Krugman has a well-titled must-read, “The Gullible Center” for all your friends who identify themselves as “centrists” and worship at the church of false equivalence. Among Krugman’s insightful observations: “…Centrists should be lavishing praise on the leading politician who best fits that description — a fellow named Barack Obama…But the “centrists” who weigh in on policy debates are playing a different game. Their self-image, and to a large extent their professional selling point, depends on posing as high-minded types standing between the partisan extremes, bringing together reasonable people from both parties — even if these reasonable people don’t actually exist. And this leaves them unable either to admit how moderate Mr. Obama is or to acknowledge the more or less universal extremism of his opponents on the right.”
The Economist shreds the “slippery slope” arguments against the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, interestingly enough from a conservative point of view.
E. J. Dionne, Jr.’s “Obama levels straight shots at Supreme Court and Ryan budget” has a spot-on comment regarding Obama’s Spring offensive, noting, “Progressives would be wildly irresponsible if they sat by quietly while a conservative Supreme Court majority undid 80 years of jurisprudence. Roosevelt wasn’t a wimp, and Obama has decided that he won’t be one, either. Conservatives are unhappy because they prefer passive, intimidated liberals to the fighting kind.”
Chris Cillizza quotes Democratic pollster Dave Beattie: “A common thread that reflects this populism is the anger at out-of-control big government echoed by the tea party and the anger at out-of-control big business echoed by the Occupy movement,” said Dave Beattie, a Democratic pollster. “The commonality of ‘anti-big’ ties both together.” Except true populism recognizes that “Big government” is more of a political hallucination with respect to the U.S., compared to other industrial democracies.
Wanna help expose the funding behind Super-PAC’s? ProPublica has a way you can do it.
Dems will be encouraged by a Demos report, “Corporations Under Pressure To Curb Political Spending,” noting that Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Kraft have dumped their memberships in ALEC thanks to a corporate accountability campaign led by Color of Change and revelations that ALEC is behind the “stand your ground laws.” A “Shareholder Spring” lies ahead, with actions at Bank of America, Target, Sallie Mae, 3M, and other companies.
I get Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Emanuel Cleaver’s point that amped-up rhetoric like “War on Women’ can turn off some potential swing voters, but I think it’s more for women to decide if it’s too much of an exaggeration. But there’s not much room for doubt that GOP policies contribute to violence toward women.
David M. Shribman’s “The Republican political battles you cannot see” in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette takes a peek at the ‘class struggle’ inside the GOP between the ‘managerial wing’ and the ‘movement conservatives.’ He also notes the internal contradiction of a party “chary of government involvement in the economy but open to government restrictions in social and cultural life,” a bit of a problem for libertarian-leaning Republicans.
Here we go with Romney’s bogus march to the political center. Thomas B. Edsall’s “Romney the Centrist” at the NYT has an analysis.

