This being a serious political strategy e-rag, we try hard to avoid name-calling, since it never elevates dialogue about relevant issues. So, resisting that very difficult (in this case) temptation, I’ll try a little reverse psychology: Please Republicans don’t nominate that Donald Trump. We Dems are so scared of running against him. Trembling in our Birkenstocks, we are. As he said himself, “I’m the last person Obama wants to run against.”
OK, maybe you don’t buy that. How about a straight-up sincere appeal: Please Republicans, nominate Trump. We beg you. You know in your souls that his narcissistic personality captures the spirit of current GOP policies better than anyone. Go for the gusto! Let form follow function. We’ll even give you an edge, by telling you what video ad we will run against him. That’s right, you guessed it: His own “bragging birther” video clip, which is a tad nauseating to embed here, but you can see it at YouTube.
Yeah, we know. There’s no real chance he’s going to win the GOP nomination. It’s not only that he lacks the humility gene. His lightweight “policies” are all over the place and his narrative is too weird. On America’s worst day, I doubt there are enough ‘low information’ voters to affirm such sheer idiocy.
Speaking of humility, is there any chance fed and state Republican pols who wasted all those taxpayer dollars and time writing and huckstering ‘birther’ bills will now apologize to taxpayers?…Didn’t think so. But every one of them should be asked to do so, or explain why they won’t, on camera.

Joan C. Williams, author of “Reshaping the Work-Family Debate: Why Men and Class Matter,” takes a sobering look at “The Democrats’ working-class problem” in the Washington Post. She makes some key points that merit consideration from Democratic strategists and candidates, including:

…When Democrats talk about the poor, they can wind up losing more votes than they win. A key constituency in any national election is white voters who are neither rich nor poor — the working-class families whose median income is $64,000. This group, overwhelmingly Democratic before 1970, has abandoned the Democrats in large numbers, creating a conservative center in American politics. Obama needs these voters in 2012. And his team needs to learn some basic messages about how this group sees the world, in particular about their attitudes toward the rich and the poor, and about certain phrases that may not resonate with them. The donkey’s tin ear should end here.
…White working-class voters see the world very differently; they are more likely to be true believers in equal opportunity than to link poverty with social injustice. These families are less inclined to think, “There but for the grace of God go I” and more inclined to attribute poverty to a life of impulse, chaos and a lack of discipline stemming from individual choices.
…when the Democrats focus on the poor, these Americans hear disrespect — disrespect for their lives of rigid self-discipline in jobs of deadening repetitiveness, disrespect for their struggles in which one false step can mean a fall into poverty. Every time Democrats focus their message on the poor, they enhance Republican power.

Williams is painting with a very broad brush here, without any opinion data to back it up. She credits Obama with scoring bulls’ eyes in his recent speeches when he talks about Social Security and Medicare, but not Medicaid. Her broad brush notwithstanding, I find it hard to disagree with her recommendation:

The Democrats need to stick to a central theme: that Republicans are proposing to eliminate the programs that allow Americans who have worked hard all their lives, doing everything responsible people are supposed to do, to pay for medical care and keep their homes as they age. Medicare and Social Security are the rewards for the settled life. Republicans propose to replace those programs with inadequate substitutes that will return seniors to where they were before government provided safety nets: the poorest group in the country.
The president does send this message, but he mixes it with a protect-the-vulnerable message that only strengthens Republicans’ hand in the coming budget negotiations. And, most important, by undermining the potential coalition between Democrats and working-class whites, the protect-the-poor message ultimately hurts the vulnerable Americans it is designed to help.

The white working class does not embrace a blanket “soak the rich” ideology, cautions Williams. But she does see an opening for Dems to frame the issue in terms of fair taxes:

In his deficit speech, Obama emphasized a theme he has drawn on before: that the very rich do not deserve tax relief. “In the last decade, the average income of the bottom 90 percent of all working Americans actually declined,” he said. “The top 1 percent saw their income rise by an average of more than a quarter of a million dollars each. . . . They want to give people like me a $200,000 tax cut that’s paid for by asking 33 seniors to each pay $6,000 more in health costs?”
Nice move on the president’s part, to ask whether he needs that level of tax relief while seniors face higher health-care costs. But this theme needs to be further developed and reframed.

