The American Prospect’s Robert Kuttner has an insightful take on “What to Watch for in Tuesday’s Debate” in terms of Clinton’s strategy:

Clinton needs to get out of a self-infecting cycle of bad publicity, in which everything she does is dismissed as calculating and contrived, even when it represents creative movement on issues. Sanders merely needs to take care to come across as fighting for the forgotten American on the issues, as he nearly always does, but not too radical in his personal style.
In the past few weeks, Clinton has made several dramatic moves in Sanders’s direction. She has broken with the administration on the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, on the Keystone Pipeline, and on the so-called Cadillac Tax on high quality health plans (she is for repeal; the White House is not). She is out-flanking Sanders to the left on gun control, and she is at least as comfortable talking about race.
…In the inside game, Clinton needs to persuade the activists associated with the Democratic Party, especially the labor movement, that she can be as much their champion as Sanders can. She needs to reassure her own core supporters (who might be tempted to defect to Biden) that her candidacy is not fatally damaged by recent missteps.
..Clinton, in short, is necessarily playing a much more complex game than Sanders. Much of her posture is directed at a potential candidate who will not be on stage–Joe Biden. A great deal of her positioning is aimed not just at Sanders, but at dissuading Biden from getting into the race.

Clinton will have to provide clear answers — and good soundbites — in response to the badgering she will receive about her emails, discrediting the accusations as baseless, politicized complaints, without seeming arrogantly dismissive. A challenge for her, and for all of the candidates, is not to bristle when under attack.
As for Sanders, Joan Walsh notes at The Nation:

…Sanders has improved his rhetoric and his outreach since those early clashes. He hired Symone Sanders, a young African-American activist on issues of mass incarceration and racial justice, away from Public Citizen to be his communications director. And where he once sounded as though he believed the achievement of genuine economic justice would lead automatically to racial justice, he now routinely talks about dismantling the incarceration state and other measures specifically designed to reverse black disadvantage.
On guns, Sanders has riled activists with a handful of votes against gun regulation. He voted against the 1993 Brady Bill, to allow weapons in national parks and checked baggage on Amtrak, and to offer gun manufacturers immunity against suits by gun victims. In condolence remarks after the mass shootings in Charleston, South Carolina last summer, Sanders didn’t mention the issue of guns.
But Sanders has improved his rhetoric and his outreach since those early clashes. He hired Symone Sanders, a young African-American activist on issues of mass incarceration and racial justice, away from Public Citizen to be his communications director. And where he once sounded as though he believed the achievement of genuine economic justice would lead automatically to racial justice, he now routinely talks about dismantling the incarceration state and other measures specifically designed to reverse black disadvantage.
…The big question for Sanders is whether he can put together an electoral coalition to get the nomination, and win next November. On that score, the debate can’t help but help him. Sanders still polls dismally among African-Americans; in a recent YouGov poll he got 8 percent of their votes; in a South Carolina poll released Monday (that’s the first primary state in which the black vote will be significant), he was at 4 percent. But a lot of that has to do with his being much less known to black voters than Clinton or Vice President Joe Biden. The first debate gives him a chance to bring his appeal to a mass audience.

Many political observers have expressed skepticism about Biden’s chances, should he eventually decide to run. A new Reuters poll indicates, however, that a Biden candidacy would have substantial support, even though he won’t be in the first Democratic debate:

Biden will not be there, but 48 percent of Democrats surveyed in the Reuters poll wish he were a candidate, compared with 30 percent who said he should stay out. Independents were split on the question, with 36 percent saying Biden should stay in and an equal share believing otherwise.
But support for Biden’s entry into the race does not translate into equal passion for his candidacy. Just 17 percent of those surveyed said Biden would be their first choice, while 46 percent would back Clinton. Biden would also run behind Sanders, who remains the favorite of one fourth of Democrats surveyed.

Lawrence Lessig, the crowd-funded academic who is focused on one issue — campaign finance reform, also will not be at the debate, since he has been polling below one percent.
Regarding the longer-shot candidates, who will all be looking for a possible “Fiorini moment,” Catherine Lucey and Ken Thomas of the AP quote former MD Governor Martin O’Malley on the challenge he faces tonight:

“This will really be the first time that nationally voters see that there’s more than one alternative to this year’s inevitable front-runner, Secretary Clinton,” O’Malley said.
“It’s a very, very important opportunity for me to not only present my vision for where the country should head, but also 15 years of executive experience, actually accomplishing the progressive things some of the other candidates can only talk about,” he said.