You won’t be shocked by Darius Dixon’s Politico report “Poll: GOPers say ‘too much’ media on Trayvon Martin.” Dixon notes a Pew Research survey which found that “Twice as many Republicans [56 percent] as Democrats [25 percent] say there’s been too much media coverage of the death of unarmed Florida teen Trayvon Martin…Among Democrats, 38 percent said they were following Martin’s death more closely than other stories, while 19 percent of Republicans said that they were following the story more closely than other headlines.”
Republicans have an understandable reason to be nervous about the Trayvon Martin case — especially if it leads to a big uptick in African American voter enthusiasm and registration in Florida. Meanwhile, Florida is wasting no time in terms of voter suppression. As Ashley Lopez reports in the Florida Independent, “The Center for American Progress released a report today on voter suppression efforts carried out by Republican-led state legislatures around the country, listing Florida as one of “five worst states for voting rights in 2011″…Florida lawmakers passed a new voting law last year that has drawn fire from federal officials, legislators, advocacy groups and voting rights experts from all over the country. The many critics of the law have said the law is a concerted effort to keep minorities, young people, the elderly and the poor from the polls on Election Day…Florida’s contentious law places prohibitive rules and restrictions on third-party voter registration groups, creates a shortened “shelf life” for signatures collected for ballot initiatives, places new restrictions on voters changing their registered addresses on election day, and reduces the number of early voting days — among many other provisions…A report from the NAACP found that, as of last year, Florida actually has the “most restrictive” felon disenfranchisement “laws in the country.”…Florida is one of only four states in the country that “denies the right to vote permanently to all individuals convicted of any felony offense.”
John Gardner of The Guardian has an update on “Wisconsin: America’s democratic struggle laid bare” charting the forward progress of United Wisconsin’s recall campaign and prospects for the June recall vote. Gardner adds:”Whatever June’s results, United Wisconsin has already won two significant victories. State and federal court decisions have overturned Walker’s ban on workplace dues collection and annual recertification elections…And the recall elections have already created a significant opening for the pivotal 17th, majority vote in the state senate…If Democrats win even one of four contested recall state senate elections, they will recapture a majority, frustrating further legislative initiatives from Governor Walker and Republican representatives.”
At least one veteran pundit thinks Justice Kennedy’s line of questioning in the recent hearings on Obamacare was encouraging from the Administration’s perspective. As Clarence Page put it in his syndicated column, “…as Kennedy’s tough questions persisted, Kennedy sounded increasingly like he was searching less for ammunition than for reassurance…It’s hard to believe Kennedy didn’t know the answers to his questions before he asked them. But if he found good enough reasons to support the law, he could possibly win the support of Chief Justice John Roberts, whose court would sound more credible with a 6-3 decision than a 5-4.”
Robert I. Field, a professor of law at Drexel University’s Earle Mack School of Law and a professor of health management and policy at its School of Public Health, has an op-ed at the Philadelphia Inquirer arguing that an adverse ruling on the Affordable Care Act would make the public option inevitable. Says Field: “If the health-care law is struck down, it’s only a matter of time before Congress finds it has to address the issue again. The system cannot go on indefinitely with more than a sixth of the population uninsured and the number growing every year…And when Congress does revisit the subject, it would be boxed in by a ruling against the current law. It wouldn’t be able to rely on the private market, because that would require a mechanism to force healthy people into the risk pool…The only clearly constitutional large-scale reform would be a direct extension of coverage by the federal government. Is that what the law’s opponents and the conservative justices really want?”
President Obama is under fire for his recent warnings about the ramifications of an adverse Supreme Court ruling on the ACA. In their Bloomberg Businessweek article “Obama Risks Voter Backlash by Warning High Court on Health Law,” Greg Stohr and Seth Ster note that the president’s references to “judicial activism” by “an unelected group of people” are heightening concerns about political partisanship in the Supreme Court: “The case is testing the court’s standing as a nonpolitical body. A decision striking down the law would almost certainly be along party-based lines, with the five Republican-appointed justices joining to invalidate the measure and the four Democratic appointees dissenting…This will mark the first time the court has ruled on a president’s signature legislative accomplishment in the middle of his re-election campaign. The decision will probably come in late June, less than five months before the election.”
Meanwhile the New York Times’ Jackie Calmes discusses the “Court’s Potential to Goad Voters Swings to Democrats.” Calmes quotes Democratic pollster Geoff Garin: “Historically, the court has been a rallying point for the Republican base, and it is now much easier to imagine that it will be a rallying point with the Democratic base just as much if not more, especially if the court overturns the Affordable Care Act…My guess is that more voters will think, ‘If they can do that, they can do just about anything — and that includes overturning Roe v. Wade’ — the landmark 1973 abortion rights decision…In a poll for The Washington Post and the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 32 percent of Democrats said they had a less favorable opinion of the Supreme Court after the hearings, compared with 14 percent of Republicans.”
Ed Kilgore’s “Another Terry Schiavo Moment” a The Washington Monthly shines fresh light on Judge Jerry Smith’s tantrum and GOP leaders’ gleeful reaction as “an incident providing a very public glimpse into a veiled, radical perspective that supposedly mainstream, respectable figures embraced.”
Dem candidates who could use some ammo to fight the onslaught of Big Biz “regulatory reform” should read Rich Robinson’s “Damage Done By Regulatory “Reform” at Demos. Tidbits: “In Pennsylvania alone, for each year the government fails to update the restriction on levels of toxic soot in the air the state will face 3,890 preventable deaths and 84,539 preventable asthma attacks among children…In Ohio, delaying the Affordable Care Act’s ban on health insurance companies discriminating against patients with pre- existing conditions for one year will put 65,060 newly diagnosed cancer patients at risk of being denied health insurance…Allowing food processors to delay one year before using new standards from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for safe handling of produce will cause approximately 200,000 local cases of foodborne illness–more than the entire city of Worcester.”
Richard Kahlenberg and Moshe Z. Marvit have an interesting idea for rebuilding America’s labor movement up at Slate.com, “What MLK Would Do ; How to make labor organizing a civil right.”