She notes that Dems have a huge challenge ahead in educating the public about the concentration of wealth and its effects on the aspirations of working families:

Democrats also need to debunk the myth that the rich work “darned hard for every cent.” Class mobility in the United States is lower than in other industrialized countries, and only 18 percent of the income in America’s richest families comes from work — hard or otherwise. In America, most wealth does not come from hard work. It comes from wealth.
Democrats also need, over and over again, to contrast the decline of the middle class with the explosion of wealth at the top. Between the “Ozzie and Harriett” 1950s and the “All in the Family” 1970s, ordinary Americans’ standard of living doubled. Since then, it has fallen: Forty-two percent of new wealth created from 1983 to 2004 has gone to the richest 1 percent of Americans. The richer have become much richer at the expense of the middle class: The wages of high-school educated men have fallen 25 percent since 1973, during a period when the richest Americans’ share of income doubled. The top 20 percent now controls 85 percent of American wealth — something most Americans do not know.

Williams warns that Sarah Palin connects with this pivotal constituency better than any other politician (although I don’t see how Palin’s views on issues like Social Security and Medicare will survive seniors’ scrutiny or win working class support). Williams is dead right, however, in that the white working class remains the largest swing constituency, and Democrats need to speak to their core concerns more directly and effectively.

When it comes to messaging directly to the public, one strong protest song can sometimes do the work of ten good political speeches, which is why The Nation is asking readers to submit the name of “your all-time favorite protest song” on this form. (Nation writer Peter Rothberg has a pretty good list here to joggle the memory). It’s a tough call with so many great protest songs, but I don’t see how you can do much better in terms of relevance to the current political moment than this prescient little ditty, penned by a reluctantly prophetic songwriter, Iris Dement and first recorded by her in 1996:

When Tampa community radio station WMNF played the song back in 1997, Republican state Senator John Grant reportedly got so ticked off that he pulled $104,000 of the station’s public funding. Over the next day and a half Florida listeners raised $122,000 for the station in an emergency appeal.

Alan I. Abramowitz and Nate Silver agree that Dems have a good chance to win back a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives next year, which should be cause for some concern among smarter Republicans. Here’s Abramowitz, from his current column at Larry J. Sabato’s Crystal Ball:

Democrats would only need to pick up 25 seats in 2012 to get to the magic number of 218 that would give them control of the House-assuming that all of their members supported the Democratic candidate for Speaker. That’s hardly an insurmountable number. In fact, two of the last three elections, 2006 and 2010, have produced bigger swings, and 2008 came close.
Despite the recent volatility of House elections, some astute political observers are giving the Democrats little or no chance of regaining control of the House in 2012. For example, last December, Republican pollster Glen Bolger went so far as to “guarantee” that the GOP would maintain its House majority even if President Obama were to win a second term. And just last month, respected political handicapper Charlie Cook agreed that a Democratic pickup of 25 or more seats in the House was highly unlikely.
Both Bolger and Cook cited the relatively short coattails that winning presidential incumbents have had in recent years as a major obstacle to big Democratic gains in the 2012 House elections. In the past 40 years, the largest number of House seats gained by the winning incumbent’s party was 16 in 1984, a year in which Ronald Reagan won reelection by a landslide. You have to go all the way back to 1964 to find an election in which the winning incumbent’s party gained at least 25 seats in the House.
Notwithstanding these predictions and the historical record, however, there are three reasons to believe that Democrats have a decent chance of taking back control of the House in 2012. First, as a result of their big gains in 2010, Republicans will be defending a large number of seats in House districts that voted for Barack Obama in 2008; second, many of those districts are likely to vote for Obama again in 2012 because of the difference between the presidential and midterm electorate in the current era; and third, Republican incumbents in these Obama districts will be at high risk of losing their seats if Obama wins because straight-ticket voting is much more prevalent now than it was 30 or 40 years ago.

