You’ve heard it before. But David Welna’s npr.org post “With Nominees Stalled, Democrats Reprise Filibuster Threat” notes signs that Dems maybe ready to rumble: “Democrats say that this time, they’re ready to pull the trigger on what’s known as “the nuclear option.” Doing so would amount to altering the rules not with the traditional two-thirds majority but a simple majority of 51…Several other senior Democrats have also come around to embracing such a rules change, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California….”I think we need to change the rules,” Feinstein said. “Now, Republicans say, ‘What goes around comes around. Wait ’til we’re in charge.’ I can’t wait until they’re in charge. I mean, the moment is now. We’re here for now.”
At Think Progress John Halpin reveals “Here’s Why The ‘White Vote’ Is A Myth.” Reviewing a recent study by the Center for American Progress and Policylink, Halpin notes, “A huge divide between whites is one of the most important: while 58 percent of white liberals believe that we must work together on common challenges, 59 percent of white conservatives said that people are basically on their own (overall, 36 percent of white respondents self-identified as ‘liberal’ and 50 percent of whites as ‘conservative’)…By contrast, majorities of African-Americans and Latinos — regardless of ideological self-identification — hold a more collective understanding of the economy. 73 percent of African-American liberals and 60 percent of African-American conservatives believe that we must work together on common economic challenges (46 percent of African-Americas self-identify as ‘liberal’ and 38 percent as ‘conservative’). Fifty-six percent of Latino liberals and 53 percent of Latino conservatives believe similarly (45 percent of Latinos self-identify as ‘liberal’ and 43 percent as ‘conservative’). Asian responses on this particular question more closely resemble those of whites than other people of color.”
Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson explains why “Voter suppression the new GOP strategy“: “Voter suppression has become the linchpin of Republican strategy. After Mitt Romney’s defeat in 2012, the GOP was briefly abuzz with talk of expanding the party’s appeal to young and Latino voters. Instead, the party doubled down on its opposition to immigration reform and its support for cultural conservatism — positions tantamount to electoral suicide unless the youth and minority vote can be suppressed. Meyerson shares what is known about the huge amounts of money Republicans are investing in buying elections, although most of their contributions are shrouded in secrecy. He conclude, “If you want to vote in the Republicans’ America, remember to bring your birth certificate. But if you want to buy an election and stay under wraps, your secret is safe with them.”
Robert Higgs reports at ohio.com that “In a party-line vote, the Ohio Senate on Wednesday approved a bill to shorten early voting to eliminate the so-called “Golden Week” that allowed people to both register to vote and cast early in-person absentee ballots at the same time…The Senate passed the bill by a vote of 20-13. The 20 yes votes all came from Republicans. The no votes all came from Democrats. The bill now moves to the House.”
At Maddowblog Steve Benen explains “ACA slows growth in health costs.” Says Benen “How good are the number figures? According to a new report published by Jason Furman, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, over the last three years – the period since “Obamacare” became the law of the land – per capita health care spending has grown at a rate of 1.3%. “This is the lowest rate on record for any three-year period and less than one-third the long-term historical average stretching back to 1965,” Furman noted.”
Joan McCarter’s “Obamacare enrollments surging, HealthCare.gov working better” at Daily Kos provides a share-worthy antidote to the GOP’s ACA spin. As McCarter points out, “enrollements across the country are surging, coming in ahead of projections in states across the country.” Further, adds McCarter, quoting from a Noam H. Levey’s L.A. Times article on the topic, “What we are seeing is incredible momentum,” said Peter Lee, director of Covered California, the nation’s largest state insurance marketplace, which accounted for a third of all enrollments nationally in October. California–which enrolled about 31,000 people in health plans last month–nearly doubled that in the first two weeks of this month…Several other states, including Connecticut and Kentucky, are outpacing their enrollment estimates, even as states that depend on the federal website lag far behind. In Minnesota, enrollment in the second half of October ran at triple the rate of the first half, officials said. Washington state is also on track to easily exceed its October enrollment figure, officials said.”
In a similar vein, read Paul Waldman’s American Prospect post, “Obamacare Panic to Enter Even Stupider New Phase,” which notes “January 1 is the end of any talk of repeal, and Republicans know it–as many of them have been saying all along, once you start giving people benefits, it’s all but impossible to take them away. That doesn’t mean there isn’t still work to do, and it doesn’t mean there aren’t things that could go wrong. Nor does it mean there might not be piecemeal fixes to one or another provision debated in the future; there almost certainly will be. But unless you think that in the next six weeks Republicans are going to manage to put together a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress to repeal the ACA–something you’d have to be nuts to believe–it’s never going to happen.”
Ditto, says Krugman.
Enjoy, mateys, the headline above this video: “NBC News Pollsters ‘Shocked’ By Horrible Numbers For GOP“:

The meme-mongers of the Republican’s mighty message machine are not going to like Ronald Brownstein’s National Journal article “Poll: Most Americans Oppose Obamacare Repeal Despite Rollout Troubles,” which reviews the findings of a new United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll, conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International. As Brownstein explains:

Despite sharp divisions over the long-term impact of President Obama’s health-reform law, fewer than two in five Americans say it should be repealed, virtually unchanged since last summer, the latest United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll has found.
Amid all the tumult over the law’s troubled implementation, the survey found that public opinion about it largely follows familiar political tracks and has changed remarkably little since the summer on the critical question of what Congress should do next. On that measure, support for repeal has not significantly increased among any major group except Republicans and working-class whites since the Congressional Connection Poll last tested opinion on the question in July.

Brownstein goes on to note that major Democratic constituencies remain supportive of the legislation, and “Congressional Democrats inclined to distance themselves from the law in the hope of placating skeptical independent or Republican-leaning voters face the risk of alienating some of their core supporters.” He adds that “A slim 52 percent majority agreed with the negative assessment: “The law is fundamentally flawed and will do more to hurt the nation’s health care system than improve it,” while “…46 percent endorsed the more positive sentiment: “The law is experiencing temporary problems and will ultimately produce a better health care system for the country.”
In terms of demographic breakdown, Brownstein explains:

Since last July’s poll, support for repeal has oscillated only slightly (or not at all) for self-identified Democrats (9 percent now, unchanged since July) and independents (40 percent now compared with 41 percent then); whites (48 percent versus 44 percent) and nonwhites (unchanged at 16 percent); young adults under 30 (unchanged at 26 percent) and seniors (42 percent now versus 40 percent then). The survey recorded a somewhat bigger shift toward repeal among whites without a college degree (up to 53 percent from 46 percent last summer) and self-identified Republicans (74 percent now, from 65 percent last summer). But whites with at least a four-year college degree remained essentially unchanged, with 36 percent now backing repeal, compared with 39 percent in July.
Indeed, like the question over the law’s eventual impact, this measure found clear signs of doubt among the key elements of the modern Democratic coalition, but no indication that they are rushing to abandon health reform: Repeal drew support from just one-sixth of minorities, one-fourth of millennials, and one-third of college-educated white women, the groups on which Democrats now rely most.

You wouldn’t know it from the major TV networks’ uncritical parroting of the GOP’s message du jour, but not much has changed since the rollout in terms of the constituency for repealing the ACA. Most American voters opposed Obamacare repeal during the summer, and they still feel that way today — which is interesting, considering that the Republicans have thrown everything they have at this law, including the rollout glitches.