I hate to admit it, but I’m wondering if conservative Ramesh Ponnuru has a point in his Bloomberg post accusing Dems who believe that the Supreme Court striking down the health care law or the individual mandate would be a good thing of “magical thinking.” Ponnuru’s argument:

Let’s say the court strikes down the entire law. The Democratic fantasy goes something like this: The public will still be upset about the number of Americans without insurance, rising premiums and the difficulty people with pre-existing conditions have getting insurance. Republicans will have no plan for achieving universal coverage. Sooner or later, single payer — which would probably be more popular than a mandate, and thus an easier sell to the public — will prevail
Reality-check time: When Obamacare became law, Democrats had more power in Washington than at any time since the Carter administration in the 1970s. They had the presidency and lopsided majorities in both houses of Congress. Because conservative Democrats have declined in numbers, it was probably the most liberal Congress since 1965-66. They were still barely able to pass the law. And that was with important medical industries either neutralized or in favor of the legislation, which they would not be in the case of single payer.
Democrats attained that degree of power because of an unusual set of circumstances: an unpopular Republican president reaching the end of his second term and a financial crisis hitting at exactly the right time. The odds are that it will be a long, long time until Democrats again hit the jackpot. And without an overwhelming Democratic majority, getting single payer through Congress would be almost impossible: Republicans won’t acquiesce to any steps toward such a system.

If most of the ACA survives, but the individual mandate gets invalidated:

……Or let’s say the court strikes down the mandate, but leaves in place the insurance regulations. The regulations without the mandate would lead healthy people to drop their coverage — the insurance rules mean such people would be able to get it again if they get sick — and with only ill people covered, premiums would soar.
…Democrats would be outraged if the court struck down the mandate, and would presumably blame any resulting problems in the health-care market on its decision. Republicans, meanwhile, would blame the Democrats for enacting a flawed law that couldn’t survive legal scrutiny.
The public is likely to side with the court, for two reasons. Americans express significantly more confidence in the court than in the presidency or Congress. And most Americans dislike the individual mandate and actually want it struck down.

Ponnuru has no happy outcomes for Dems in either case. Another conservative publication, Forbes, has a more encouraging post, “What’s Democrats’ Plan B If the Individual Mandate Goes Down?” by Avik Roy, which merits skeptical consideration.
Roy begins by noting that Dems could have bulletproofed the law in terms of the Commerce Clause by creating a tax to pay for health care, coupled with a credit for those who sign on — “equivalent to the mandate in policy terms, but would have been far sounder from a constitutional standpoint.” Alternatively, Dems could have embraced the “German provision” that allows individuals to opt out, but then wait five years before they can qualify for “guaranteed-issue insurance that doesn’t exclude pre-existing conditions.”
As Paul Starr puts it in The New Republic, the German provision “That deters opportunistic switches in and out of the public funds, and it helps to prevent the private insurers from cherry-picking healthy people and driving up insurance costs in the public sector.” It would likely also compel ‘free market’ purists to put up or shut up.
Roy goes on to discuss grim possible scenarios of chain reactions to the elimination of the individual mandate, including the crumbling of ‘community rating’ and ‘guaranteed issue,’ in a “death spiral” for the act. he then makes his pitch for “A Democratic “Plan B” that could gain Republican support” —“a universal tax credit for the purchase of insurance” with “a stronger cap on the employer tax exclusion.”
In other words, cave to the GOP agenda. No thanks would be my reaction to such a plan. As with all such tax credit/voucher schemes, it’s hard to see any credible cost-containment at work.
The more credible ‘Plan B’s, in Roy’s post would be to amend the act to include the ‘German provision,’ or alternatively converting the mandate into a tax credit rigidly linked to a tax to pay for the coverage. Republicans, of course will fight anything resembling a doable fix, which may be a good argument for building a movement for single payer.
It’s hard to develop any ‘Plan B’ without knowing exactly what the court will do. Whatever they do, however, Dems should have an alternative ready to go, so we don’t look like we are floundering around. Pollsters will likely move quickly to assess where most of the blame is directed, which will help Dems target their strategy.

