Lawrence Tribe predicts that the High Court will uphold Obamacare. Robert Reich agrees. But only 10 percent of Americans think they are right, according to this Economist/YouGov poll.
if the Court sinks the ACA, Do read Joan McCarter’s case at Daily Kos that Medicare for all is the best way to go. “A Medicare for all platform allows the Democrats to run against the activist Supreme Court, to run against the horribly unpopular Romney-Ryan Medicare plan, to provide the real contrast between the parties that many voters have struggled to see. And it would excite the hell out of the Democratic base; it would give us something to fight for. What’s the worst that could happen? Republicans calling Medicare socialism?”
Sorry, Mitt. Regarding your campaign’s “off the record private meeting” with Washington Post Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli, there will be no retraction of the Washington Post expose of Bain’s “pioneering” role as an American jobs out-sourcer, reports Dylan Byers at Politico. As one commenter on Byers’ report put it “…Heckuva job, Mittens. You drew attention back to the report, and got nothing in return. Brilliant!”
For a good activist antidote to outsourcing, join the AFL-CIO’s “Bring Jobs Home” campaign. According to AFL-CIO Now’s Mike Hall, The upcoming mobilizations will highlight the Bring Jobs Home Act, legislation introduced by Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) in the Senate (S. 2884) and by Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) in the House (H.R. 5542). “The legislation would eliminate tax breaks allowing companies to deduct expenses associated with moving operations overseas, while still encouraging them to assist displaced workers. It also would provide a tax credit to corporations that bring jobs back to the United States.” Text JOBS to 235246 to get info and action alerts.
David A. Graham’s post, “How Outsourcing Backlash Could Swing the Election in Key States” at the Atlantic has an instructive revelation that Dems can leverage: “Columbia political scientist Yotam Margalit…did a more detailed study of the 2004 election and found that outsourcing can be a potent issue: “Between 2000 and 2004, the electoral cost to the incumbent of a marginal job lost due to foreign competition was, on average, more than twice as large as the effect of a job loss resulting from other causes (e.g., domestic competition).” In other words, unemployment hurts an officeholder seeking reelection, but unemployment from jobs shipped overseas is much worse.”
Well, this is encouraging, and not a minute too soon.
Nate Cohn makes a sobering argument at TNR that, contrary to much recent reportage, “No, We Don’t Have Evidence of An Obama Advantage In The Electoral College.”
On the other hand, Jacob Weisberg has a point in arguing “Between the end of the primaries and the start of the conventions, presidential campaigns are message wars. Both sides test slogans and proposals while trying to frame their opponents in memorably unfavorable ways. In this phase, President Barack Obama has been the clear winner.”
And just to hone the messaging a bit, Dems, stop blaming “congress,” and start blaming Republicans in congress.
The new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll offers some data to support the assertion that the Obama ad campaigns in swing states attacking Romney are working. “The obvious conclusion here is that the negative TV ads pummeling Romney in the battleground states…are having an impact,” conclude NBC’s political unit in their “First Read” morning briefing…The data in the NBC-WSJ poll certainly backs up that sentiment. A month ago in those same 12 swing states, Romney averaged a 36 percent favorable and 36 percent unfavorable rating. Now, he is at 30 percent favorable and 41 percent unfavorable. Attitudes about Romney’s business background, a target of numerous ads run by the pro-Obama Priorities USA Action super PAC, are more negative in swing states…That’s despite the fact that Obama and his allies are being outspent by Romney and his allies on the air right now.”

