioned poll finds that only 36 percent of respondents believe that voter fraud (which Republicans use to justify voter i.d. restrictions) is a “major problem,” reports Josh Israel at Think Progress.
Scott Clement reports at The Fix that “…43 percent of Democrats called themselves liberal in 2013, compared with just 32 percent who said this 10 years ago. The shift toward liberal identity has come about equally from moderates (minus five points since 2003) and conservatives (minus six points). By contrast, the trend line for liberal identity among Republicans and independents is flat.”
Wonkblog’s Neil Irwin makes the case why no one should get freaked out about the latest jobs report: “All the other evidence we have on how the economy is doing is inconsistent with a mere 74,000 newly added jobs, and in fact is more consistent with the 200,000-ish levels of previous months. Manufacturing surveys are reporting strong output. Trade numbers are looking favorable. Business investment appears strong. Indeed, overall GDP growth for the second half of 2013 now looks to have been the strongest in years.

CNN Political Commentator/Democratic strategist Paul Begala isn’t having any of Gov. Christie’s “embarrassed and humiliated” explanation. As Begala explains:

To be fair, Christie faced a dilemma: Either admit to creating a climate of bullying, intimidation and political payback that led to the George Washington Bridge scandal, or claim that his staff and appointees disrupted traffic on the world’s busiest bridge as political punishment without his knowledge. In the business we call it a choice between being a crook or a schnook.
Ladies and gentlemen, meet Gov. Schnook.
A schnook, for those who don’t speak Yiddish, is a dupe. A fool. A patsy. A schnook is a victim, and Chris Christie is not convincing playing the victim. He wants us to believe that Gov. Straight-Talk, Mister No-B.S., credulously believed a pack of lies from his close aides.
He wants us to believe that, as a former federal prosecutor, he thought his one-hour “investigation” of this operation, which yielded no confessions, was all that he could have done to unearth the truth. The governor clearly hopes that his press conference, his apology and his firing of one whole person will put this issue to rest.
It won’t.

Begala goes on to argue that Christie’s troubles are not going away, and he cites three reasons why this scandal has a long way to go before it’s over: 1. It feeds a pre-existing narrative. 2. There are ongoing legal and political processes. 3. It happened at the media epicenter. Read more about Begala’s rationale right here.

Gov. Christie’s collapse, soon to be reflected in polls, provides Democrats with an unexpected meme along the lines of “See, even the more moderate Republicans do dirty tricks and don’t care that they create hardships for and endanger their constituents.” Dems can’t be blamed for savoring his meltdown, especially since Christie had topped Hillary in a recent poll.
As one who thought Christie’s act would probably wear thin by 2016 for different reasons (bluster gets tiresome after a while), however, I’m thinking maybe Dems should restrain their jubilation and see how this plays out. Work it, sure. But don’t do the happy dance quite yet.
For one thing Christie’s continued rise would likely have divided his party even more, which is a good thing for Dems, strategically. There are no “moderate” Republicans waiting in the wings to fill the vacuum and exacerbate the divisions, unless Huntsman suddenly grows the chops to score significant primary victories. Rand Paul will make a loud play, but he carries a lot of racist and anti-blue collar worker baggage. Huckabee will try to fill the void, but there’s a reason he got little traction on his last outing. The GOP field now has an opening for a dark horse.
The upside of Christie’s debacle for Democrats is nonetheless substantial. I would be very surprised if the voters of NJ didn’t sour on him and his party. It reminds voters who admired his ‘straight-talking’ style that style can be a facade. He’s now more frequently likened to Nixon than John Wayne. The Christie persona will not be replicated for a while at least. It looks an awful lot like a permanent stain — it may be that the longer he stays in office, the better for Democrats.
Most voters will tell you that both parties have scandals and moral lapses, and Democrats have their share of messes. But can anybody who knows Democratic leaders imagine their staff people being stupid/evil enough to tie up a major city and endanger lives for the sake of political spite? We haven’t seen that level of malevolence since Watergate or maybe Bush II. False equivalence is a very tough sell on this one.

Hard to see how Christie recovers enough from his scandal to run as a national candidate. Recent polls suggest Rep. Paul Ryan may be in position to be the most likely beneficiary in terms of GOP presidential nomination, at least for a while. But watch the other right-wing cheese-head, union-bashing Gov. Scott Walker, who has shades-of-Reagan cred with all GOP factions and better media skills.
And the “Ya think?” award for euphemistic headline-writing goes to…
Christie’s shenanigans notwithstanding, I would have to give Marco Rubio the award for political shamelessness, voting against extending unemployment benefits, and then trashing the War on Poverty, despite mountains of data proving it was a success. At least we’ll always have the deliciousl Youtube video of Rubio‘s eyes darting around like a ridiculous deer-caught-in-the-headlights, as he reaches for water.
NYT columnist Russ Douthat talks frames for “better [conservative] policy ideas” for addressing poverty: “But really, the most important thing is to actually have an agenda, which is why at this point I’m not all that concerned about whether Republicans are talking about fighting poverty or the middle class or both: I just want them to be talking up and trying out policy ideas…” Outside of tax cuts for the wealthy and bashing Obamacare, he will likely have a very long wait.
After giving LBJ due credit for his leadership of the War on Poverty, spare a thought for Sargent Shriver, the “architect” of the idea — as well as the Peace Corps, Job Corps, Upward Bound, Vista and Head Start. He also served as Head of the Office of Economic Opportunity, chairman and president of the Special Olympics. As much as any Democrat of his times, he provided the conscience of his party on helping the disadvantaged.
Some interesting stats from Ariel Edwards-Levy’s HuffPo post “America’s Record Number Of Independents Aren’t As Independent As You Might Think“: “The movement in party identification doesn’t represent a seismic change in Americans’ views, however, so much as an increased unwillingness to be tethered to either party, especially the GOP. When Gallup asked those independents whether they leaned toward one side, just a fraction — about 10 percent of Americans — described themselves as purely independent. The rest leaned equally toward one party or the other, with 16 percent expressing more of an affinity for the Democrats, and 16 percent for the GOP…The difference between partisan-leaning independents and their brethren among the party faithful tends to blur at the ballot box. In 2008, 90 percent of Democratic leaners went to now-President Barack Obama, and about 80 percent of Republican leaners to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), according to exit polls.”
At CNN Opinion Julian Zelizer explores “America’s real problem: Too much bipartisanship. ‘ As Zelizer notes in a teaser graph, “But with all of our discussions of difference and discord, too often we miss some areas where both parties are actually in unspoken agreement. There is a consensus view that encapsulates what’s really wrong in Washington.”
If David Weigel’s Slate post “Obamacare. Obamacare. Obamacare: The Republican strategy for winning the Senate in 2014 is a single word” is right, Dems should expect the GOP ACA refusenik governors to hold the line through the elections — which may prove disastrous for them.
Well, at least we won’t need much paint.