The Elizabeth Warren-Scott Brown Senate race in MA is a stat tie in latest Boston Globe/UNH survey, according to CNN Political Ticker.
By now, most Americans with a shred of political awareness know that the voting rights of African Americans, Latinos and students have been undermined across the nation in a very serious assault. Christine Pelosi reports at HuffPo about another group of an estimated 3.2 million voters, which is experiencing obstruction of their voting rights: “Americans with disabilities face voting impediments too. A 2011 op-ed by Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, and Mark Perriello, president of the American Association of People with Disabilities, states: “There are more than 30 million Americans with disabilities of voting age, yet the Federal Election Commission (FEC) reports that there are more than 20,000 inaccessible polling places. Some are located in basements or buildings without ramps, and others only offer machines that are outdated and unworkable for a person who is blind, deaf, or physically impaired…”
Cameron Joseph reports at the Hill that the push is on among some GOP strategists for a Latino on their presidential ticket, with Sen. Marco Rubio (FL), NM Gov. Susana Martinez and NV Gov. Brian Sandoval atop the buzz.
In his Daily Beast post “How a Tweet Can Beat a PAC: Social Media Gives Voters Muscle in Politics,” Mark Mckinnon reports “…73 percent of adult Internet users went online to get news or information about the 2010 elections. Some 22 percent used Twitter or social networking sites in the months leading up to the midterms to connect to campaigns or the election itself. And this year, over 1.6 million watched President Obama’s re-election campaign film, “The Road We’ve Traveled,” on YouTube in just five days…Masters of leveraging technology four years ago, Obama for America already has spent more than $11 million on Web ads and text messages this election season.”
Tomasky ponders some interesting ways the high court ruling on the ACA could damage Romney more than Obama. “A ruling against the law, depending on its scope, has three possible effects. It takes a massive campaign weapon out of his hands. It forces him to answer a key question he has so far not had to answer. And finally, and it has the potential to put him on the defensive since he will have to align himself with an obviously political and unaccountable Court majority.”
Jonathan Chait ruminates at New York magazine on the pros and cons of fighting for a single-payer based system if the Supreme Court strikes down Obamacare.
Dems who want to be more savvy about the budget debate should read “The Budget for All: An Analysis of The Congressional Progressive Caucus Budget” by David Callahan and Jack Temple at Demos.
Now, here’s a Republican who gives excellent advice. At an ERA rally, Rep. Richard Hanna (R-NY) said: “…These are very precarious times for women, it seems. So many of your rights are under assault…I’ll tell you this: Contribute your money to people who speak out on your behalf, because the other side — my side — has a lot of it. And you need to send your own message.”
In her U.S. News post “Obama Trouncing GOP Candidates Among Female Voters,” Lauren Fox mines some nuggets about women’s political attitudes from the latest Pew Research Poll: “Younger women prefer Obama by greater margins than older women do. Women under 50 prefer the president to Romney by a 64 percent to 33 percent margin. But among women 65 and older, Romney actually leads Obama by a point…White women are evenly split between Romney and Obama.”
And Susan Page reports at USA Today that “President Obama has opened the first significant lead of the 2012 campaign in the nation’s dozen top battleground states, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, boosted by a huge shift of women to his side…The biggest change came among women under 50. In mid-February, just under half of those voters supported Obama. Now more than six in 10 do while Romney’s support among them has dropped by 14 points, to 30%. The president leads him 2-1 in this group.”

NYT Conservative pundit Douthat wonders “Could Defeat in Court Help Obama Win?,” but adds “The safest bet is still that it won’t come to this – that the high court (or at least Kennedy, our current swing vote-cum-philosopher king) will take the most politically cautious, precedent-conscious course, and uphold the health care bill in its current form…If so, it will be hailed as a big win for the administration. But the White House might actually reap more political dividends from defeat.”
In light of Douthat’s more sober assessment, this Monitor headline seems like an over-the-top downer: “Supreme Court justices appear poised to sweep aside entire health-care law.” Maybe Toobin, Richey and other doomsayers should just calm down a tad and remember that the High Court’s job is to ask tough, skeptical questions, and there is ample time left before the anticipated June ruling for serious reflection and maybe even some (gasp) soul-searching.
But it would be good if Justices Kennedy and Roberts read and ponder this lede from a new Reuters/Ipsos poll report conducted online March 23-28: “An overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system remains popular even though Americans are not enamored with the law that President Barack Obama signed in 2010, …The poll found that 44 percent of respondents favor the law, and that an additional 21 percent oppose it because it doesn’t go far enough – for a total of 65 percent.”
In his “Stealing Christianity” post at Washington Monthly’s Political Animal blog, Ed Kilgore says what many are no doubt thinking. From the nut graph: “…A lot of media types simply don’t know much about religion, which they find faintly ridiculous and embarrassing. And since it’s all, in their view, a shuck, they are inclined to find its most forcefully conservative practitioners to be the most “authentic.”…This is precisely the same ignorance compounded by ill will that leads a lot of gentiles to treat visibly orthodox Jews as the only “real Jews.”
At The Fix, WaPo’s Aaron Blake takes a mildly hopeful (for Dems) look at a couple of “second tier” Democratic targets — the seat of embattled Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) and the open seat in AZ, where Kyl is retiring.
Here’s Three encouraging bellwether state snapshots for the President.
Eric Pianin of The Fiscal Times has a thoughtful, balanced analysis in his article, “House Call: Democrats Need A ‘Wave’ to Reclaim Seats.” Among the arguments for a wave cited by Pianin: “More than 70 percent of Americans disapprove of the performance by congressional Republicans, according to a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll.”
GOP veepstakes buzz increases about conservative NM Gov. Susana Martinez, to shore up Romney’s alarmingly low approvals/favorables among women and Hispanic voters. As the WaPo bio notes, Martinez last election was bankrolled in part by “Texas couple Robert and Doylene Perry, who helped fund the 2004 Swift Boat campaign against 2004 Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.). Martinez has also received hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of campaign contributions from gas and oil producers.”
Dems gotta love Kenneth P. Vogel’s Politico post, “GOP faces digital divide,” which says: “President Barack Obama and his Democratic allies have opened up a big advantage over Republicans when it comes to high-tech voter targeting ” and “mobilizing volunteers, donors and voters.” Vogel adds “One of the Obama campaign’s big advancements this cycle has been to figure out how to link voters across multiple databases.” However, Republicans are investing heavily in closing the gap, and as one expert dryly notes in Vogel’s post, Dems’ high tech edge didn’t help much in 2010.
In an excellent update on the battle to win women voters, AP’s Laurie Kellman summarizes what’s at stake: “…Exit polls show that women are a majority of voters in presidential election years and about four in 10 female voters don’t have a spouse. They lean more heavily Democratic than their married counterparts. But the U.S. census says about 22 percent of them are unregistered, a rich pool of potential new voters for both parties competing for the presidency and the majorities in Congress…As much as 75 percent of single women vote for Democrats, so registering them to vote en masse is more beneficial for Democrats than Republicans.”