In his MSNBC.com report “Wisconsin GOP aims to scrap weekend voting,” Zachary Roth explains “The measure, which passed the state assembly Thursday, would give municipalities two choices for early voting, known in the state as in-person absentee voting: they could offer it either from 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays in the two weeks before an election; or at any time on a weekday, but not to exceed 30 hours per week, again in the two weeks before an election…That would mean a reduction in early voting hours for the state’s two biggest cities, Milwaukee and Madison–which are also its most important Democratic strongholds…Scrapping weekend voting will hit African-Americans particularly hard, Rev. Willie Brisco, who leads an alliance of Milwaukee churches, told msnbc…”A lot of people in our community are working two or three jobs, odd hours, having difficulty with childcare,” said Brisco. “So the weekend and the early voting reaches a lot of those people.”
Further evidence that the Republicans are getting increasingly brazen about voter suppression from Richard L. Hasen’s New York Times op-ed “Voter Suppression’s New Pretext“: “Says Texas: “It is perfectly constitutional for a Republican-controlled legislature to make partisan districting decisions, even if there are incidental effects on minority voters who support Democratic candidates.”
At The American Prospect Paul Waldman’s article title and subtitle puts the Obamacare nailbiting in a more sober perspoective: “Memo to Democratic Chicken Littles: The Sky Is Not Falling: Yes, this is a politically difficult moment for President Obama. But everyone needs to chill out.”
Former Bushie David Frum continues to risk excommunication from his party by suggesing, gasp, reasonable compromise, as in his latest post, “Why It’s Time To Start Talking About Reforming, Not Repealing, Obamacare” at The Daily Beast.
The Upton bill that has passed the House with substantial support from Blue Dog/moderate Democrats is a step backward in terms of policy. But, despite the Obama-bashing rhetoric accompanying it, the billl may be the first indication that the “Repeal Obamacare” lunacy of the Republican Party is slowly dissolving and being replaced by a more realistic movement for “reforms.” Meanwhile former speaker Pelosi provides a good soundbite, which Obamacare defenders can use: “I wish that my Republican colleagues could see how successful the Affordable Care Act is in California,” Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California said. “I wish you could hear the stories of family after family after family being liberated and freed from the constraint of being job-locked because a family has a pre-existing condition.”
This new Zogby poll has Obama’s approval numbers down 3 points. But interestingly, he is holding steady with younger voters,” despite all of the GOP Obamacare fear-mongering directed at this demographic.
at HuffPollster, Jon Ward explores “What Does Obama’s Approval Rating Mean For 2014?,” quoting Sean Trende: “[P]residential job approval is still the most important variable for how his party fares in midterm elections, explaining about half of the variance. The relationship is highly statistically significant: For every point in job approval the president loses, his party loses 0.6 percent of its caucus….As I’ve said before, this election isn’t going to be about sixth-year itches or any such electoral mumbo-jumbo. It’s going to be about presidential job approval, supplemented by the state of the economy (which also affects job approval to a degree) and how overexposed or underexposed the president’s party is. Right now, the second factor provides a drag beyond the president’s job approval, while the third factor will work heavily to Democrats’ advantage on Election Day….It is still far too early to speculate about how many seats Democrats will lose (or perhaps gain) in the 2014 elections. But if Obama’s job approval is 40 percent on Election Day, gains would be unlikely, and Democratic losses in the low double digits — perhaps even as many as the 20 or so seats that would accompany losing 11 percent of their caucus, a la 1950 — would be plausible.”
If even half of the reports about the dangers posed by Fukushima pollution are true, Dems might be wise to prepare for nuclear power being a much more significant issue in the 2014 elections.
In his WaPo column, “Hillary Clinton faces a different Democratic Party,” Harold Meyerson has a thoughtful warning for Democratic 2016 front-runner Hillary Clinton: “And therein lies the challenge for Hillary Clinton: How to present herself on economic issues? The surest way she can alienate significant segments of her party — perhaps to the point of enabling a progressive populist such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) to enter the race — is to surround herself with the same economic crew that led her husband to untether Wall Street and that persuaded Obama, at least in his first term, to go easy on the banks. The economy isn’t likely to be significantly better in 2016 than it is today, and Democratic voters will be looking for a more activist, less Wall Street-influenced nominee.”

Hopefully this Quinippiac poll is an outlier. The Democratic tumble seems awfully sudden and steep.
The Virginia Democratic sweep is looking pretty solid — the first VA trifecta since 1989.
Here’s a message that might resonate with swing voters: “Republicans are coming after your sick leave.” As Bryce Covert reports at Moyers & Company “Ten states — Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Wisconsin — have passed preemption laws that ban all cities and counties from enacting paid sick days bills, according to an analysis from the Economic Policy Institute.” When the benefit is gone for government workers, the private sector will not be far behind.
This is just plain weird, even for California. New Age guru Marianne Williamson is an inspiring speaker on political topics and a solid progressive. She could bring a compelling voice to the House. But why run against one of the best progressive Democrats in Congress, when she could move to another district and unhorse a Republican?
Ari Berman reports at Moyers & Company that “Voter Suppression Backfires in North Carolina, Spreads in Texas.”
Kyle Kondik, Managing Editor, Sabato’s Crystal Ball, explores “What a Successful Midterm Looks Like: Setting expectations for both Republicans & Democrats in 2014.” Kondik’s take at this political moment: “Losing just two seats would probably be the best-case scenario for Democrats, and would probably also coincide with a positive national environment that also generates gains in the House: Perhaps not the requisite 17, but maybe somewhere in the high single digits…Democrats’ best hope might be that the Republican Party is so unpopular — according to the HuffPost Pollster average, just 28% have a favorable view of the party compared to 58% who have an unfavorable view — that the typical rules of a midterm, which can be dictated by the approval of a president or the state of the economy, might simply not apply.”
At WaPo’s PostPartisan Jonathan Bernstein makes the case that “It’s time to go nuclear in the Senate.
Larry Summers provides an impressive defense of Obamacare on Morning Joe, noting among other factors that the now-popular Massachusetts health care plan had low enrollment when it was first rolled out.
I say yes. Boehner may have a safe seat. But Dems running in every House district should not hesitate to remind voters about the costs of his lousy leadership. More than any other political figure, he embodies Gridlock, Obstruction and Paralysis. He is Mr. GOP.

