In his New York Times column, Thomas B. Edsall has a data-rich take-down of the Republican myth “that life for the poor and the middle class is better than it seems.”
Despite good reasons for optimism about prospects for immigration reform, Dems should make themselves aware of the opposition’s strategy. Benjy Sarlin’s Talking Points Memo post, “Meet The Conservatives Trying To Stop Immigration Reform” is a good place to begin.
The Times has an editorial, “Political Power Needs to Be Used,” arguing that Democrats have been unnecessarily fear-driven in recent years: “If ever there were a moment for Democrats to press their political advantage, this is it. Their message on many of the biggest national issues — taxes, guns, education spending, financial regulation — has widespread support, and they have increased their numbers in both houses of Congress. But after years of being out-yelled by strident right-wing ideologues, too many in the Democratic Party still have a case of nerves, afraid of bold action and forthright principles.”
Commenting on the Obama-Clinton 60 Minutes interview, Michael Tomasky sees a transition benefiting Dems: “We have thus passed an important portal in American politics: Democrats are now the regular guys. Conservatives are the weirdos.”
U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky sinks the Republican meme that the American middle class is prospering, which is often used to justify cuts in social spending.
Opposition to the Affordable Care Act seems to have leveled off and begun to decline, in part because major benefits are starting to kick in. H.E.W. Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has a HuffPo update: “We’re starting an important countdown, first to October 1, 2013, when many of you will be able to begin to shop for health insurance that meets your needs at the new Health Insurance Marketplace at HealthCare.gov. The countdown continues on to January 1, 2014, the start of new health insurance coverage for millions of Americans…This is an historic time for those Americans who never had health insurance, who had to go without insurance after losing a job or becoming sick, or who had been turned down because of a pre-existing condition. Because of these new marketplaces established under the Affordable Care Act, millions of Americans will have new access to affordable health insurance coverage.”
A lot is riding on how user-friendly the aforementioned website will prove to be as a cornerstone of Obamacare. At WaPo’s Wonkblog Sarah Kliff’s “Buying health coverage is insanely confusing. Can Obamacare fix that?” explores some of the challenges consumers face in sorting out all of the data associated with evaluating and selecting health insurers.
Demos President Miles Rapaport does a good job of criticizing right-to-work laws and explaining the importance of unions for creating a healthy economy on this union-hostile Fox program.
In her Daily Beast post, “How Obama and the Democrats Could Win on Gun Control–by Losing” Eleanor Clift quotes TDS co-founding editor William Galston: “I confidently predict that a lot of red-state Democrats [in the Senate] will vote in favor of expanded background checks and against an assault weapons ban. That’s the political sweet spot, and that’s where they’ll be–and they don’t think that will hurt them,” says Galston. Testifying before the Senate committee Wednesday, NRA head Wayne LaPierre said his organization would oppose universal background checks. “That’s an insane move,” says Galston, calling the NRA “a front organization for the gun manufacturers.”
Michael Grunwald’s “What’s Wrong With the Republican Party?” at Time Swampland sums it up well: “I’ve often banged my spoon on my high chair about the reality-defying extremism and chronic obstructionism and borderline surrealism of the modern Republican Party. Its journey to wackadoodleland is, in my view, the most important political story of the last two decades…”
Dems who have been wondering if Clare McCaskill’s successful re-election strategy of getting involved in the GOP state primary could be replicated with positive results elsewhere should read Nate Silver’s “High-Risk Primaries Could Cost Republicans in 2014.”

While many commentators have written about the Republican campaign to rig the electoral college vote in key states, The Nation’s John Nichols has come up with a credible strategy for preventing it. if you are a Democrat in one of these states under Republican siege, print, clip and stick Nichols’ post, “Three Strategies to Block the Gerrymandering of the Electoral College” on the fridge. It will likely come in handy on the road to 2016.
The three strategies Nichols suggests include:

1. “NAME AND SHAME” THOSE WHO WOULD RIG ELECTIONS
2. ENGAGE IN THE DEBATE AND OFFER A POPULAR-VOTE ALTERNATIVE
3. MAKE GERRYMANDERING AN ISSUE

As regards point #1, many would say “But they have no shame.” It’s not hard to cite numerous instances of Republican shamelessness on a broad range of topics. Nonetheless, there are memes they don’t want to get stuck with. As Nichols explains:

When The Nation began writing several weeks ago about the Priebus plan, and specific efforts in swing states, the stories went viral. Social media matters in this struggle. So, too, does the attention coming from television and radio hosts such as MSNBC’s Ed Schultz, Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman and Thom Hartmann.
The attention “names and shames” Republicans who are implementing the Priebus plan in states such as Virginia. But it also puts pressure on Republicans who are considering doing so. Significantly, when Florida legislative leaders were asked by The Miami Herald about the proposal, the biggest swing state’s most powerful Republicans scrambled to distance themselves from the anti-democratic initiative. Florida House Speaker Will Weatherford said, “To me, that’s like saying in a football game, ‘We should have only three quarters, because we were winning after three quarters and the beat us in the fourth. I don’t think we need to change the rules of the game, I think we need to get better.”

Progressives often flunk when it comes to “naming and shaming.” The progressive blogosphere generally does its part creating national buzz calling attention to injustices. But this doesn’t help enough to generate local coverage confronting electoral vote-suppressing perps on camera. It’s also about local protestors confronting these Republicans wherever they appear, again and again, until they renounce the project. That’s the job of Democratic activists. Nichols adds that an important part of “shaming” is to ferret out Republicans who have a conscience and who are willing to publicly denounce electoral vote suppression as morally repulsive.
With respect to Nichols’ second strategy, he elaborates:

…The right response is to highlight the anti-democratic character of the Electoral College and to push for a national popular vote. This will require a constitutional amendment. That takes work. But the process is in play. States across the country have endorsed plans to respect the popular vote that are advanced by FairVote: The Center for Voting and Democracy.
“The very fact that a scenario [in which a rigged Electoral College allows a popular-vote loser to become president] is even legally possible should give us all pause,” argues FairVote’s Rob Richie. “Election of the president should be a fair process where all American voters should have an equal ability to hold their president accountable. It’s time for the nation to embrace one-person, one-vote elections and the ‘fair fight’ represented by a national popular vote. Let’s forever dismiss the potential of such electoral hooliganism and finally do what the overwhelming majorities of Americans have consistently preferred: make every vote equal with a national popular vote for president.”
Understanding, talking about and promoting the National Popular Vote campaign is an essential response to every proposal to rig the Electoral College. It pulls the debate out of the weeds of partisanship and appeals to a sense of fairness in Democrats, independents and responsible Republicans.

In other words, make Republican advocates of electoral college gerrymandering explain on camera why they won’t support direct popular election of The President — a reform which has broad popular support. Asked “Would you vote for or against a law that would do away with the Electoral College and base the election of the president on the total vote cast throughout the nation?,” 63 percent said yes in a Gallup poll taken Jan. 8-9, with 29 percent opposed.
Nichols’ third strategy, “make gerrymandering an issue,” is a little tricky because it relies on the integrity of the courts. But his reasoning makes sense, and it would be political neglect not to try it:

…When gerrymandering threatens the integrity of national elections and the governing of the country, this opens a new avenue for challenging what remains the most common tool for rigging elections.
It is time for state attorneys general who have track records of supporting democracy initiatives, such as New York’s Eric Schneiderman, and state elections officials, such as Minnesota’s Mark Ritchie, to start looking at legal strategies to challenging the Priebus plan in particular and gerrymandering as it influences national elections. This really is an assault on the one-person, one-vote premise of the American experiment. And retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, among others, is advocating for a renewed push on behalf of fair elections.
“[It] goes back to the fundamental equal protection principle that government has the duty to be impartial. When it’s engaged in districting it should be impartial,” Stevens explained in a recent interview. “Nowadays, the political parties acknowledge that they are deliberately trying to gerrymander the districts in a way that will help the majority.”
This, argues Stevens, is “outrageously unconstitutional in my judgment. The government cannot gerrymander for the purpose of helping the majority party; the government should be redistricting for the purpose of creating appropriate legislative districts. And the government ought to start with the notion that districts should be compact and contiguous as statutes used to require.”
Stevens says the courts, which often intervene on voting rights cases involving minority representation, and in cases where states with divided government cannot settle on new district lines, should engage with the purpose of countering gerrymandering…”If the Court followed neutral principles in whatever rules they adopted, the rules would apply equally to the Republicans and Democrats,” says the retired Justice, a key player on voting and democracy issues during his thirty-five-year tenure on the High Court. “I think that line of cases would generate a body of law such as the one-person, one-vote cases that would be administered in a neutral way. This is one of my major disappointments in my entire career: that I was so totally unsuccessful in persuading the Court on something so obviously correct. Indeed, I think that the Court’s failure to act in this area is one of the things that has contributed to the much greater partisanship in legislative bodies…”
Justice Stevens is right. That partisanship has moved from gerrymandering the state lines and US House lines to gerrymandering the presidential vote. The moment is ripe for a constitutional intervention.