Robert Reich’s blog, “Health Care Jujitsu” at HuffPo Politics presents a plausible “plan B’ if the ACA’s individual mandate is invalidated by the Supremes. As Reich explains it:

…If the Court decides the individual mandate is an unconstitutional extension of federal authority, the entire law starts unraveling. But with a bit of political jujitsu, the president could turn any such defeat into a victory for a single-payer healthcare system — Medicare for all.
…You’ll remember the Administration couldn’t get the votes for a single-payer system such as Medicare for all. It hardly tried. Not a single Republican would even agree to a bill giving Americans the option of buying into it
….Americans don’t mind mandates in the form of payroll taxes for Social Security or Medicare. In fact, both programs are so popular even conservative Republicans were heard to shout “don’t take away my Medicare!” at rallies opposed to the new health care law.
…Moreover, compared to private insurance, Medicare is a great deal. Its administrative costs are only around 3 percent, while the administrative costs of private insurers eat up 30 to 40 percent of premiums. Medicare’s costs are even below the 5 percent to 10 percent administrative costs borne by large companies that self-insure, and under the 11 percent costs of private plans under Medicare Advantage, the current private-insurance option under Medicare.
…If the Supreme Court strikes down the individual mandate in the new health law, private insurers will swarm Capitol Hill demanding that the law be amended to remove the requirement that they cover people with pre-existing conditions.
When this happens, Obama and the Democrats should say they’re willing to remove that requirement – but only if Medicare is available to all, financed by payroll taxes. If they did this the public will be behind them — as will the Supreme Court.

Reich’s solution may seem simplistic — that’s sort of built into the nature of the single-payer alternative. But the simplicity of the proposal could work to the Democrats advantage. Simplicity is often an easier sell than a complex, multifaceted legislative package, particularly when the public is fed up.
Left Dems will be angry, energized and ready to seize the opportunity to fight for the public option. Many moderate Dems may be ready for the public option, when it finally becomes clear that even the Republican-controlled Supreme Court won’t allow a compromise supported by insurance companies and the responsible segment of the private sector.
It’s a risky strategy, electorally, considering the public was weary of the debate long ago. And, there are other possible compromises short of an all-out battle for the public option, including an “opt-out” provision some have suggested, allowing consumers to chose staying out of the law’s coverage for a minimum of 5 years. Another alternative would be a public option for catastrophic coverage only, guaranteeing, at least, that no one will lose their home or retirement assets to pay medical bills, allowing the insurance companies to compete for all other coverage short of catastrophic illnesses.
Regardless of the ‘Plan B’ Dems chose, however, it should be abundantly clear that rubber-stamping conservative Supreme Court nominees is a luxury we can no longer afford.