Further, adds Abramowitz,

…There are 60 Republicans in districts that were carried by Barack Obama in 2008 including 15 in districts that Obama carried by at least 10 points. In contrast, there are only 12 Democrats in districts that were carried by John McCain in 2008 and only six in districts that McCain carried by at least 10 points.

As for the GOP’s supposed edge in redistricting, Abramowitz notes:

Of course before the 2012 congressional elections take place, House districts will be redrawn based on the results of the 2010 Census. In states where Republicans control redistricting-and the number of such states grew considerably as a result of the 2010 midterm elections-GOP legislatures may be able to redraw the lines to protect potentially vulnerable Republican incumbents. However, the ability of Republican legislatures to protect their party’s House incumbents may be limited by the dramatic increase in the past decade in the nonwhite share of the population in many states. For example, while Republicans will control redistricting in Texas, which is gaining four House seats, more than any other state, most of the population growth in Texas has been because of the rapid increase in the Hispanic population. At least one, if not two, of the new Texas House districts are likely to go to Hispanics.

Abramowitz also cites the increased turnout, over the mid terms, of Obama-friendly constituencies in a presidential election, particularly Latino voters, who are growing even faster than expected, according to the latest census data. But he believes the Dems strongest card may be the rising trend toward straight-ticket voting in recent years. Abramowitz stops short of predicting a Dem takeover of the House, but he calls it a “realistic” possibility, especially if Obama wins a “decisive victory” in ’12.
Nate Silver sees the budget fight and the vote on GOP Rep. Ryan’s draconian budget proposals as a potential net plus for Democratic congressional candidates. Silver explains in a recent five thirty eight post,

So far, no polls have been conducted on Mr. Ryan’s budget as a whole. But — although voters will like the deficit reduction it claims to achieve (several outside analysts have questioned the bill’s economic findings) — a couple of its individual elements figure to be quite unpopular. In particular, the bill includes substantial changes to Medicare and Medicaid — changes that many voters tell pollsters are unacceptable. And it would cut the top tax rates, when polls usually find that most Americans want taxes on upper-income Americans to be raised rather than lowered.

Silver also believes that the Republicans’ prospects for a senate takeover next year are overstated. Echoing Abramowitz’s point about the decline in split-ticket voting, he sees the vote on Ryan’s proposals as a potential game-changer for the House:

…One possible consequence of the vote is that it could tie the fate of Mr. Obama and the Democrats in Congress more closely together. In the past, presidents have rarely had substantial coattails when running for a second term; Bill Clinton’s Democrats won just 9 seats in the House in 1996, for instance, even though he beat Bob Dole overwhelmingly. In 2010, however, the share of the vote received by Democrats running for Congress was very strongly correlated with support for Mr. Obama, and today’s vote could deepen that connection, making it less likely that voters will return a divided government again.

When two of the sharpest political data analysts agree that the House may be up for grabs, the DNC and Dem contributors should take note and invest accordingly. Of course there is a difference between Dems having a decent chance to win back a House majority and the probability of it happening. For the moment, however, The President appears to be moving into solid position to leverage the trend toward straight-ticket voting for the benefit of the Party. With a favorable break or two on the economy, the possibility of a Dem takeover of the House could morph into a good bet.

Today is the 43rd anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther KIng, Jr., who was murdered while supporting striking sanitation workers in Memphis, TN in 1968. Dr. King, a strong supporter of the American trade union movement, said “The Labor Movement was the principal force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress.” Today, American labor will honor Dr. King with more than 1000 events in the ‘We Are One’ campaign, coast to coast. From the AFL-CIO Now blog:
You can keep up with all of the We Are One events on April 4 by checking out a live Web stream, Twitter feed and photo slide show of ongoing events at the AFL-CIO site….
If you are out at a rally or event, share what’s going on through Twitter using the #April4 hashtag. And if you’re on Twitter and attending a rally, please send twitpics using the #April4 hashtag and we will add them to the slideshow at www.aflcio.org.
On April 4 and in the days before and after, working people are joining students, religious leaders, elected officials and community activists across the country in more than 1,000 We Are One actions to show solidarity with workers under attack and to honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who was assassinated that day in 1968. He was in Memphis April 4 helping sanitation workers fight for the same workers’ rights now under attack in Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio and elsewhere.
Click here to find an event near you…Click here for ideas you can use to stage your own event, here for resources and here to add an event to our We Are One calendar