Nichols’ call to arms is right on time at this early stage. Democrats must understand that once battleground state electoral college votes have been rigged to elect Republicans, it will be awfully hard, if not impossible, to undo the travesty. The time to beat back this threat is now.

I’m still hoping Harry Reid had a well-hidden good reason for the deal he negotiated. But no one has yet provided any plausible explanations. Meanwhile, Jonathan Krohn’s “What the Senate Filibuster Deal Does–and Doesn’t Do” at Mother Jones critiques the deal from a left perspective.
At NBC News Michael Isikoff’s “Obama campaign gives database of millions of supporters to new advocacy group” provides some insight into what’s ahead for Democratic campaign strategy: “Dubbed the “nuclear codes” by campaign aides, the Obama campaign database is widely described as one of the most powerful tools ever developed in American politics. According to published reports, it contains the names of at least 4 million Obama donors – as well as millions of others (the campaign has consistently refused to say how many) compiled from voter registration rolls and other public databases. In addition, the campaign used sophisticated computer programs — with code names like “Narwhal” — to collect information through social media: Anybody who contacted the campaign through Facebook had their friends and “likes” downloaded. If they contacted the campaign website through mobile apps, cellphone numbers and address books were downloaded. Computer “cookies” captured Web browsing and online spending habits.”
Krugman shreds arguments of austerity freaks on Morning Joe.
Richard Benedetto brings President Obama’s 2014 strategy into focus at Real Clear Politics. Calling Obama’s 2nd inaugural address “the first speech of the 2014 congressional campaign,”Benedetto’s post explains: “His apparent two-year strategy is to work hard to help Democrats win back control of the House of Representatives and use his final two years to build the liberal legacy he outlined in his address — a legacy that will be near-impossible to achieve as long as the GOP controls the House…But with Democrats in charge of both chambers of Congress in 2015-16, Obama would be transformed from a lame duck to a soaring eagle…By force-feeding legislation that Republicans are likely to find unpalatable — and portraying that distaste as heartless, mindless, prejudiced and mean-spirited — Obama can shove them back into the role of naysayers and obstructionists, a role that raises voter trepidation, anger and frustration. It could translate into more Democratic votes next election.”
Alex Altman argues persuasively at Time Swampland that the Republicans got creamed in November, not because of their tone, tactics or messaging strategy. It is the substance of their positions on the issues.
ProPublica has a pretty good round-up of “The Best Reporting on What’s Wrong with Congress”
At Wonkblog, Ezra Klein’s “Republicans think the sequester gives them leverage. They’re wrong” offers this interesting observation: “…The sequester doesn’t touch Medicaid, Social Security or Pell grants. It exempts most programs for low-income Americans, like food stamps. Veteran’s benefits are home free, as are federal retirement benefits. Medicare providers see cuts, but Medicare beneficiaries don’t. And fully half of the cuts come from the military — a huge reduction in defense spending that Democrats couldn’t dream about achieving any other way…Given the sequester’s disproportionate focus on the military, it’s even worse for Republicans.”
The Nation’s John Nichols has a must-read for Dems: “Three Strategies to Block the Gerrymandering of the Electoral College”
This one is a great loss for progressives — and an even greater loss for Democrats’ hopes for holding the senate. it also underscores the the critical importance of better Democratic candidate recruitment, training and leadership development to hold seats being vacated by venerable incumbents.
Talk about nerve.