If you haven’t done so already, make Isaiah Poole’s “Winning Isn’t The Only Thing. It’s About Movement-Building” at The Campaign for America’s Future blog your required reading for the day. Poole packs several important observations about the Virginia governor’s election — and progressive politics in general — into his post.
First, although McAuliffe’s disciplined and well-organized campaign merits praise and emulation, the ‘dog that didn’t bark’ needs some attention. As Poole explains::

A major key to forging an enduring progressive majority is to connect the elements of the Obama coalition – young people, single women and people of color, the so-called “rising American electorate” – with white, working-class voters receptive to an economic populist message, what Rev. Jesse Jackson in his 1988 presidential bid called the “rainbow coalition.”
Simply put, McAuliffe did not complete the rainbow. His win, even though it was a decisive defeat of a tea party hero, doesn’t offer a template for rebuilding the electoral framework for progressive reform. Establishing that template and using it to dismantle the tea-party stranglehold on government is going to be the challenge of 2014 and beyond.

Poole points out that “What most voters saw of McAuliffe was that he was not Cuccinelli” and adds “McAuliffe looked a lot like the wheeling-dealing corporate wing of the Democratic Party, not a grassroots fighter against the power brokers of Wall Street and Washington.” Some might say that McAuliffe had the right formula for Virginia at this political moment, which is what was needed to win, however narrowly. But Poole continues,

Large swaths of voters were unimpressed. Exit polls show that McAuliffe lost male voters by three percentage points (45 percent to 48 percent for Cuccinelli). He won female voters by nine percentage points (51 percent vs. 42 percent for Cuccinelli), but he actually lost white female voters decisively (38 percent vs. 54 percent for Cuccinelli). Cuccinelli won voters with less than a four-year college education and voters earning between $50,000 and $100,000 a year. He also won the lion’s share of the state’s rural counties.
Particularly striking is the exit poll finding that among voters who were most worried about the direction of the nation’s economy, Cuccinelli won handily, by a margin of 64 percent to 29 percent. McAuliffe simply did not present himself as a compelling choice for voters who feel left out in today’s economy.

Regarding the largest potential swing constituency, white working-class voters, Poole observes:

Coming up with a way to win the white working-class voting blocs where McAuliffe underperformed has been a preoccupation of Andrew Levison, a contributing editor at The Democratic Strategist and the author of “The White Working Class Today: Who They Are, How They Think and How Progressives Can Regain Their Support.” His core argument is that a candidate can be an unabashed progressive economic populist and still be competitive among restive working-class voters that have been lured into supporting tea-party candidates.
What Levison explicitly rejected in a recent interview is the model of so-called “Third Way” or “moderate” Democrats who borrow heavily from conservative policy positions in an effort to woo Republican support. “The centrists [in Congress] who claimed that they were representing their constituents when they were writing dirty tax deals on behalf of corporations, that’s not at all what I’m talking about,” he said. “You don’t have to do that to win white working-class voters. In fact, quite the contrary.”
What Levison envisions instead are economic populist candidates who are comfortable with the values of red-state and purple-state working-class voters and who can then earn the trust of those voters as they advance progressive prescriptions. What those candidates need as support are local institutions that can serve the same role that unions, Democratic Party organizations and some churches used to play when the Democratic Party was dominant in many of these districts until the 1980s – supplying what Levison called “a framework and interface through which people can see government at work” and “the speed bump that kept white working class people from falling into a conservative framework.”

Poole adds that “Polls show that a large percentage of white working-class voters and the rising American electorate share a common disdain for the fact that so much of the political system is rigged in favor of the wealthy and the powerful. They also understand in a visceral way how the middle class has fallen behind…” He notes that pollster Celinda Lake has identified several common concerns shared by the rising American electorate and red state voters, including “raising the minimum wage, requiring equal pay for equal work, and pushing for affordable child care, and paid family maternity and sick leave.”
As for conservative government-bashing, Poole distills a salient insight from Levison’s book:

Levison says progressives need to do a better job of giving people a way of grasping how government can be used as a tool to improve their economic condition. That, he argues, requires patience with people who are used to hearing that government is a remote, alien entity that hinders instead of helps, and should thus be pushed out of the way.
“If you’ve never encountered the Keynesian idea in an economic textbook, the idea that government spending stimulates the economy doesn’t sound plausible,” he said. “You have to have learned that framework in order to grasp the idea. … Once you understand that, it makes perfect sense. If you don’t, it sounds insane.”