Ezra Klein’s “Wonkbook: Absolutely everything you need to know about health-reform Supreme Court debut” provides as good an introduction to the hearings as you are likely to find.
it’s an ad, but “Seniors and the Affordable Care Act” does have some good talking points for Dem candidates directed at highest turnout constituency.
Louise Radnofsky’s “Camping Out for a Ticket In” in the Wall St. Journal takes a look at the unsavory spectacle of people hustling for a limited number (60) of available free tickets to the Supreme Court’s hearings on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, including hired place holders ($36 hourly) and scalping ($600). Although there is no acceptable reason why the proceedings will not be televised, “The court has said it will provide, on its website, audio recordings of the arguments a few hours after they wrap up for each session.”
Joshua Miller spotlights “Five Races in Which the Health Care Debate Will Matter” at CQ Politics.
ProPublica has an interesting widget in “A Tangled Web: Who’s Making Money From All This Campaign Spending?” by Al Shaw, Kim Barker and Justin Elliott, showing who get how much from whom and for what.
Tomasky argues for delayed White House support of gay marriage: “I would argue that it makes sense to win first and then do it. If he did it in a campaign context, many people would ascribe the move to other motives, and it would be the topic of heated debate. But if he does it in a second term, no one will be the least bit surprised.”
The Fix’s Aaron Blake reports that GOP primary turnout is up slightly.
Isolde Raftery’s “What Gender Gap? Washington State Has a History of Women Who Lead” in The New York Times sheds light on how one state over comes male domination of politics. “Nationwide, women’s groups point out the glaring gender disparity in public life, noting that there are only 6 female governors and 17 female senators. Across the country, women make up 23.6 percent of state legislatures.” She cites the late settling of the west as a factor in reducing the male advantage, along with the state’s “breed of tough, activist women.”
Despite the GOP’s recent blunders regarding reproductive rights, Vicki Needham warns at The Hill that “Slower jobs growth for women voters could cost Obama in election.” Needham notes that “women are the only group for whom employment growth lagged behind population growth from 2009 to 2011…During that time, female employment grew by 0.9 percent and lagged behind growth in the population of working-age women by 1.5 percent…That has led to jobs gains of only 600,000 — from 65.5 million to 66.1 million — for women, compared with 2.6 million for men during those two years, the survey showed.” She acknowledges, however, that Obama still has a strong edge in the polls with women voters.
Ryan as Romney’s ticketmate? Unlikely in my view. Strategic considerations will probably compel Mitt to look southward, where he has been underperforming. Maybe Rubio (FL + Latino cred), DeMint (tea party pander) or Chambliss (oozes southerness).

For an insightful read about the future of wingnut talk radio, check out The Daily Beast’s “Mike Huckabee Brings on Rush Limbaugh’s Decline” by former Bush II speechwriter David Frum. It seems that the 30 sponsors bailing in the wake of Limbaugh’s ‘slut’ tirade may not be his most worrisome concern, as Frum explains:

…On April 2, Limbaugh will face a more-serious challenge. That’s when the new Mike Huckabee show launches on 100 stations in Limbaugh’s very own noon-to-3 time slot.
Huckabee’s competition threatens Limbaugh not only because Huckabee has already proven himself an attractive and popular TV broadcaster, but also because Huckabee is arriving on the scene at a time when Limbaugh’s business model is crashing around him.
To understand the power of Huckabee’s challenge to Limbaugh, you have to understand the strange economics of talk radio. Most talk-radio programs offer radio stations this deal: we’ll give you three hours of content for free. (Some programs–cough, Glenn, cough, Beck–have actually offered to pay radio stations to accept their content.) Those three hours will include 54 minutes of ad time. That ad time is split between the radio station and the show: each gets 27 minutes to sell.

But Limbaugh, Frum notes, was able to charge for his content and rake in big bucks in advertising — until 2009, when his listeners began shrinking to the point where they are now about half as many as three years ago. Limbaugh responded by cranking up his “TSL” ratings, ‘time spent listening’ — by pandering to his hard core base, getting them to listen longer. Frum adds:

That imperative explains why Limbaugh kept talking about Sandra Fluke for so long. He was boosting his TSL to compensate for his dwindling market share. Few things boost TSL like getting the old folks agitated over how much sexy sex these shameless young hussies are having nowadays. (And make no mistake: Limbaugh’s audience is very old. One station manager quipped to me, “The median age of Limbaugh’s audience? Deceased.”)
……Limbaugh’s audience not only skews old; it skews male. It was already 72 percent male in 2009–more male than that of almost any other program on radio or TV. Advertisers are not nearly as interested in talking to old men as to middle-aged women. If Huckabee can draw such women to his new program, as he has drawn them to his TV show, he will reshape the market.
…Limbaugh’s advertisers and his stations had already begun to feel ripped off. To quote my station-manager friend again: “I don’t mind paying for content. But I do mind paying for trouble.” So advertisers revolted against the TSL strategy, with Sears, JCPenney, and many other sponsors dropping the show. Many of the local advertisers who buy their ads from the local stations rather than from the syndicators have been ordering that their purchased minutes be placed on some less-controversial program.