There’s a new wrinkle in Virginia Senate Republicans’ redistricting plan, which is designed to gerrymander a significant number of new congressional districts to favor Republican candidates. Some Republicans now fear the Governor’s transportation bill might now be torpedoed by Democrats angered by the Republican sneak attack that caught VA Dems unprepared. Errin Haines and Laura Vozzella report on the story at the Washington Post.
Dems do have a plan for actual party-building in Texas, as Alexander Burns reports at Politico: “National Democrats are taking steps to create a large-scale independent group aimed at turning traditionally conservative Texas into a prime electoral battleground, crafting a new initiative to identify and mobilize progressive voters in the rapidly-changing state…The organization, dubbed “Battleground Texas,” plans to engage the state’s rapidly growing Latino population, as well as African-American voters and other Democratic-leaning constituencies that have been underrepresented at the ballot box in recent cycles. Two sources said the contemplated budget would run into the tens of millions of dollars over several years – a project Democrats hope has enough heft to help turn what has long been an electoral pipe dream into reality.”
This report on Wisconsin Dems implementing a “72-county strategy” is encouraging.
At WaPo’s Wonkblog, Evan Soltas has a round-up of recent reporets on filibuster reform, including this nugget from Slate’s Dave Weigel, explaining the “flip’ proposal: “Democratic aides tell me that the party is not likely to accept a Reid-McConnell reform deal unless it includes a change that “flips” the filibuster. Instead of the majority requiring 60 votes to block a bill, the minority would need to muster 41 votes to block a bill.”
Steven Greenhouse reports in the New York Times that labor union membership is down nation-wide — about 400,000 workers in one year, according to the Bureau of labor Statistics. But he cites A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s chief economist William Spriggs noting an uptick in union membership in California, Georgia, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Texas and among Latinos and Asian Americans. Greenhouse adds “According to the report, North Carolina has the lowest unionization rate, 2.9 percent, followed by Arkansas, at 3.2 percent. New York had the highest unionization rate, 23.2 percent, with Alaska second, at 22.4 percent.” All this despite a wage differential in median weekly earnings of $201 favoring unionized workers nationwide over non-union employees.
New York Times Opinionator Thomas B. Edsall asks “Can Republicans Change Their Spots?” Edsall explores possible answers and comments on two states that have been gerrymandered to favor Republicans: “In North Carolina, Bloomberg news found that Democrats won 2.22 million votes to 2.14 million cast for Republican candidates, but Republicans won 9 of the state’s 13 House seats. Similarly, in Pennsylvania, Democrats won 2.7 million votes to the Republicans’ 2.6 million, but Democrats ended up with only 5 of the state’s 18 districts.”
At CNN Politics’ Mark Preston writes in “GOP chief plans major overhaul to party” about Reince Priubus’s plans to revamp Republican party structure and operations. The predictable reforms on his agenda — shorten primary season, fewer presidential debates, better data-driven research and stronger messaging — won’t cause Democratic leaders to lose any sleep.
Brian Bennett of The Los Angeles Times addresses whether the “GOP can woo Latino voters with shift on immigration.” Bennett writes, “An estimated 31% of Latino registered voters would be more likely to vote for a Republican if the party took the lead on pushing for immigration reform, according to poll results.” He notes that “Fifty thousand Latino citizens turn 18 and become eligible to vote every month,” according to Professor Gary Segura of Latino Decisions polling firm.
At The Daily Beast however, Micheal Tomasky explains why Republican leaders are going to have a tough time winning many African American and Latino voters. Tomasky notes, for example, “Conservatives always say, “Latinos are conservative; they are our natural allies!” It’s not really true. Exit polls last year found Latinos supporting abortion rights in quite large numbers, and ditto same-sex marriage (to a lesser degree, but still a healthy majority). The conservative misunderstanding, of course, is in assuming that personal conservatism equates with political conservatism. Sometimes it does, but a lot of the time it does not.”
As if.

Senate leaders have begun meeting on filibuster reform and are expected to decide its fate this week. Alexander Bolton reports at The Hill,

In recent days, Reid has begun to focus on a proposal to tweak the filibuster rule by requiring the minority party to muster 41 votes to stall a bill or nominee. Under current rules, the responsibility is on the majority to round up 60 votes to end a filibuster.
Reid will insist on reducing delays to motions to begin debate on new business and motions to send legislation to conference talks with the House, according to Senate sources.
Democratic proponents of filibuster reform emphasize that Reid does not yet have a final package. They are holding out hope that Reid can be persuaded to include the talking filibuster after a caucus debate.