The Kaiser Health Tracking Poll for February 2011, (conducted 2/3-6 and 2/8-13 by Princeton Survey Research Associates, has some excellent news for supporters of the health care reform legislation passed last year. It’s also a big downer for the GOP repeal advocates, as is clear from responses to two of the pollster’s questions in particular:
Asked, “What would you like to see Congress do when it comes to the health care law?,” 30 percent agreed that “They should expand the law,” while 20 percent said “They should keep the law as is.
Only 19 percent agreed that “They should repeal the law and replace it with a Republican‐sponsored alternative and 20 percent said “they should repeal the law and not replace it.” 10 percent selecting “don’t know/refused.”
It gets worse for the repeal advocates:
Asked “Some lawmakers who oppose the health reform law say that if Congress isn’t able to repeal the law, they should try to stop it from being put into place by cutting off funding to implement it. Whether or not you like the health reform law, would you say you approve or disapprove of cutting off funding as a way to stop some or all of health reform from being put into place?,” a decisive 61 percent said they “disapprove of cutting off funding, and only 34 percent supported cutting off funding. 5 percent responded “don’t know/refused.”
So, after all of the fussing and Republican chest beating about how the American people want to repeal or cut off funding for the Health Care Act, half of Americans want to keep the bill the way it is or expand coverage, and only 39 percent support any kind of repeal. And a hefty majority opposes cutting off funding to kill the legislation.
There’s a lot more for Dems to be encouraged about in the Kaiser poll, which is one of the more respected polling outfits in terms of method and question-framing. For example, 7 of 8 provisions polled well, most extrememly well. Only the requirement that everyone purchases health insurance or pays a fine was opposed by a majority.

It was disgusting enough when Republican Governors and state legislators in Wisconsin, Indiana and Ohio launched a campaign to squash public employee unions. Now we have Governor of Maine Paul LePage escalating the war against working people to include elimination of public art that celebrates the dignity of honest toil. Here’s a report from former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich:

Maine Governor Paul LePage has ordered state workers to remove from the state labor department a 36-foot mural depicting the state’s labor history. Among other things the mural illustrates the 1937 shoe mill strike in Auburn and Lewiston. It also features the iconic “Rosie the Riveter,” who in real life worked at the Bath Iron Works. One panel shows my predecessor at the U.S. Department of Labor, Frances Perkins, who was buried in Newcastle, Maine.
The LePage Administration is also renaming conference rooms that had carried the names of historic leaders of American labor, as well as former Secretary Perkins.
The Governor’s spokesman explains that the mural and the conference-room names were “not in keeping with the department’s pro-business goals.”
Are we still in America?

As Reich points out, there is no mystery about LePage’s diss of Frances Perkins:

She and her boss, Franklin D. Roosevelt, came to office at a time when average working people needed help – and Perkins and Roosevelt were determined to give it to them. Together, they created Social Security, unemployment insurance, the right of workers to unionize, the minimum wage, and the forty-hour workweek.

In other words, all the things today’s GOP wants to take away from working people.
If you were wondering how lame the Governor’s defense of his executive order gets, this CNN report provides a sample:

To underscore the point, the governor’s office recently released a written complaint from a visitor to the state’s labor office to the Portland Press Herald.
“In this mural I observed a figure which closely resembles the former commissioner of labor,” the visitor wrote, according to the newspaper. “In studying the mural I also observed that this mural is nothing but propaganda to further the agenda of the Union movement. I felt for a moment that I was in communist North Korea where they use these murals to brainwash the masses.”
The letter writer identified himself as “A Secret Admirer,” the newspaper reported.