As the nation braces for one of the most important Supreme Court decisions ever, E. J. Dionne, Jr. explains how the public debate was framed: “The ACA is the victim of a vicious cycle: Obamacare polls badly. Therefore, Democrats avoid Obamacare, preferring to talk about almost anything else, while Republicans and conservatives attack it regularly. This makes Obamacare’s poll ratings even worse, which only reinforces the avoidance on the liberal side…The media have abetted the problem, but this is partly a response to the impact of the vicious cycle on how the issue has been framed. As a study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism has shown, terms used by opponents of the law, such as “government-run,” were much more common in the coverage than terms such as “pre-existing conditions.”
At CNN Politics, Gregory Wallace explores the ramifications of the term “Obamacare.”
Everyone will undoubtedly be playing Monday Morning quarterback when the decision is released. As for Democratic strategy, at WaPo Peter Wallsten cites “the ‘musket defense’ supported by Harvard Law proff Lawrence Tribe and others: “To defend the health-care mandate, for instance, the government could have cited past measures such as a 1792 law signed by President George Washington requiring able-bodied men 18 or older to purchase a musket and ammunition. Several scholars, even former president Bill Clinton, have cited the 18th-century law as an example of an individual mandate that happened to be imposed by a president with impeccable originalist bona fides.”
Regarding the ACA mandate, at Talking Points Memo Brian Beutler notes the ‘adverse selection’ problem: “The prevailing view among policy experts and industry insiders is that if the mandate falls, the rest of the health care law becomes unsustainable. A phenomenon known as adverse selection will dominate the insurance market when younger, healthier people opt not to purchase insurance, premiums will spike, and the market will enter a death spiral…” If that happens, why not amend the act with an irresistible tax incentive for younger workers to “buy in”?
MSM bias in reporting on appeals courts ruling on the constitutionality vs. unconstitutionality of the ACA has been even worse than you think, according to this well-documented report from Media Matters: “A majority of federal rulings on the substance of President Obama’s health care reform law have found it to be constitutional, including the law’s mandate that individuals purchase health insurance. But a Media Matters review of the five largest newspapers and the flagship CNN, Fox News, ABC, CBS, and NBC evening news programs finds that the media overwhelmingly focused on rulings that struck down the law in whole or in part — 84 percent of segments on the broadcast and cable programs reviewed and 59 percent of newspaper articles that reported on such rulings — while largely ignoring rulings that found it constitutional or dismissed the case.”
OK, here’s the headline for an Associated Press story by Jennifer Agiesta: “Poll: 1-in-4 uncommitted now in White House race.” Here’s a sentence that appears about 2/3 into the story “Overall, the poll found that among registered voters, 47 percent say they will vote for the president and 44 percent for Romney, a difference that is not statistically significant.” (toplines here) If you suspect that the headline will become the poll meme, and far fewer will read the article, you are not alone.
For an informative case study of how Republican Governors suppress voting rights by executive order, read AP’s “Iowa governor strips voting rights from thousands of felons, restores few.”Gov. Branstadt requires felons who have served their time to submit a credit report with the application to restore their voting rights. As a result, “…8,000 felons in Iowa have finished their prison sentences or been released from community supervision, but less than a dozen have successfully navigated the process of applying to get their citizenship rights back, according to public records obtained by the AP. Branstad’s office has denied a handful of others because of incomplete paperwork or unpaid court costs.”
Could this headline and the poll behind it be an indication that voters may indeed be ready to penalize congressional Republicans for ‘gridlock, obstruction and paralysis’?
Susan Page’s report on “Latinos Strongly backing Obama” quotes an ad strategy tip from Sylvia Manzano, a political scientist at Texas A&M University: “Running an ad that says, ‘I would never vote for Sonia Sotomayor,’ ‘I would veto the DREAM Act’ — those are really easy things to crystallize and repeat…”
For a disturbing look at how out-of-state, right-wing money is being marshalled to defeat one of the best progressive U.S. Senators, see David Callhan’s “Private Wealth and the Public Interest: Sherrod Brown Under Attack.” This could be the marquee state-wide race for ‘people power’ vs. big money. Dems in states where their Senate race is pretty much decided may want to help out Sherrod Brown at this ActBlue page.