Reid may or may not present the “constitutional option” or “nuclear option.” he will first try to get Minority Leader McConnell to agree to a bipartisan compromise to their respective caucuses this week.
Reid will have leverage with the Democrats in opposing the ‘Talking Filibuster,” since he is supported by Sens. Dianne Feinstein, Max Baucus, Carl Levin, Joe Manchin and Mark Pryor. Now Sen. Richard Durbin, an astute vote-counter, says there are not enough votes “at this point” to secure a “Talking Filibuster” requirement.
At Huffpo, however, Amanda Terkel reports that Sen. Tammy Baldwin has endorsed the ‘Talking Filibuster” advocates. Terkel adds,

There are two ways the Senate could change the rules: Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) could agree to a deal, or Reid could force a vote on the floor if McConnell refuses to cooperate. Reid has already made McConnell an offer.
“The ball is in McConnell’s court — agree to Reid’s offer, or let’s get it on,” said a top Senate Democratic aide….Filibuster reform advocates need 50 votes plus that of the vice president in order to change the rules of the Senate when the chamber reconvenes on Tuesday. Udall has said he is confident they will have enough votes, and the bill has the strong support of progressive groups.

Any of the aforementioned reforms would be an improvement over the current reality, in which a super-majority is required to do anything significant. If McConnell refuses the compromise, my hope is that Reid will use the ‘constitutional option’ to enact even stronger restrictions on the filibuster. The Republicans need to know that refusing to compromise always has a penalty.

Now that all the pundits have had their say about President Obama’s second inaugural address, Nate Silver brings the data to show what really matters: The public supports the president’s agenda. On climate change:

The PollingReport.com database includes two polls on global warming conducted after the Nov. 6 presidential election. An Associated Press-GfK poll in the field from Nov. 29 to Dec. 3 found that 78 percent of respondents said they believed the planet had warmed over the past 100 years, and 49 percent said they thought global warming would be a “very serious” problem for the United States if left unaddressed (31 percent said they thought it would be “somewhat serious”).
Fifty-seven percent of the 1,002 adults surveyed said the United States government should do “a great deal” or “quite a bit” on global warming…A United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection poll conducted Nov. 8 to 11 found that 57 percent of adults said they thought global warming was increasing the likelihood of storms like Hurricane Sandy.

On same-sex marriage:

The percentage of adults who favor same-sex marriage has been rising steadily for some time…Five polls on same-sex marriage have been conducted since the election and are included in the PollingReport.com database. Each poll uses slightly different question wording, but an average of 51 percent of respondents favored same-sex marriage and 44 percent opposed it.

On Immigration reform, Silver cites four recent polls, two showing strong majorities favoring a path to citizenship similar to what the president supports and two showing healthy pluralities supporting the president’s proposals.
On gun violence, different polls on various reforms bring a mixed message, but more favorable to Obama’s proposals than not:

…a New York Times/CBS News poll found that 54 percent of respondents favored tighter gun laws, up from 39 percent in a CBS News poll last April…A Jan. 17 Gallup poll found 53 percent of adults said they would want their representative to vote for the package of gun law reforms that Mr. Obama proposed. Forty-one percent said they would want their representative to oppose the laws.
…The most recent Fox News poll found that 51 percent of respondents said that “protecting the constitutional right of citizens to own guns” was more important than “protecting citizens from gun violence.” Forty percent of those surveyed said protecting citizens was more important…In the same Fox News poll, laws requiring criminal background checks and mental health checks on all gun buyers were both favored by more than 80 percent of respondents. (That’s in line with virtually every recent poll on guns. The Times/CBS News poll found that 92 percent of respondents favored background checks on all potential gun buyers.)
…Recent polls have found that support for a ban on assault rifles and semiautomatic weapons as well as a ban on high-capacity magazines usually falls in the low 50s to low 60s.

In his speech the president said, “Our journey is not complete until no citizen is forced to wait for hours to exercise the right to vote.” Silver cites “a solid majority favoring such laws.” Silver did not discuss restrictions on early voting opposed by Democrats in general. But heavy participation rates indicate that it is overwhelmingly popular with voters.
Republican commentators are still parroting their message du jour that the president’s speech was somehow polarizing. Not really. Their knee-jerk response is to oppose everything he proposes. But the public clearly supports the president’s speech agenda in almost every instance — often by overwhelming margins.