Don’t be surprised if it is later revealed that the “secret admirer” is a fat cat contributor. The people of Maine can be forgiven if they point out that the governor’s job description does not include “groveling lackey for big business.”
The mural, created by artist Judy Taylor, (see it here) was selected by a jury of the Maine Arts Commission. It presents a moving tribute to working people, but it’s certainly not as controversial as Diego Riviera’s 1933 mural on the wall of New York’s RCA Centre, which was removed by Nelson Rockefeller’s order.
Yeah, I know. It’s just a mural. But the incident does suggest that there are few indignities some Republican Governors will not suffer to demonstrate their inordinate fondness for labor-bashing — even if it means censorship.

If you thought the nuclear power plant disasters in Japan were going to recast the energy debate in the U.S., you may have to think again — or at least wait a while. That would be a prudent conclusion drawn from the just-released CNN/Opinion Research Poll, conducted 3/18-20 (PDF here). According to CNN’s ‘Political Ticker’:

Opposition to building new nuclear power plants in the U.S. has edged up since last spring, a likely reaction to the nuclear power plants crisis in Japan, according to a new national poll.
But a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Tuesday also indicates a majority of Americans approve of using nuclear energy to produce electricity…Fifty-seven percent of people questioned in the poll say they approve of the domestic use of nuclear energy, with 42 percent opposed.
“Attitudes toward nuclear power in the U.S. are more positive than they were after Chernobyl in 1986, when only 45 percent approved of nuclear energy plants, or Three Mile Island in 1979, when 53 percent approved of nuclear energy and the number who said nuclear plants were not safe was 10 points higher than today,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

I was a little surprised by the 57 percent approval, given the horrific video and images coming from Japan. But opponents of nuclear power plants may find encouragement in some other findings in the poll:

The survey indicates that 53 percent of the public opposes building more nuclear power plants in the U.S., up six points from last year. Forty-six percent support the construction of new plants.

A fairly even split, but favoring nuclear power skeptics. Six in ten would opose building a nuclear power plant in their community, while 57 percent say that the U.S. should rely less on nuclear power as a future energy source. Another new poll, by CBS News (conducted 3/18-21) found that 50 percent of respondents opposed new construction of nuclear power plants, with 43 percent favoring new plants. The CBS poll found that 62 percent opposed having a nuclear power plant in their community, with 35 percent saying it would be OK.
When it comes to existing nuclear power plants, however, the gap widens, favoring those who want to keep them, according to the CNN/ORC poll:

Sixty-eight percent say continue to operate all of them, with 27 percent saying that some should be shut down and one in ten calling for all of the plants to be closed.
According to the poll, 28 percent say domestic nuclear power plants are very safe, with just over half saying they are somewhat safe and one in five saying they are not safe.

The CNN report notes that 54 percent of the respondents considered nuclear power plants on or near earthquake zones and oceans “very safe) (12 percent) or “somewhat safe (42 percent). Two out of three respondents expressed confidence that the federal government was prepared to handle a major crisis at a nuclear power plant, which may be a bit of an “ostrich reflex,” given the post-Katrina mess. There are nuclear power plants on the Gulf of Mexico, near New Orleans, Galveston and Tampa, in addition to the two located on the Pacific in California earthquake country. The CBS poll found a higher level of skepticism, with 35 percent saying the government is prepared to deal with a nuclear emergency, while 58 percent say it is not
There are 104 nuclear power plants licensed to operate in the U.S. It’s hard to imagine that the public has a realistic grasp of the enormously expensive and complex security and safety issues surrounding the plants that merit concern. President Obama has expressed support of the expansion of nuclear power in the U.S., while calling on the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to review the safety of the 104 operating plants, most of which are aging significantly.
I was one of those ostrich Democrats who became complaisant about nuclear power in recent years, thinking that the diminishing anti-nuclear power plant protests had started to sound like Chicken Little. After all we had not seen reports of any major disaster threats in the U.S. since Three Mile Island.
But the sobering images from Japan have jerked my head out of the sand. And reports like the one out today noting that there is an advisory to new mothers in Tokyo not to let their babies have any tap water because it has double the level of radioactivity considered safe for infants insures that I’m staying opposed to it. It’s not like we’ve got a big edge in scientific or technical expertise over the Japanese. The Union of Concerned Scientists reports that U.S. Nuclear Power Plants had 14 “near misses,” or serious “events” in 2010 alone, involving “inadequate training, faulty maintenance, poor design, and failure to investigate problems thoroughly.”
I’m hoping President Obama will rethink the issue, declare a moratorium on new construction of nuclear power plants and invest the money saved in developing truly green energy options, like solar thermal and wind, which would create a hell of a lot more jobs, according to the Worldwatch Institute. Despite the relatively small number of jobs they create, nuclear power plants often end up being more expensive, because of unexpected safety issues that must be addressed. For a disturbing account of the ever-increasing expenses and dangers associated with nuclear power in the U.S., read Christian Parenti’s article “After Three Mile Island: The Rise and Fall of Nuclear Safety Culture” in The Nation.
The more you read about the dangers and expenses of nuclear power plants, the harder it gets to accept glib assurances about their safety and economic feasibility. Even if one accepts the premise that the odds are very high against a major disaster in the U.S., all it takes is one long shot disaster to do vast damage to America’s economy and politics. At the very least, Dems should consider a much stronger emphasis on development of alternative sources of power. Anybody up for a Manhattan Project/Marshall Plan for solar/wind power development?