Ed Kilgore adds at The Washington Monthly, “If there’s any justice, though, Martin O’Malley probably deserves a post-debate bump. The guy did things the way you’re supposed to, spending many obscure days and weeks in Iowa before anyone was even thinking about the presidential race.”
Rachel Weiner writes at the Washington Post that “If there’s a chance for a wild card on the stage at Tuesday’s lead-off Democratic debate, the smart money’s on former senator Jim Webb of Virginia.” Weiner quotes Webb campaign spokesman , who provides a clue as to the persona Webb will try to project: “We have the best candidate to deliver economic fairness, social justice and common sense foreign policy, unbought and unbossed by anyone.”
With respect to Lincoln Chafee, Lucey and Thomas write, “Expect Chafee, the former senator and governor from Rhode Island, to go after Clinton for her 2002 vote to authorize the war in Iraq. Chafee, at the time a Republican, opposed the invasion and he’s said Clinton’s support for the war, which she has more recently called a “mistake,” is at the center of his decision to run.”
Much to the relief of many Democrats, regardless of their candidate preferences, there will certainly be a vigorous debate, instead of a ‘coronation,’ which would surely be frowned upon by swing voters. The hope is that tonight’s forum will generate light, as well as heat — a big distinction from what has been going on in the GOP debates.

Democratic strategist Mike Lux, in his role as president of American Family Voices, has a HuffPo post reporting on his organization’s recent summit of “forward-thinking business leaders and top leaders of the progressive movement in America.”
Lux begins with the observation that “for most businesses in America today, their best prospect at competing with huge corporations who cut insider deals to rig the rules in their favor is to have progressive economic policies win the day.” Conversely, “the progressive movement will not win substantive change in this country without strong and successful business leaders being on our side.”
The common ground between progressives and forward-thinking business leaders has not been adequately-explored, argues Lux. Despite being involved in numerous campaigns against corporations which abuse their workers and consumers, Lux sees a significant potential for coalition building based on common interest. “What I became more and more focused on,” notes Lux, “was a fundamental idea: that the economic policies supported by the progressive movement I was a part of are the exact same policies that would help most businesses in this country.” For example,

Higher wages mean more disposable income for customers. Paid sick leave and decent health care benefits mean more stability in the workforce for most companies. Breaking up the biggest banks and fair rules for the financial industry would mean far more investment and better terms on loans for most small businesses. Better schools mean more productive workers.
Converting to a green economy and making adequate investments in infrastructure and R&D would mean the creation of thousands of new businesses and millions of new jobs, a lot of them high wage. Vigorous enforcement of anti-trust laws and prosecuting businesses that manipulate markets mean that honest businesses can better compete with big corporations who have an unfair advantage.
The federal and state tax, budget, regulatory, enforcement, and contracting policies that benefit a near-monopolistic company like Wal-Mart do not generally benefit local retailers; policies that help the financial speculators and manipulators on Wall Street benefit neither community banks nor the small businesses looking for start-up loans and lines of credit; and the lack of anti-trust enforcement that helps huge corporate conglomerates continue to gobble up smaller companies is the exact opposite of the policies new entrepreneurs need to compete with those corporations seeking to wipe out their competition.

Then there is the thorny matter of how progressives and business leaders too often alienate each other with bad communication:

Activists are used to pushing hard, and that sometimes comes off as purist to businesses with bottom lines. These businesses want to be given opportunities to address and correct perceived problems before being targeted by activist campaigns. Further, business owners want to be engaged in the entire process of activism, not asked to be the face of an issue campaign after the fact: they want to have their perspectives and priorities on the issues involved valued from the very beginning.”
There are some businesses that those of us in the progressive movement oppose on big issues — such as Koch Industries and the other big fossil fuel companies, the biggest financial speculators on Wall Street, Wal-Mart, the big food and agriculture giants…But for the vast majority of small business people and up and coming entrepreneurs, on a great many issues, we are in fact on the same side — or at least should be.