At the Washington Post, Wil Haygood comments on the confluence of MLK Day and the Inauguration, noting a quote from Jesse Jackson: “King broke down the walls, and Barack ran across the bridge. The rocks from the broken walls created that bridge.”
Also at The Post, this editorial says it well: “Today, on the national day set aside to honor Dr. King, an African American president will ceremonially begin his second term. …There is, to be sure, an element of bigotry among some of his enemies, but in general it has had a kind of cowardly, subterranean quality to it. President Obama was assailed mostly for what his critics thought were wrong policies or judgments. In the end, as always, the final verdict was given at the polls; the president was reelected, and his inauguration will be celebrated today — not quite with the rapturous enthusiasm of four years ago but rather with something resembling blessed normality.”
As usual, some Republicans are trying to distort Dr. King’s views to dovetail more with their agenda, often using King’s “content of their character” quote to argue that he was opposed to affirmative action and quotas etc., and some even argue that he was a Republican. At CNN.com, John Bake’s “Why conservatives call MLK their hero” has a good update about the distortion of MLK’s views.
To find out what MLK really thought about the Republicans of his day, however, my TDS post a year ago should suffice,
2013 will also be marked as the 50th anniversary year of MLK’s historic “I Have a Dream” speech, in which he challenged American to embrace racial equality. When King was assassinated he was leading a movement, ‘The Poor peoples’ campaign to end poverty for Americans of all races. At the New York Times Opinionator, Nobel Prize-winning economist and former Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors Joseph E. Stiglitz makes the case for escalating the struggle to reduce inequality between the wealthy and working people. “It will be up to all of us — our leaders included — to muster the courage and foresight to finally treat this beleaguering malady.”
Julie Mason has an interesting Politico post on President Obama’s relationships with MLK’s associates in the Civil Rights Movement, summed up by King’s closest living aide, Ambassador Andrew Young: ” “He is very well-respected in most of the world. He is smart and he works hard — he is amazingly humble. I don’t think we can do any better.”
William Douglas and David Lightman write in the McClathchey Newspapers article, in “MLK and Obama: a day of similarities” that “Both battled enormous odds to build historic multiethnic, multiracial coalitions, one to advance the cause of civil rights, the other to win the nation’s highest office. Both won the Nobel Peace Price. Both could use soaring rhetoric to inspire millions. Both also had to overcome critics who accused them of socialist or communist sympathies, as well as black activists who maintained that they weren’t strong advocates for African-Americans…”Making America better in 1968 is different than making America better in 2013. I think they take different paths, but their goal is to use their strengths to help America be America,” said Lonnie Bunch, the director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Many activists are doing good work in keeping with King’s legacy, but this title is a bit of a stretch.
For those who are wondering what Dr. King thought about gun violence and its sources, this MLK quote from The King Papers Project may have some resonance: “By our silence, by our willingness to compromise principle, by our constant attempt to cure the cancer of racial injustice with the Vaseline of gradualism, by our readiness to allow arms to be purchased at will and fired at whim, by allowing our movie and television screens to teach our children that the hero is one who masters the art of shooting and the technique of killing, by allowing all these developments, we have created an atmosphere in which violence and hatred have become popular pastimes.”
Susan Donaldson James sets the stage for the inauguration and President Obama’s second term with “Martin Luther King’s Dream for Justice Challenges Obama ” at ABC News, with insights from Rev. Joseph Lowery, Julian Bond, NAACP National President Benjamin Jealous, King’s sister, Christine King Farris and San Diego Mayor Robert Filner, who was jailed in desegregation protests in Mississippi in 1961 and whose family raised funds for the Civil Rights Movement.