Poole notes that Levison’s insights are reflected in the efforts of ‘Working America,’ which is building a grass-roots “membership of millions” who are participating in “face-to-face, one-voter-at-a-time movement-building.” He quotes Karen Nussbaum, who heads Working America:

“We talk to working-class moderates about good jobs and a just economy and part of the solution is that we need strength in numbers; join Working America so we can fight the corporate elites who are destroying our democracy, and two out of three people join,” Nussbaum said…”These are people who are not in the progressive movement, but they totally agree with us…”

Looking toward the future, Poole cautions “Democrats should not make the opposite mistake of believing that it is winning that matters, and the principles that candidates advance on their way to victory, and the coalitions they knit together, don’t matter.” Further, adds Poole:

What we really need to build is a new consensus based on an economic vision that is more positive and more powerful than tea-party anger – of full employment and economic security based on an economy that works for everyone, not just for a favored few. In that regard, the landslide election of Bill de Blasio in New York City – where white working-class voters have helped elect a series of Republicans, a Republican-turned-independent and center-right Democrats for the better part of the past four decades – is a more important beacon for the way forward than Virginia…Let’s be restrained with the congratulations over Tuesday’s elections until we see more evidence that we’re building a real “rainbow” progressive coalition.

Dems should savor our victories, however broad or limited in scope they may be. But we should also nurture a vision that extends beyond the next election, even decades ahead, so the inevitable setbacks will not discourage or deter the Democratic coalition.
Even as Dems congratulate McAuliffe for his well-run campaign, let’s not assume that it is a transferable template. Nor should we dismiss the possibility that he might have won by a larger margin by more assertively addressing the economic concerns of white working-class voters. Poole is right that building a progressive social movement that is well-rooted in all major constituencies, including the white working-class, is the key to creating a decent society for everyone. And that’s a strategy that should be replicated everywhere.

In “Black Voters, Not the ‘Gender Gap,’ Won Virginia for McAuliffe,” Zerlina Maxwell makes the point that “Women of color are the “gender gap.”
From The New York Times editorial on “Low Stress Voting.” “The Brennan Center for Justice recommends that New York and other states with outdated election schedules provide for a two-week voting period instead of cramming it all into one day. At least 32 states and the District of Columbia offer some form of early voting, and apparently voters like it a lot…The center’s survey found that early voting also means shorter lines, better performance by poll workers and more time to fix broken machines or other problems.”
Harold Meyerson considers “What Divides Democrats” — and what should unite Dems — at The American Prospect.
At last — a big presidential push for infrastructure investment. A Bloomberg poll found earlier this year that “Americans by 49 percent to 44 percent believe Obama’s proposals for government spending on infrastructure, education and alternative energy are more likely to create jobs than Republican calls to cut spending and taxes to build business confidence and spur employment.”
Ben Jacobs argues at The Daily Beast that the relatively good showing for Libertarian candidate Robertt Sarvis in the VA governor’s election just may signal trouble ahead for both parties –particularly in the south.
In his New York Times column, Bill Keller has a well-stated suggestion for President Obama’s message: “The message could be: “Divided government has brought us paralysis and crisis and made us a global laughingstock. Send me Democrats, and we’ll get things working again. Or at least, send me Republicans with a trace of pragmatism.”
In their National Journal article, “What Two Bellwether Counties Tell Us About the Republican Party’s Future,” by Josh Kraushaar, Peter Bell, Brian McGill and Stephanie Stamm the authors explain: “Our guys don’t understand [suburban] areas like Northern Virginia, suburban Philadelphia, areas that used to be our base. We’re getting smoked in these areas,” said former Republican congressman Tom Davis, who represented a Fairfax County-based House seat from 1992 to 2008. “Northern Virginia is a disaster for Republicans, these [statewide candidates] do not know how to run up here. They focus so hard on the social issues, cultural stuff.”
John Perr’s “The revenge of the insurance industry” at Daily Kos provides a revealing round-up of the ways some insurance companies have obstructed the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.
Lest we forget on this Veterans Day: in addition to repeatedly cutting budgets for American veterans services, remember this video clip showing how former Republican presidential nominee and Purple Heart vet Bob Dole was treated when he came to congress to support the U.N. Treaty on People with Disabilities:

The Republican anti-Obamacare message du jour seems to be that the President “lied” when he said everyone can keep their current insurance policy under the ACA, when it now appears that as many as fiver percent may not. Senator Mary Landrieu is introducing legislation to allow “anyone who is satisfied with their current insurance to retain it,” according to Richard Cowan’s Reuters report. Dems should freely admit that tweaks to the ACA will be needed, introduce corrective measures and force Republicans to address them. Some potential fixes, like Sen Manchin’s proposed one-year delay of the individual mandate are more problematic, but some kind of extension should be workable. In any case, the Republicans will oppose all reasonable compromises, and that could work in favor of Democratic candidates next year.
There are also incidents of excessive premium hikes under the ACA, as Ariana Eunjung Cha and Lena H. Sun report at the Washington Post. “There are definitely winners and losers,” explains Sabrina Corlette of Georgetown University’s Center on Health Insurance Reforms in the Post article. “The problem is that even if the majority are winners… they’re not the ones writing to their congressmen.” Many of the hikes will disappear once the on-line exchanges are functioning smoothly. But Dems will also have to formulate some adjustments to reduce unfair premium hikes experienced by middle-class consumers, while always underscoring the far-reaching benefits of the legislation. ‘Mend it, don’t end it’ remains a credible message point for Dems.
Robert Reich points out that health insurance companies are still bullish and “jubiliant” about the ACA, which after all, was the GOP alternative to single-payer. Reich notes a “deep irony to all this. Had Democrats stuck to the original Democratic vision and built comprehensive health insurance on Social Security and Medicare, it would have been cheaper, simpler and more widely accepted by the public. And Republicans would be hollering anyway.” A strategic consideration to think about for future battles.
NYT’s Nicholas Kristoff has a good post putting all of the Obamacare nitpicking in perspective, noting “…far more serious is the kind of catastrophe facing people like Richard Streeter, 47, a truck driver and recreational vehicle repairman in Eugene, Ore. His problem isn’t Obamacare, but a tumor in his colon that may kill him because Obamacare didn’t come quite soon enough.” Says Streeter’s doctor, quoted in Kristoff’s article: “I am tired of being the messenger of death,” said Dr. Gibson. “Sometimes it’s unavoidable. But when people come in who might have been saved if they could have afforded care early on, then to have to tell them that they have a potentially fatal illness — I’m very tired of that.” The salient message here is that, despite all of the start-up glitches, Obamacare will prevent many such tragedies in the future.
At Sabato’s Crystal Ball, managing editor Kyle Kondik explores “The Cost of Ted Cruz’s Rebellion.”
Sure, it’s a plus when your candidate is physically attractive. But people who vote for candidates because of their “healthy” looks, instead of their policies are probably not an easily-targeted demographic. Lots of members of congress don’t look all that healthy, and surely many of them beat healthier-looking candidates. And voters who chose candidates because of their looks likely divide their support more or less evenly between Dems and the GOP over time. It’s a nebulous, ‘washout’ demographic not worth worrying about.
Mayha Rhodan has an interesting Time Swampland post on the complications caused by Virginia’s restrictive early voting law. As Rhodan explains, “In Virginia, if you don’t have one of 15 possible excuses, you are not eligible for absentee voting. Excuses range from being in college to having a long commute or a religious obligation. Though the state has taken steps to make in-person absentee more accessible by extending absentee voting until Nov. 2, proponents of wide spread early voting say the fact that an excuse is needed is still too limiting. “Getting an absentee ballot isn’t that difficult for some segments of the population,” said Hope Amezquita, a staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia. “It’s just there are 15 excuses that will allow a voter to be eligible to apply, but there are a lot of people whose excuses aren’t included.” While about 30% of voters voted early nationwide in 2008, for example, just 14% voted early in Virginia… In 32 states, voters can cast a ballot early by going to a designated early polling location (or mailing their ballot-in) between 45 days and a week before Election Day. In 27 states, any registered voter can cast an absentee ballot without an excuse, either in person or via the mail.”
AP’s Matt Sedensky reports that a new AP/NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll “finds passionate opposition to any change in the way Social Security benefits are calculated that could result in smaller annual raises…The poll found that 62 percent of respondents expressed opposition to such a proposal, compared with 21 percent who supported it.” But the poll also “finds support among those 50 and older for raising the cap on earnings that are taxed to fund the Social Security program so higher-income workers pay more…Currently, the cap is $113,700, meaning those earning more do not pay Social Security taxes on wages above that threshold…The poll found that 61 percent of people favored raising the cap, compared with 25 percent opposing it.” Dems own all the high ground on this one.
…As if this could be otherwise, given the GOP’s extremist candidates in VA.