President Obama picks up 29 electoral votes in a new electoral map projection based on a round-up of recent state polls, for a total of 314. As Ryan Witt adds at Political Buzz Examiner: “It is also worth noting that many of the most recent polls come from Rasmussen Reports, an organization that has given Republican candidates a misleading three-to-five point edge in their polls as recently as 2010.”
The electoral college may be the Democrats’ friend this time around, but it could well be toast by 2016, according to this analysis by Albert B. Southwick at the Worcester Telegram.
Far be it from moi to demonize adversaries, but could this confab be the most unholy admixture of evil, money and secrecy in history?
Today it’s all about Florida, as President Obama takes his turn at the NALEO Annual Meeting in Orlando and then Hillsborough Community College in Tampa. Meanwhile the Justice Department is arguing before a federal district court with ample evidence that FL’s new restrictions on early voting discriminate against people of color, as this Reuters report by Drew Singer explains.
A wave election? It just ain’t happening, says Charlie Cook.
Dem ad-makers alert: About 1:53 into this video clip, watch Romney’s new gaffe/slip, arguing that the President is “out of touch” because he doesn’t know “when to send jobs overseas.”
Dana Milbank skewers House Republicans for their shameless attacks against Attorney General Holder: “They did what sensible people usually do when they have an honest disagreement: They accused the attorney general of being an accessory to murder.”
Yeah, right. Is that why we’re seeing passage of an unprecedented number of voter suppression laws by Republican-controlled legislatures across the U.S.?
Hmmm. Jeb Bush does seem to be more engaged in nibbling at the fringes of presidential politics all of a sudden, as this report also suggests. Please, Romney, please don’t let the talk about another Bush on the ticket amount to idle jabber.
I think Carlo Rotella may be on to something in his Boston Globe post “Vampires and zombies help us think about elites and masses.” Hey, how about “Barack Obama: Vampire Capitalist Hunter”

On the day of Romney’s big speech at the NALEO (National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials) Annual Conference, the media is abuzz with speculation about what, if anything, the Republican nominee-in-waiting can do to get at least a bite of this pivotal demographic. Much of the speculation center’s on the possibility of Romney picking Sen. Rubio as his running mate, since there isn’t much he can do in terms of policy, having hitched his star to GOP immigrant-bashing.
At WaPo Felicia Sonmez rolls out “Five Things to Watch for” in Romney’s remarks, including President Obama’s halt of deportations, personal attacks against Obama, a “broader agenda” for immigration reform, how congressional Republicans respond to his remarks and whether or not Romney will take questions from the press.
Short of announcing Rubio or NM Governor Susana Martinez as his running mate, Sonmez’s point about the response of congressional Republicans is of interest, more for the down-ballot implications, since Romney’s hopes for a significant positive bounce with Latinos are slim and none. As Sonmez puts it,

…Watch to see what Republicans on Capitol Hill do. They’re the ones whose support Romney needs most if the GOP is planning a counter-offensive against Obama on immigration reform. Members such as Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) are key when it comes to reaching across the aisle, but House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) are the ones faced with rallying the troops.

The problem here for the GOP is that, what’s good for Romney — in this case more goodwill with Hispanic voters, may not be perceived as a priority by Republican House members who don’t see Latino voters as an influential demographic in their districts. In addition, way too many GOP House members have at least flirted with repressive immigration proposals opposed by Hispanic leaders and voters, and not all will give Romney a pass if they think he overrreaches.
It’s likely that just showing up gives Romney what cred he is going to get with Latino voters, and, with all that is going on, that won’t be much.