Most Americans remember the date April 4 as the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., a day of commemorating the courage, vision and contributions of one of America’s greatest leaders. It is a measure of King’s legacy that he is honored in observance programs across the nation, not only on his birthday, a national holiday, but also on the anniversary of his death.
The 2011 anniversary of MLK’s death, however, will have added poignancy, since it will be observed in the context of the historic protest demonstrations in Madison resisting the attack on public workers’ collective bargaining rights. King was martyred in 1968 while leading a protest campaign supporting the rights of striking sanitation workers in Memphis. When the new monument honoring Dr. King is unveiled at the Great Mall in Washington, D.C. this summer, America will have our first major memorial honoring a leader of the struggle for worker rights, as well as for racial equality.
Organized labor will mark the anniversary of the assassination of Dr. King with a mass mobilization, including rallies, marches and other activities to defend workers’ rights in cities and towns across the nation. For a partial listing of events (more being added continually) check here, and for assistance with event ideas and resources, click here. (Facebook page here)
In addition to labor unions, the ‘We Are One’ MLK commemorations are expected to draw a significant turnout of African Americans and students, because both have been targeted by GOP disenfranchisement campaigns. April 4 could well mark a rekindling of King’s ‘Coalition of Conscience,’ a new 21st century movement for social and economic justice.
For an inspiring and informative read on the topic of MLK and worker rights leading up to April 4, you can’t do much better than “All Labor Has Dignity,” a new collection of King’s writings, edited by Michael Honey.
Mark it on your calendar, Monday, April 4th — We Are One.

Twenty months out from the 2012 election, the GOP’s voter suppression strategy is taking shape. By crushing public sector unions and expanding felon and student disenfranchisement, they hope to weaken Democratic turnout. While they have always supported these strategies, the margins Republicans gained in state houses in the November elections have empowered them to launch a much stronger voter suppression campaign.
There is reason to hope that their efforts to gut public sector unions will backfire, as evidenced by recent public opinion polls regarding Governor Walker’s union-busting campaign in Wisconsin. The fact that Walker exempted the three unions that supported him is proof enough that his primary objective is to disempower public unions because they have provided significant support for Democratic candidates.
In Florida, Governor Scott and his cohorts on the all-Republican Executive Clemency Board are setting a new standard for shameless partisan sleaze, with a racist twist. Here’s how Peter Wallsten’s Washington Post article explained this bit of political chicanery:

Florida Gov. Rick Scott and other Cabinet-level officials voted unanimously Wednesday to roll back state rules enacted four years ago that made it easier for many ex-felons to regain the right to vote.
Now, under the new rules, even nonviolent offenders would have to wait five years after the conclusion of their sentences to apply for the chance to have their civil rights restored.