It’s early yet. But WaPo’s Chris Cilliizza asks “If Hillary Rodham Clinton passes in 2016, which Democrats run?” He calls out the second tier, Biden, Cuomo, O’Malley, Warren and some others, but overlooks van Hollen, McCaskill, Durbin and some other short-listers.
Cillizza also flags Stuart Rotherberg’s Roll Call post, “The Most Important Election of 2014,” which references Mitch McConnell’s struggle to survive the GOP senate primary in KY. Democratic candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes has to be wondering if the McCaskill strategy of providing support for )’Connell’s primary opponent could prove worthwhile.
At the Center for American Progress web pages, Eric Alterman’s “Think Again: 10 Years of False Equivalence and Still Going Strong” observes “Over and over, no matter what the issue–no matter how outlandish, illogical, or simply untrue the conservative argument has been–journalists create a sense of false equivalence between positions that rest on data and logic and those that don’t. To quote Cenk Uygur, “If CNN did sports reporting, every game would be a tie.”
Steven Elbow reports at The Capital Times that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker appears vulnerable in 2014, according tot he latest poll by Wisconsin Public Radio and St. Norbert College. “Asked whether Walker deserved reelection were the gubernatorial election held today, 49 percent of respondents said no, while 46 percent said yes. Six percent were unsure.”
At Sabato’s Crystal Ball Larry J. Sabato and Geoffrey Skelley are calling it “A Democratic Tide in Virginia.” and the down-ballot fallout could be considerable.
Matt Pommer reports at GazetteXtra: “In a new book, Federal Judge Richard Posner said he made a mistake when he voted to uphold an Indiana law requiring a photo ID or other accepted means of identification in order to cast a ballot. Posner, who was appointed by President Reagan in 1981 and sits on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, is a widely respected jurist. His statements were stunning: Judges seldom admit they made a mistake.”
The bilious resignation of this charmer ought to make it a little harder for the more thoughtful conservatives in North Carolina to vote Republican, or admit they did.
At Salon.com, Jonathan Bernstein explains the “GOP’s Obamacare conspiracy: Sabotage from the inside.” And, boy, if Dems need a poster-boy for the GOP’s smug, mean-spirited vision of government, I nominate Rep. Joe Barton, depicted here in Evan Vucci’s caught-in-the-headlights AP photo.
In his post at The Nation, “Lou Reed’s Politics,” John Nichols, author of “The ‘S’ Word,” has a poignant epitaph for America’s great Punk rocker. Meanwhile, Dems can take heart from Reed’s lyric “You need a busload of faith to get by” in the video below, backed up by James Cotton and Buddy Guy.

Rebecca Kaplan reports at cbsnews,com that “a handful of Democrats are floating the idea of delaying the open enrollment period for the Affordable Care Act exchanges in order to allow users more time to sign up for insurance and avoid being hit by tax penalties.”
At Wonkblog, Sarah Kliff’s “Here’s how the White House just tweaked Obamacare” provides a good update on the Administration’s response.
If you’re bored with all of the Obamacare rollout bashing, read E. J. Dionne, Jr.’s WaPo column, “Don’t give up on the uninsured,” which observes: “Those seeking a model for how the law is supposed to operate should look to Kentucky. Gov. Steve Beshear , a Democrat in a red state, has embraced with evangelical fervor the cause of covering 640,000 uninsured Kentuckians. Check out the Web site — yes, a Web site — for regular updates on how things are going there…”We’re signing up people at the rate of a thousand a day,” Beshear said in a telephone interview. “It just shows the pent-up demand that’s out there.”
It’s not a good time for European heads of state not named Merkel. The left is rising in the U.K., but tanking in France.
According to a new CBS News poll conducted 10/18-21, “more Americans blame the Republicans in Congress than blame Barack Obama and the Democrats in Congress for the partial government shutdown and the difficulties in reaching an agreement on the debt ceiling. Nearly half (46 percent) blame the Republicans in Congress, while just over a third (35 percent) blames Barack Obama and the Democrats.” Only 14 percent bought the false equivalence argument that both sides are equally to blame. Also, “While 31 percent of Americans approve of how the Democrats in Congress are doing their job, just 18 percent approve of how Republicans are doing theirs. Disapproval of Republicans in Congress has risen five percentage points since before the shutdown.”
The new Texas voter i.d. law, passed by state Republicans in the wake of the Supreme Court decision restricting the Voting Rights Act, targets women who use maiden names or hyphenated names, reports Steve Benen at msnbcnews.com. Benen quotes The Nation’s Ari Berman, who adds “According to a 2006 study by the Brennan Center for Justice, a third of all women have citizenship documents that do not match their current legal name.” It appears that the law is designed to hurt the candidacy of rising Democratic star Wendy Davis, who is running for Governor of Texas.
Arnie Pames reports at The Hill that President Obama is launching “a post-shutdown fund-raising blitz” to help Dems in 2014, including a series of eight speaking engagements.
Former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau argues at Politics Beast that “The Tea Party, Not Democrats or Republicans, Is the Problem.” Letting Republicans off the hook is a pretty long stretch, but Favreau does float an interesting idea: “In 2014, candidates of both parties should challenge their rivals to sign a No Shutdown Pledge and a No Default Pledge.”
This ‘toon from Mike Luckovich sums it up well.