It’s a safe bet that many American progressives are swooning with envy at the French left, which just secured a no-nonsense parliamentary majority in Sunday’s elections, giving President Francois Hollande the leverage he needs (314 of 577 seats, +27 votes from smaller parties he can count on much of the time) to enact sweeping economic reforms. Time Magazine’s Paris Bureau Chief Bruce Crumley does a good job of putting the election in perspective:

The leftist romp in France’s June 17 legislative elections gave the Socialist Party of French President François Hollande a commanding parliamentary majority — and with it a free hand with which to usher in policy reversal. The Élysée now can push for more domestic spending to stimulate a sluggish French economy that, Hollande says, has been hurt by the austerity measures of France’s previous conservative leaders. It also provides Hollande a sturdy French base from which he’ll rally like-minded European partners to adopt similar Keynesian policies across the recessionary euro zone. That’s an ambitious — and risky — program that can now begin in earnest.
Compare that with France’s new conservative minority, which suddenly finds itself in a drastically altered and emphatically defensive posture. Not only are the allies of former President Nicolas Sarkozy powerless to block leftist spending plans — they now also have to reckon with their loss of influence on pan-European policy and the end of an active partnership with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in defending austerity measures. Instead, Sarkozy’s camp turn inward to deal with the deep existential questions confronting the French right.

Crumley calls Hollande’s program “risky.” But austerity has flunked all over Europe. What else is a progressive party supposed to do, emulate their failed opposition? The U.S.experience with Keynesian policies light has produced limited success. Yet, the only thing that hasn’t been tried by a major industrial nation to recover from the Bush meltdown is robust Keynesian reforms. France will likely provide the object lesson.
No doubt American conservatives who follow European politics are as dismayed as American progressives are encouraged by Hollande’s working majority. Republicans will snarl at the mention of Hollande’s Socialist Party, which is now running the show. But ‘Socialist Party’ is a bit of a misnomer in that the party’s leaders have historically nurtured a vigorous private sector, which may end up even stronger when Hollande’s program kicks in and strengthens demand. France ranks 4th among Fortune Global 500 nations, ahead of Germany and the UK. Don’t bet that will change much as a result of France’s new parliamentary majority.
At the heart of France’s social contract is a health care system that is ranked #1 of 191 nations by the World Health Organization (and is nicely spotlighted in this clip from Michael Moore’s “Sicko”). French health care has been weakened from time to time with modest out-of-pocket hikes, but will likely be restored to full strength under Hollande.
In France, unlike the U.S., all citizens know that they will not lose their home or retirement nest egg because of medical expenses. They know also that this security was achieved as a direct result of their support of leadership provided by the Socialist party and many years of campaigning and protest. It’s a foundational principle of the solidarity of the French left.
No matter what the U.S. Supreme Court does regarding the Affordable Care Act in the days ahead, American progressives should affirm their resolve that health care reform with universal coverage is a must-do. It’s not only a central element of a decent society, but must also be a core principle to promote long-haul solidarity among all Democrats.