Enter Huckabee.

Limbaugh’s calculation that his core advertisers must return always rested on the assumption that there was nowhere else to go. Suddenly, in the worst month of Limbaugh’s career, somewhere else has appeared: a lower-priced alternative, with big audience reach and a host an advertiser can trust never, ever to abuse a student as a “slut” and “prostitute.”
The new Huckabee show’s slogan is “more conversation; less confrontation.” “I don’t want it to be a show that every day, every hour, pushes everyone’s buttons to raise their blood pressure,” Huckabee says. “I figure the cost of high blood pressure is enough already.”
Huckabee’s politics are emphatically conservative of course, both on social and economic issues. Yet his politics differ in important ways from those of the Limbaugh-influenced Republican electorate…The less-strident Huckabee approach arises both from his experience as a long-serving governor in a Democratic-leaning state and from Huckabee’s famously genial temperament. “I have to believe that there are people who are highly opinionated but who actually find it informative and engaging to find out what the other side is thinking,” he says. “And not through a shouting match, but through an adult-level, civil conversation.”

While it is gratifying to see Limbaugh tank, Dems should hold the high-fives for a while. Huckabee is a shrewder reactionary than Limbaugh, and may be even more aggressive about pushing the wingnut agenda in electoral politics, albeit with more subtlety. In addition, Huckabee does have a certain gift for the soundbite put-down, as evidenced by his “We’ve had a congress that spends money like John Edwards in a beauty shop” zinger (this and other Huck quips here) during the early ’08 campaign. It’s not hard to imagine Huckabee besting the four current GOP presidential contenders, had he decided to enter the fray. His comments to the contrary, he may be laying the groundwork for a 2016 run.
Huckabee’s Achilles’ Heel, however, is his tendency to blather, a weakness which has damaged many ‘shock jock’ careers, from Imus to Limbaugh and a host of lesser-knowns in between. Last fall, Huckabee ‘jokingly’ (wink, wink) suggested creating confusion about election day at a pancake breakfast/rally in Mason, Ohio, as Molly Reilly tells in her HuffPo report::

“Make a list,” said Huckabee, referring to supporters’ family and friends. “Call them and ask them, ‘Are you going to vote on Issue 2 and are you going to vote for it?’ If they say no, well, you just make sure that they don’t go vote. Let the air out of their tires on election day. Tell them the election has been moved to a different date. That’s up to you how you creatively get the job done…The crowd laughed at Huckabee’s remarks. In 2009, he made a similar joke in Virginia, saying, “Let the air our of their tires … keep ’em home. Do the Lord’s work.”

Whether Huckabee refrains from advocating voter suppression on the air waves in his new gig remains to be seen. It’s good that Limbaugh is beginning to fade away like Glenn Beck. But Dems have always had a weaker talk radio echo chamber than Republicans — and the GOP’s edge may soon get even sharper.

At WaPo’s ‘The Fix,’ Aaron Blake has an interesting read, “On health care, Supreme Court loss could be electoral win.” Blake believes the GOP’s glee about the upcoming Supreme Court ruling on the ACA could backfire — in an unexpected way. Blake explains:

…Some Republicans are worried that their big challenge to Obama’s health care law could backfire come election time.
Obama, of course, does not want to see his signature initiative overturned by the Supreme Court, which holds oral arguments on the bill next week and should render a decision by late June. And Republicans who have long railed against the bill would certainly be overjoyed to see the bill struck down.
But in an electoral milieu (yes, we just used that word) in which winning is often based more on voting against something rather than voting for it, losing at the Supreme Court may be the best thing that could happen to either side — and particularly Democrats.
“In a perverse way, Obama is helped if it is overturned, because then he can use it to rally his base,” said GOP pollster Glen Bolger. “If it is not overturned, then Republicans have a frying pan to bash over the Democrats’ head…”

That last point may be a bit of a stretch. It’s just as easy to imagine the GOP looking like whiners, grumbling about a pro-Republican court saying the law is sound. Plus it may be overstating the intensity of opposition to the mandate — many who don’t like it may be willing to at least give it a try, especially if the High Court says it’s OK.
In addition, don’t forget that polls indicate many who opposed the bill wanted a stronger role for government. Asked “What, if anything, do you think Congress should do with the health care law? Expand it. Leave it as is. Repeal it.” in a Pew Research poll conducted March 7-11, 53 percent said “expand it” (33 percent) or “leave it as it is” (20 percent), with just 38 percent supporting repeal.
Blake is on more solid ground, however, in arguing:

Republicans already hate the law, and if it gets struck down, there’s nothing to unite against. Obama may pay a price from his political capital for enacting a law that is eventually declared unconstitutional, but all of a sudden, the bogeyman disappears, and the GOP loses one of its top rallying cries.
The Democratic base, meanwhile, would be incensed at the Supreme Court, which has generally tilted 5-to-4 in favor of conservatives on contentious issues, and could redouble its efforts to reelect Obama so that he could fill whatever Supreme Court vacancies may arise.