The Washington Post’s Philip Rucker and Ed O’Keefe have the early take on Obama’s prospects for enacting his gun proposals. For the time-challenged, Slate’s Dave Weigel lists Obama’s executive orders on guns.
At The Atlantic Molly Ball considers the political ramifications of using — and not using — the term “gun control” and various alternatives.
Alex Roarty of the National Journal has acquired a GOP memo naming seven Democratic House members they are targeting for defeat in 2014. Roarty explains: “Reps. Ron Barber and Ann Kirkpatrick of Arizona, John Barrow of Georgia, Jim Matheson of Utah, Mike McIntyre of North Carolina, Collin Peterson of Minnesota, and Nick Rahall of West Virginia. Each represents a district that has voted for the Republican nominee in the last three presidential elections…In all, 15 Democrats represent right-leaning districts, the memo says, compared with just four Republicans who represent left-leaning districts.”
Again at The Atlantic, Mohamed A. El-Erian, author of “When Markets Collide,” explains “How Game Theory Explains Washington’s Horrible Gridlock.”
In France, however, labor and business have somehow found a way to negotiate a ‘grand bargain.’ “The deal should help create new jobs while protecting workers, and should also help stabilize the government of President François Hollande, which has been struggling to reenergize the economy,..The most sweeping change will give businesses the ability to negotiate reduced working hours and wages during economic slowdowns, an idea borrowed from Germany, which used a similar system of shortened work hours to avoid massive layoffs in the aftermath of the financial crisis. In exchange, workers will get better unemployment insurance and health care coverage and a seat on the boards of large companies,” reports Vikas Bajaj in the New York Times.
A poll of 38 economists by The University of Chicago Booth School of Business’s Initiative on Global Markets finds just one of them thinks the “debt ceiling” is a good idea, reports National Journal’s Catherine Hollander. One of the other 37, UC’s Richard Thaler, puts it like so: “The debt ceiling is a dumb idea with no benefits and potentially catastrophic costs if ever used.”
At Rolling Stone, Steven Hsieh’s “Everything You Need to Know About Filibuster Reform” updates the struggle ahead between the Merkley-Udall-Harkin plan vs. the McCain-Levin plan. But the window for a united Democratic coalition is shrinking. As Josh Marshall notes at Talking Points Memo “… it happens next week or there’s not another chance until 2015.”
Also at TPM, Sahil Kapur has an insightful report on the filibuster reform endgame. Meanwhile, ‘talking filibuster’ advocates can sign the petition right here.
Although prospects for passage may be dim at the moment, the Public Option Deficit Reduction Act, “which would “would offer the choice of a publicly-run health insurance plan, an option that would save more than $100 billion over 10 years.” just introduced by Rep. Jan Schakowsky’s (D-Ill.), along with 44 other cosponsors, has merit for educating voters about the real causes of the deficit. It can also lay the groundwork for the bill’s enactment when Democrats reach a critical mass in congress. Molly Reilly reports on the bill at HuffPo. Peter Orzag explains the economic benefits of the reform in a video clip at the bottom of the story.
Far be it from moi to demonize a political adversary, but this headline has a certain je ne sais quoi.

At The Plum Line, Greg Sargent’s “Business leaders to GOP: No more debt limit hostage taking!” pinpoints what may be the Democrats most powerful leverage in the negotiations ahead.
Class consciousness seems to be rising quickly in Great Britain, where 60 percent now self i.d. themselves as “working class,” compared to 24 percent in 2011, reports Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian.”…it’s the findings on class that should really give Labour heart. For they suggest serious trouble in the middle – a fear that life is going backwards for many natural Conservative voters in flagrant breach of the age-old Tory promise that hard work will be rewarded.”
As Sen. Jay Rockefeller prepares to retire, at NPR.org Greg Henderson notes an interesting fact about West Virginia, which is a red state in presidential elections: “Both senators, the state’s governor and one of its three members of the House are Democrats. And the state that produced legendary Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd (who brought the state “billions of dollars for highways, federal offices, research institutes and dams,” as The New York Times noted in its 2010 obituary) hasn’t elected a Republican senator since the 1950s.”
The “No Labels” crowd is at it again. This time it’s another WV senator, Sen Joe Manchin and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman singing bipartisan kumbaya in the Washington Post opinion section. In the comments section following the article, DWSouthern adds “Democrats have been willing to negotiate all along. Now all you two dreamers need to do is get about 200 more Republicans (you now have 10) in the House to end gridlock and get the government working again. Lots of luck when the goal of Republicans has been to make the government dysfunction and blame it on Obama. The only solution to the problem is to remove about 100 or so Republican from the House in the next election.”
For an authentic bipartisan act of significance by a Republican U.S. Senator, however, read yesterday’s New York Times editorial, “One Republican Steps Forward,” which gives Sen. Lisa Murkowski well-deserved praise on an important issue: “Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, broke through the partisan wall to propose a badly needed mandate for transparency by the growing army of unrestricted, unidentified donors who underwrite attack ads and other stealth tactics that have so disfigured American politics.” The measure would require every organization that gives more than $500 to disclose its donors.
On the weapons-of-domestic-mass-destruction issue, however, there is only one Republican providing gutsy leadership.
Here we go again with the comprehensive, big-package vs. piecemeal reform debate, this time with respect to gun control, well-reported here by WaPo’s Sean Sullivan. I get the political reasons why big-package always seems to win out as a strategic option, regardless of the issue. But just once, I’d like to see a fast-track, piecemeal reform strategy put into play, nailing the low-hanging fruit and pealing away the bogus arguments against needed reforms that usually get watered down in the comprehensive package.
Also at The Post, John Sides considers “How congressional dysfunction could hurt House Republicans.” As Klein explains: “…The particular problem for House Republicans is this: when Congress is unpopular, voters don’t punish all House incumbents. Instead, they direct their dissatisfaction primarily at majority-party House incumbents. So argue political scientists David Jones and Monika McDermott in their book (see also this article). In the article, Jones finds that a 10-point decrease in approval costs majority-party House incumbents 4 points at the poll. This effect is larger in swing districts and has been getting larger over time, as the parties have polarized…”
See also David Lauter’s L.A. Times article, “Washington stalemates hurting Republicans most, polls indicate,” which provides a good round-up of the latest data on the topic.
At The Daily Beast Bob Shrum ably sums up the nitty-gritty of the GOP’s big problem — and the Democrat’s advantage: “And today, the GOP is the party that won’t compromise; the party that threatens economic chaos; the anti-Medicare, anti-Social Security, anti-women, anti-Hispanic, anti-gay, anti-young party. There’s no future in that.”