President Obama’s immigration reform initiative has energized Latino voter enthusiasm for his re-election in key ‘battleground’ states, reports Paul West in Today’s L.A. Times: According to a new survey by Latino Decisions, “Forty-nine percent of the Latino voters surveyed said Obama’s move made them more enthusiastic about the president, compared with 14% who were less enthusiastic…That “enthusiasm advantage” of 35 percentage points compares with a 19-point deficit in a survey earlier this year, when Latino voters were asked about the high level of deportations of immigrants under the Obama administration.”
At Time Swampland Massimo Calabresi reports on Romney’s dithering response to the President’s immigration reform initiative. “Romney could hardly embrace Obama’s new policy without cost. If did he would alienate the nativist base of the GOP already sensitive to the idea that with the nomination secure he will abandon the right and run for the center…Given the carefully choreographed roll-out, there was no way Romney could just ignore the issue. That was part of the cleverness of the Obama move. Not only was it a sharp and targeted wedge aimed at splitting two voting blocs Romney needs in November.”
Surf far and wide, but you won’t find a more apt capsule description of the GOP response to the President’s initiative than the title of a PoliticusUSA article by Jason Easely and Sarah Jones: “Obama’s Immigration Surprise Triggers an Epic Blubbering Right Wing Meltdown.”
Kenneth T. Walsh reports at U.S. News on a clever Democratic tactic — pre-shadowing Romney’s campaign stops with a “middle-class under the bus” tour — “with news conferences and media interviews that are severely critical of Romney’s record as governor of Massachusetts and as a businessman. The Democrats are planning to shadow Romney in Michigan today with stops in Grand Rapids, Lansing, and Detroit.”
Thomas B. Edsall’s “Canaries in the Coal Mine” in the NYT takes a look at “highly volatile…shifting loyalties” of white working-class voters revealed in exit poll data provided by political scientists Alan Abramowitz and Sam Best, and notes: “The correlation between support from working class whites and Democratic victory suggests that the party takes a great risk when it downplays the importance of this segment of the electorate, as some strategists are wont to do.” However, noted Edsaall, “the white working class is declining steadily as a share of the electorate; and second, Democrats have made huge gains in a previously Republican constituency, well-educated white professionals, many with advanced degrees.”
For the definitive critique of Gallup’s survey methods, look no further than Mark Blumenthal’s post, “Race Matters: Why Gallup Poll Finds Less Support For President Obama ” at HuffPo Pollster. A teaser: “…A dramatic fall in response rates has led to what pollsters call “non-response bias” in their raw data. Partly because survey response rates are typically lowest in urban areas, unweighted samples routinely under-represent black and Hispanic Americans.”
Paul Waldman sums it up nicely in his post on ‘Economic hearts and Minds” at The American Prospect: “It would be electoral malpractice of the highest order for the Obama campaign not to stir up at least some populist resentment at a figure like Romney, particularly when his policy proposals, like those of all Republicans, are such a pure expression of trickle-down economics.”
Gary Hart argues in his New York Times article, “The Democratic Road Not Taken” that “The Democratic response of triangulation and centrism, essentially splitting the difference between reactionary liberalism and increasingly virulent conservatism, cost the party its identity…As Todd S. Purdum described this phenomenon recently in Vanity Fair, “the Democrats came across more and more as the crouched consolidators and defenders of past gains.” Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein echoed this conclusion in their new book, “It’s Even Worse Than It Looks.” The Democrats, they write, “have become the more status-quo oriented, centrist protectors of government.”
FiveThirtyEight’s new series on “Presidential Geography” looks like a must-read for political junkies. Micah Cohen launches the series with an insightful demographic and political profile of New Mexico.

Ed Kilgore sets the stage at The Washington Monthly for President Obama’s “reboot” speech today in bellwether Ohio: “A “reboot” isn’t needed because of the “private sector is fine” gaffe or the alleged rebellion of the Clintonites or the sudden bullishness on Romney on Wall Street or any of the other snail’s-eye-view crap we’ve been hearing the last week or so. It’s needed to reflect a full commitment by the Obama campaign to a comparative message…”
Has Obama’s message been too complex? Michael Finnegan argues that it is in the L.A. Times: “But when it comes to the core message that each candidate is trying to get across in TV ads and campaign appearances, Romney has boiled it down to a simple argument. Obama has not…Blaming Obama is indeed the premise of Romney’s argument, along with a promise to create jobs by shrinking government…Obama’s counter-argument is layered with nuance and complexity.”
In their Common Dreams post, “Wisconsin Blues” (via Reader Supported News), George Lakoff and Elisabeth Wehling have some framing advice for progressives in the wake of the WI Recall: “What progressives need to do is clear. To people who have mixed values – partly progressive, partly conservative – talk progressive values in progressive language, thus strengthening progressive moral views in their brains. Never move to the right thinking you’ll get more cooperation that way…Start telling deep truths out loud all day every day: Democracy is about citizens caring about each other. The Public is necessary for The Private. Pensions are delayed earnings for work already done; eliminating them is theft. Unions protect workers from corporate exploitation – low salaries, no job security, managerial threats, and inhumane working conditions. Public schools are essential to opportunity, and not just financially: they provide the opportunity to make the most of students’ skills and interests. They are also essential to democracy, since democracy requires an educated citizenry at large…”
Aaron Blake’s post, “House GOP previews fall ad strategy ” at The Fix is more about how much the NRCC is spending on campaign ads and where than on message content.
In similar vein, Dave Nyczepir reports on “5 media markets already flooded with ads” at Campaigns & Elections.
Also at WaPo, Paul Farhi asks “Presidential campaign ads are ubiquitous, but do they work?” Farhi notes, “John Kerry and his Democratic allies ran almost 200,000 more commercials than George W. Bush did in 2004 and lost in a close election. On the other hand, Obama had a narrower advertising advantage over Sen. John McCain in 2008 and won relatively easily.”
In his L.A. Times article, “Arizona shows Democrats’ strength, weakness on retirement programs,” Dan Turner has a different take on Rob Barber’s win in AZ: “If there’s a less obvious takeaway from the Arizona election, it might have something to do with Social Security and Medicare. Republicans grumble that their candidate, Jesse Kelly, who lost to Giffords in a narrow contest in 2010, failed this time around only because Barber was the emotional favorite…but the fact remains that the district in question has a comfortable GOP majority and Barber was heavily outspent. Meanwhile, the major area of difference between the two candidates concerned Medicare and Social Security, and it would be tough to deny that Kelly’s hard-line stance on privatizing these federal entitlement programs scared off many of the district’s elderly voters of both parties.”
At National Journal’s ‘Hotline on Call,’ Sean Sullivan adds: “The early vote accounted for about 75 percent of the total vote in Arizona on Tuesday, a disparity the Barber campaign anticipated, given recent voter patterns. In 2010, Gabrielle Giffords won the early vote but lost the Election Day tally. The same thing happened to Kelly in the special election primary this year.”
Fun stat of the day: Romney tanking in his three home states.