Blake argues less persuasively that Republicans will still put energy into repealing the law, even after the Supreme Court’s ruling. Seems to me that this would be a huge loser for the GOP. The public was tired of the legislative debate a long time ago. I would agree with Blake’s assessment, however, that Dems may “have more to gain than Republicans do” in terms of the election — even with an adverse ruling.

The political utility of smartphone “apps” has thus far been largely unimpressive, at least from a progressive point of view. But here’s one, “Learn how the Affordable Care Act Benefits You,” which could do some good.
The RNC has a new attack ad out, faulting the President for rising health care costs. Should be a tough sell, if the Obama campaign does a good job of explaining when the ACA’s cost-cutting provisions kick in.
In the 1970s, the so-called “Swedish welfare state” arguably achieved the most humane government in world history, with near-full employment, comprehensive health care, free education and a broad range standard-setting social benefits. The ‘Solidarity Principle” was part of the social contract, insuring that the lowest-paid workers would get the largest pay increases. There was some erosion in benefits over the next decades. But in 2006, Swedish voters made the mistake of electing a ‘center-right” government that slashed taxes and gutted benefits, leading to an alarming rise in poverty, increasing protests about accelerated income inequality and a 25% uptick in “acute” homelessness since 2005 — a cautionary tale for the U.S.
Don’t feel like the Lone Ranger if you would prefer that politicians pipe down about religion already. M.J. Lee reports at Politico on a new Pew Research poll which indicates that “Almost four in ten Americans say there is “too much” talk of religion and prayer by politicians – an all-time high since the question was first asked more than 10 years ago, according to a new poll.”
Lest your concern for the heart-breaking woes of Wall St. bankers was flagging, Jim Hightower has a tongue-in-cheek tear-jerker at Nation of Change about the great sacrifices they have been forced to make, including: “A hedge-fund manager, for example, says he’ll now have to strain to pay his $7,500 annual dues to remain a member of the Trump National Golf Club in Westchester. Plus, he worries about food, health care and boarding. Not for him and his family, but for his two dogs — he’s been laying out $17,000 a year for upkeep of his labradoodle and bichon frise, including around $5,000 to hire a dog-walker to take them out each day. He might resort to walking them himself a couple times a week.”
At The Nation, Chris Lehmann traces the origins of the war against unions and its devastating consequences for America back to the Gipper. “The true economic legacy of the Reagan years is an uglier practice: unionbusting.”
There’s no denying the central role of racism in the slaying of Trayvon Martin. but it looks to me like the National Rifle Association’s hard lobbying for the so-called “Stand Your ground” laws (aka “shoot first” laws) is partly to blame. As Mother Jones notes: “…In 2010, the Tampa Bay Times reported that “justifiable homicides”–i.e., killings that were deemed legitimate–have skyrocketed in Florida over several years since the “stand your ground” law went into effect.” See also John Nichols’ post in The Nation, “How ALEC Took Florida’s ‘License to Kill’ Law National.”
Sean Sullivan reports at National Journal’s Hotline on “DCCC Adds Five Illinois Races to “Red to Blue” List.” Sullivan quotes DCCC Chair Steve israel: “I am conservative in telling you we will pick up two seats in Illinois, I am comfortable in telling we will pick up three to four seats in seats in Illinois, I think in a wave election in an aggressive climate we could pick up five seats.”
I didn’t think the “etch-a-sketch” comment was all that big a deal. But Joe Klein makes a potent case that it is. Newt’s comment backs up Klein’s argument, “Gov. Romney’s staff, they don’t even have the decency to wait until they get the nomination to explain to us how they’ll sell us out,” he said. “I think having an Etch A Sketch as your campaign model raises every doubt about where we’re going.” Looks like the GOP front-runner has got himself a new nickname.
Ezra Klein flags a time when Gov. Etch-a-Sketch spoke more kindly about rising gas prices, saying “I’m not sure there will be the right time, for us to encourage the use of more gasoline…I’m very much in favor of people recognizing that these high gasoline prices are probably here to stay.” Hopefully, someone will find the video clip.