Barbara Arnwine and Eleanor Smeal explain why “The war on voting is a war on women” at MSNBC.com: “According to the Brennan Center for Justice, 25% of eligible African-American voters and 16% of Hispanics do not have such an ID. In addition, 18% of people over the age of 65 do not have a current ID, and although most students have an ID card issued by their college or university, many do not have government issued-ID that would allow them to vote in these states…What is not commonly known, however, is that women are among those most affected by voter ID laws. In one survey, 66% of women voters had an ID that reflected their current name, according to the Brennan Center. The other 34% of women would have to present both a birth certificate and proof of marriage, divorce, or name change in order to vote, a task that is particularly onerous for elderly women and costly for poor women who may have to pay to access these records.”
Associated Press reports that “Va. removes 40K from voter rolls over Democrats’ objections.” In one affiidavit, “a preliminary review that found nearly 10 percent of the names given to him by the state for potential purging were, in fact, eligible voters,” according to AP.
From E. J. Dionne, Jr.’s WaPo column: “…I suggest that we allow ourselves a margin of hope in the wake of the decisive defeat of the extremists who closed down the government to accomplish absolutely nothing. It is a hope tempered by humility. Giant leaps ahead aren’t in the cards. But some important things changed for the better because of this battle….the most hopeful sign of all is that the shutdown reminded Americans that our country depends on an active, well-functioning government. This has emboldened Democrats to challenge the tea party’s sweeping anti-government bromides with an unapologetic case for the public sector.”
David Jarman at Daily Kos Elections makes the case for why we should “Blame gerrymandering, but blame ticket-splitting too.” As Jarman concludes, “If you see how increasingly sophisticated computer-aided gerrymandering, self-sorting, and declining ticket-splitting all interact and feed on each other, then you’re approaching a full-bodied theory on how polarization is increasing.”
At The New Republic, John B. Judis observes in “The Last Days of the GOP We could be witnessing the death throes of the Republican Party“: “There is a growing fear among Washington Republicans that the party, which has lost two national elections in a row, is headed for history’s dustbin. And I believe that they are right to worry…when the Republican Party becomes identified with the radical right, it will begin to lose ground even in districts that Republicans and polling experts now regard as safe. That happened earlier with the Christian Coalition, which enjoyed immense influence within the Republican Party until the Republican Party began to be identified with it… It took the Democrats over two decades to do undo the damage–to create a party coalition that united the leadership in Washington with the base and that was capable of winning national elections. The Republicans could be facing a similar split between their base and their Washington leadership, and it could cripple them not just in the 2014 and 2016 elections, but for decades to come.”
The American Prospect’s Paul Starr tries to get progressives back on the reform track in his post “Let’s Shut Down the Filibuster: Our 16-day long national nightmare is over. Now it’s time to think about reforms that will make the government more functional.” As Starr says, “…historically, the filibuster has hurt Democrats far more than it has helped them. Instead of perpetuating the minority’s ability to obstruct, the Senate’s Democrats should think mainly about laying the groundwork for a new era of reform. The cards are likely to come their way; the big question is how they are going to play their hand.”
From Paul Steinhauser’s CNN.com post “GOP, Boehner take shutdown hit in new CNN poll” : “According to the survey, 54% say it’s a bad thing that the GOP controls the House, up 11 points from last December, soon after the 2012 elections when the Republicans kept control of the chamber. Only 38% say it’s a good thing the GOP controls the House, a 13-point dive from the end of last year…the CNN/ORC International survey also indicates that more than six in 10 Americans say that Speaker of the House John Boehner should be replaced.”
According to Ashley Alman’s HuffPo report on a new PPP poll: “The survey, conducted by liberal-leaning Public Policy Polling and funded by MoveOn.org, is the third in a series of polls that indicate Democrats have a shot at taking back the House of Representatives in the 2014 election cycle…The results of the latest survey show that incumbent Republicans in 15 of the 25 districts polled trail generic Democratic candidates. When combined with the results of the previous surveys, the polls show that generic Democratic candidates lead in 37 of 61 GOP-held districts…When voters were informed their Republican candidate supported the government shutdown, 11 more districts flipped and one race became a tie.”
Good headline, bad rationale. Let’s call them “earned benefit programs.”