In my June 8 post on “The Recall in Broader Perspective,” I briefly referenced the GOP meme “that public workers have extravagant pensions, propagated by Republicans who amplify a few horror stories as emblematic of public worker retirement benefits.” It’s part and parcel of a broader Republican scam vilifying public workers as overcompensated in general.
For a revealing example, see Josh Barro’s Bloomberg.com post, “Does Obama Know Why the Public Sector Isn’t ‘Doing Fine’?” in which he spotlights city employees of San Jose, CA, where

…Costs for a full-time equivalent employee are astronomical and skyrocketing. San Jose spends $142,000 per FTE [full-time employee] on wages and benefits, up 85 percent from 10 years ago. As a result, the city shed 28 percent of its workforce over that period, even as its population was rising.

The unspoken, but unmistakable gist of Barro’s post is “See, those greedy public workers are responsible for causing their own layoffs.” Without even taking a look at nation-wide data, Barro is clearly suggesting in his post’s title that San Jose’s experience is somehow typical of public workers in cities across the nation. Worse, he takes it a step further and blames public worker unions in his concluding sentence, “If the president wants to know why state and local governments can’t afford to hire, he could start by asking his own supporters in public employee unions.”
That’s why Romney can say stuff about President Obama like “He says we need more firemen, more policemen, more teachers. Did he not get the message in Wisconsin?” and get away with it, while media dimwits point their fingers at Obama for his one gaffe in three years.
Had Barro clearly presented his horror story as an exceptional case, that would be defensible. Or had he backed it up with some credible national data, you could grudgingly credit him with a solid argument. But he didn’t do that because he couldn’t.
As David Cooper, Mary Gable, and Algernon Austin of the Economic Policy Institute note in their report, “The public-sector jobs crisis“:

Despite these significantly higher levels of education–and contrary to assertions by some governors in recent state-level debates–the most rigorous studies have consistently shown that state and local government employees earn less both in wages and total compensation than comparable private-sector workers (Keefe 2010). Using data from the Annual Social and Economic Supplement of the Current Population Survey and standard regression models for wage analyses, we compared the wage income of private-sector employees with that of state and local government workers. After controlling for education, experience, sex, race, ethnicity, marital status, full-time/part-time status, number of hours worked, citizenship status, Census region, metropolitan status (whether residing within or outside the boundaries of a major metropolitan area), and employer size, we find that state and local government employees make, on average, 11.7 percent less in wages than similar private-sector employees.

if those greedy public workers can be faulted for their extravagant compensation packages, what should be done about their better-paid private sector cohorts?
Look, none of this is to deny that there are public worker pension/salary horror stories. But it takes a pretty shameless media to imply that extravagantly compensated public workers are the norm. Is it too much to ask that some honest journalists call Romney out on it?