In 2007 Florida Governor Charlie Crist initiated a measure to make civil rights restoration “almost automatic” for most ex-felons. Wallsten reports that more than 100,000 ex-felons took advantage of Crists initiative to attempt to register to vote. “Experts say many of those new voters were likely Democratic-leaning African Americans,” reports Wallsten, which likely helped Obama win Florida.
Approximately 54,000 ex-felons in Florida had their civil rights restored since 2007, before which the state restored the rights of only about 8,000 ex-felons annually, according to the ACLU.
The “rationale,” for the initiative according to a spokesperson for the Republican Florida A.G.:

“This issue of civil rights restoration is about principle, not partisanship…Attorney General Bondi is philosophically opposed to the concept of automatic restoration of civil rights and believes not only that felons should apply for their rights, but wait for a period of time in order to attest to their rehabilitation and commitment to living a crime-free life.

Howard Simon, executive director of the Florida chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union sees the Republican measure a little differently. “It clearly has the effect of suppressing the vote as we go into a presidential election cycle.”
Unfortunately, the constitutionality of felon disenfranchisement has been upheld in courts from time to time, even though punishing people beyond the terms of their sentence remains a dubious proposition in a real democracy. Certainly the Florida Republicans have no qualms about making a mockery of the principle of rehabilitation in their criminal justice system. And no fair-minded person could deny that felon disenfranchisement targets African Americans, given their disproportionate incarceration rates, which numerous scholars have attributed to bias in sentencing.
In addition to the Republican efforts to crush public employee unionism and disenfranchise African American voters, Tobin Van Ostern reports at Campus Progress on the escalation of the conservative campaign to disenfranchise another pro-Democratic group, students:

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a conservative organization linked to corporate and right-wing donors, including the billionaire Koch brothers, has drafted and distributed model legislation, obtained by Campus Progress, that appears to be the inspiration for bills proposed by state legislators this year and promoted by Tea Party activists, bills that would limit access of young people to vote.
…Charles Monaco, the press and new media specialist at the Progressive States Network, a state-based organization that has been tracking this issue, says, “ALEC is involved with a vast network of well-funded right wing organizations working to spread voter ID laws in the state legislatures. It is clear what their purpose is with these laws–to reduce progressive turnout and tilt the playing field towards their preferred candidates in elections.”

In Wisconsin and New Hampshire, for example,

Conservative representatives in the state have proposed a law, backed by Walker, that would ban students from using in-state university- or college-issued IDs for proof-of-residency when voting. If this legislation became law, it would become one of the strictest voter registration laws in the country and would provide significant logistical and financial barriers for a variety of groups, including student and minority voters.
Meanwhile, as Campus Progress reported last month, in New Hampshire, state House Speaker William O’Brien (R- Hillsborough 4) says that proposed election legislation will “tighten up the definition of a New Hampshire resident.” O’Brien claims that college towns experience hundreds of same-day voter registrations and that those are the ballots of people who “are kids voting liberal, voting their feelings, with no life experience.”

To repeat, the Speaker of the New Hampshire House says it’s OK to deny a group of predominantly young people voting rights because they are “voting liberal.” If Dems don’t make an ad about that targeting youth voters nationwide, they should be cited for political negligence. In other states,

…According to research by the Fair Elections Legal Network (FELN) and Campus Progress, in the past six years, seven states have enacted laws that disenfranchise students or make it more difficult for them to vote. This year, 18 additional states are considering similar laws, while other states are proposing voter ID laws that would depress turnout among other groups of voters–particularly those who traditionally lean left…These requirements run the gamut from requiring in-state driver’s licenses, to banning school IDs, to prohibiting first-time voters–essentially every college-aged voter–from voting by absentee ballot…

There can be no doubt at this point about the GOP’ political strategy for 2011-12: Crush unions, disenfranchise ex-felons and students — such are the often unintended consequences of voting Republican. For Dems, the challenges couldn’t be more clear: Publicize the GOP’s contempt for voting rights; Reach out to win the support of blue collar workers and energize our base constituencies with bold, populist reforms that create jobs and protect and improve their living standards.