New poll has 47 percent of Americans self-i.d. as Democrats or leaning Dem, compared to 42 percent for Republicans — “based on an aggregate of all 2012 Gallup and USA Today/Gallup polls, consisting of more than 20,000 interviews.”

Chris Cillizza and Aaron Blake spotlight “5 senators to watch in gun control debate” explaining why they could have pivotal influence on prospects for assault weapons control.

Charles M. Blow has some cogent thoughts on “Reframing the Gun Debate” in his NYT column, including: “First, let’s fix some of the terminology: stop calling groups like the National Rifle Association a “gun rights” group. These are anti-regulation, pro-proliferation groups. They prey on public fears — of the “bad guys with guns,” of a Second Amendment rollback, of an ever imminent apocalypse — while helping gun makers line their pockets.”

Some stats from Michael Medved’s Daily Beast article on women in the new congress: “In 2012 married women gave a comfortable 7 percent edge to Mitt Romney, and in 2008 they chose John McCain 53-47 percent. In 2004 married females went even more decisively (55-44) for George W. Bush.” But single women, “only 23 percent of the overall electorate …chose Barack Obama in 2012 by a ratio of better than 2 to 1, and assured him the presidency.” In addition, Medved reports that two thirds of women in the House are Democrats, as are three quarters of the women in the U.S. Senate.

Democratic party leaders should read Thomas F. Schaller’s post, “Democrats Dread 2014 Drop-Off” at Larry J. Sabato’s Crystal Ball. Schaller quotes experts who say that recruiting quality candidates and mobilizing African American and Latino volunteers offer the best hope for improving turnout in non-presidential elections.

I sometimes worry that a moderate, charismatic Republican presidential candidate might somehow rise from the ashes of the GOP’s current festival of self-immolation (not Christie — his bluster will eventually wear thin and he’s peaking too soon). At The Daily Beast Michael Tomasky explores prospects for rebuilding a healthy moderate caucus in the GOP. As for moderate Republican voters, Tomaskys says “I have to believe that there are millions of such people out there. They just have no one to report to, no place to go. If someone builds this, they will come.”

Speaking of Republican moderates, The Monitor’s Liz Marlantes explains why once moderate Lindsay Graham has morphed into the GOP’s lead attack dog.

At AFL-CIO Now Mike Hall’s “10 Reasons All Workers Benefit from Fixing the Immigration System” provides some excellent talking points which could help persuade moderates to support the Democratic plan.

For those who were wondering if FL Gov. Rick Scott could get any sleazier, Sahil Kapur’s “Rick Scott Under Fire For Inflating Cost Of Health Law’s Medicaid Expansion” at Talking Points Memo provides the answer.

Somebody at the white house is doing some good thinking, selecting the bibles of both Lincoln and MLK for swearing in President Obama for his second term, as Michelle Boorstein reports at the Washington Post. You couldn’t ask for better symbols for “binding up the nations wounds” and transforming “the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful sympathy of brotherhood” — especially because 2013 should be a big year for anniversaries recalling the legacies of both King and Lincoln.