Devin Dwyer reports at ABC News that Romney’s gaffe, “He says we need more firemen, more policemen, more teachers. Did he not get the message in Wisconsin?,” in response to Obama’s gaffe about the private sector doing fine, is getting some attention.
At The New Yorker, Ryan Lizza addresses a rather important topic the horse-race obsessed media seems to be ignoring: “The Second Term: What would Obama do if reëlected?”
You’ve probably seen several different analyses of how the electoral vote is shaping up, particularly in the “swing states.” Micah Cohen pulls them together, crunches the numbers and measures the consensus against FiveThirty Eight.com’s model:, Which “distinguishes between states that are true tossups and states that are merely competitive. While the term tossup is usually applied to about 12 states, the model sees a true coin-flip in only Ohio and Colorado, and a near coin-flip in Iowa, Virginia and Nevada. States like New Hampshire, Florida, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, meanwhile, are certainly in play, but one candidate has a clearer advantage.”
President Obama had a rough week, but at least his address to Netroots Nation 2012 provides a good reality check.
Turns out Romney’s “blind trust” isn’t so blind, after all, reports Brian Montopoli at CBS News. “There has to be some reason for the preferential tax treatment that he is receiving,” Obama for America General Counsel Robert Bauer said on a conference call with reporters. Bauer said the fact that Romney is paying a 15 percent tax rate on the income, the tax rate for carried interest, suggests Romney is performing services for the company despite claims that he is no longer tied to it…University of Colorado law professor Victor Fleischer told CBS News that continued payments from the company to the candidate create a potential conflict of interest.”
Hotline staff reports that there is a bummer in the Wisconsin recall silver lining for Dems — taking control of the state Senate: “…It turns out that victory is meaningless: the legislature is not due to convene again before the fall election and Republican lawmakers gerrymandered the state Senate districts well enough to their advantage during redistricting that they should recapture it afterward.”
The AP’s Charles Babington reports that 7 out of 10 “battleground states” have better-than-the-national-average unemployment rates.
Democratic women outnumber Republican women by better than 2-1 in both the house and senate, according the the Center for American Women in Politics. But Dems are still not doing enough to recruit, train and elect women candidates.
Next time some ignoramus starts popping off about how unions are no longer needed, send them this post from Daily Kos, “Thank a Union: 36 Ways Unions Have Improved Your Life.”
Excellent speech delivery is President Obama’s strongest card. But as Leslie Savan argues in The Nation, a more combative style, a la Chris Matthews, would serve him well. Savon quotes Matthews in a recent talk show appearance: “He’s got to be aggressive. He’s got to be big time,” Matthews said. “Stop this nickel and dime, ‘a couple bucks for the teachers, a couple bucks for the firefighters. I’m going to reduce the payroll tax.’ This is piss-ant. You can’t get re-elected with tactics. He needs a strategy. Which is, ‘we’re different from the Republicans.’ ” And when former George W. Bush deputy press secretary Tony Fratto said, “This Republican obstruction story is fantasy,” Savan reports that “Matthews drove a bulldozer over him: “You’re the roadblock party, the other party is the highway party.” (A possible slogan?)

No matter how much lipstick we put on the pig, there’s no evading the fact that Republicans beat Democrats in five of six elections in Wisconsin on Tuesday, one of the worst days Dems have experienced in recent years.
The Monitor’s Peter Grier piles on, quoting former PA Governor Ed Rendell, who said “It was a dumb political fight – I would have waited until Walker’s reelection…If we’re [peeved off] at what a person does in office, the answer is to beat them when they’re up for reelection” and former Rep. Barney Frank, who added “My side picked a fight they shouldn’t have picked.” Grier adds,

Plus, the recall election was a rerun of the state’s 2010 gubernatorial race, with Walker facing the same opponent, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett. The “Groundhog Day” aspect of the vote only added to voter perceptions that it was somehow a distortion of the normal political process, according to Rendell.

Yet Rendell and Frank, as well as triumphalist Republicans are missing the big picture. Broaden the time frame, and it becomes clear that the recall coalition helped to check Republican union-bashing.
Republicans made crushing of the labor movement a cornerstone of their grand strategy to clobber Democrats in November. By destroying public workers’ unions, especially in swing states, they hope to eliminate a major source of Democratic funding and campaign manpower. They won the Wisconsin battle, at least temporarily. But even there, they will be checked by Democratic control of the state senate, barring a corrupt recount. Their war is stalled.
Their union-bashing initiative was turned back, make that humiliated in Ohio, where Republican Governor Kasich ate a big plate of progressive Democratic crow. As E. J. Dionne, Jr. recounts,

It’s worth comparing what happened in Wisconsin with what happened last year in Ohio, where unions forced a referendum on the anti-labor legislation pushed through by Gov. John Kasich (R) and the Republican-controlled legislature. The unions and the Democrats won 61 percent in that vote, repealing the law. But this remedy was not available in Wisconsin…

After that heady experience, it’s understandable how WI Dems would think they could unhorse Walker. But it should now be clear that statewide recall elections are rarely good strategy. More importantly, Wisconsin progressives did not have the option of a referendum or initiative like Ohio. They needed to give Walker a big headache, and the recall looked doable in the early part of the mobilization. With benefit of hindsight, the recall effort should have been confined to members of the legislature and mobilizing to defeat Walker in the next cycle.
Last August Wisconsin Dems picked up two state senate seats as a result of the protests, and Tuesday they nailed a senate majority. “Voters used state Senate races to signal their dissatisfaction with Walker’s overreach and thus put the retained governor on notice,” notes Dionne. That’s an impressive victory for a statewide progressive coalition.
The Wisconsin protests may also have deterred union-bashing in neighboring Minnesota, where Republican state legislators decided not to push a right-to-work bill in the 2012 session. In Indiana, however, Governor Mitch Daniels signed a “right-to-work” bill into law on February 1.
Looking ahead, Republicans will be crowing about Walker’s big win and how they are going to replicate it all over the country. But Walker’s agenda will be hobbled by Democratic control of the state Senate. He will reign as a GOP golden boy for a bit, but the possibility of a criminal investigation looms over his near future. Walker knows that his little war on unions has had a price and there is more to come if he wants it. The lesson is not likely to be lost on more sober Republican governors.
In terms of national strategy, Dionne writes,

For the left, conservative hubris would be the best outcome from Wisconsin. Nothing would do more to push swing voters the progressives’ way. But liberals and labor are operating in a difficult environment. They need to pick their fights carefully and match their energy with a new discipline and a cool realism about the power arrayed against them.

As for organized labor, they clearly have work to do in promoting solidarity between public and private sector workers in their own ranks, as well as with unorganized workers across America. They also have to more effectively challenge the meme that public workers have extravagant pensions, propagated by Republicans who amplify a few horror stories as emblematic of public worker retirement benefits. To grow, they have to begin experimenting more creatively with new forms of union membership, benefits and recruitment.
Meanwhile, exit polls indicate Obama is still running strong in Wisconsin. There is also reason to hope that the coalition progressives put together will benefit Democrats in November and beyond. The Wisconsin progressive coalition and the Occupy campaigns have done a lot to energize and mobilize a movement for economic justice, which may yet prevail. In that context, Walker’s win shrinks considerably.