Progressive are quick to target reactionary corporations, but it’s important that progressives commit to supporting those businesses which strive to treat their employees and customers with respect and a genuine concern, says Lux. “Without these businesses speaking out against corporate malfeasance and offering a progressive alternative in the market, we all lose, plain and simple.”
While most progressive activists have no trouble rattling off a list of corporations which deserve to be boycotted, for example, fewer could name those companies, large and small, which are striving to be good corporate citizens and worthy of support. Many more companies have a mix of progressive and reactionary policies requiring a more nuanced analysis.
“We can’t lessen income inequality, and we can’t change the top 1 percent orientation of our politics,” concludes Lux, “without having a vital and growing high road business sector.”
This is a good dialogue for Democrats. The common ground between progressives and socially-concerned business leaders and small business men and women includes a lot of swing voters, perhaps enough to make a transformative difference on election day.

Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne, Jr. calls out Republicans for their shameless pandering to the gun industry and commends President Obama for “politicizing” the latest mass shootings:

President Obama spoke some of the most important words of his tenure last week in response to the mass shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore. “This is something we should politicize,” the president said. “It is relevant to our common life together, to the body politic.”
This is something we should politicize. His statement was remarkable for violating the etiquette as to what a leader should say after another slaughter by a deranged gunman and the conventional wisdom about how politicians have to pretend that they are not engaged in politics.
But Obama was forcing us to face reality. It’s politics that has rendered our nation powerless in the face of butchery. There have been at least 142 school shootings since the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012, according to Everytown for Gun Safety, and Congress has done nothing. It’s politics, as Obama said, that makes the U.S. “the only advanced country on Earth that sees these kinds of mass shootings every few months,” and politics that leads our learned legislators to pass laws barring the government from “even collecting data on how we could potentially reduce gun deaths.”
…”Politicize” is the right word for another reason: We will not act until politicians start losing elections for opposing even the most modest gun safety measure. We will not act unless political parties that block action lose their majorities. Yes, I am talking about a Republican Party that has completely aligned itself with the interests of gun manufacturers and gun fanatics.

Dionne cites “the conclusion of a study released in August by National Journal: “The states that impose the most restrictions on gun users also have the lowest rates of gun-related deaths, while states with fewer regulations typically have a much higher death rate from guns.” Dionne adds, “State laws could be even more effective if they were matched by federal laws that made it harder for guns to get into the wrong hands.”
Dionne notes the example of Australia’s former conservative Prime Minister John Howard, who provided courageous leadership for sensible gun control measures, including a ban on automatic and semi-automatic weapons and a major gun buy-back project, after a massacre of 35 Australians in Tasmania. Dionne concludes with a question that demands an honest answer: “Is a dangerous and harebrained absolutism about weaponry really the issue on which American conservatives want to practice exceptionalism?

Presidential candidates broke sharply along party lines in response to the mass shooting in Roseburg, Oregon. Republican presidential hopefuls limited their responses to sending their “thoughts and prayers” to the families of the victims, reports Eugene Scott at CNN.com. But Democratic presidential candidates went further:
Sen. Bernie Sanders called for increased gun-control legislation, improving the mental health system as well toning “down the incredibly high level of gratuitous violence which permeates our media.”
Martin O’Malley tweeted, “Tweets won’t stop this. Thoughts and prayers won’t, either. Only real gun reforms will stop mass shootings from occurring nearly every day.
Vice President Biden noted “We’re basically only the civilized country in the world with so many mass shootings.”…The Second Amendment doesn’t say you can own an F-15 with hellfire missiles.”
Hillary Clinton said, “You know I know there is a way to have sensible gun control measures that help prevent violence, prevent guns from getting into the wrong hands and save lives.” She tweeted “We need sensible gun control measures to save lives, and I will do everything I can to achieve that. -H”
President Obama responded to the shootings with a call to action:

It cannot be this easy for somebody who wants to inflict harm on other people to get his or her hands on a gun…And what’s become routine, of course, is the response of those who oppose any kind of common-sense gun legislation..the majority of Americans understand we should be changing these laws — including the majority of responsible, law-abiding gun owners.
…We spend over a trillion dollars, and pass countless laws, and devote entire agencies to preventing terrorist attacks on our soil, and rightfully so. And yet, we have a Congress that explicitly blocks us from even collecting data on how we could potentially reduce gun deaths. How can that be?
…I would ask news organizations — because I won’t put these facts forward — have news organizations tally up the number of Americans who’ve been killed through terrorist attacks over the last decade and the number of Americans who’ve been killed by gun violence, and post those side-by-side on your news reports.

Some media, including TDS are sharing charts comparing the respective death tolls for terrorism and guns in the U.S.

Throughout the period depicted in the chart, Republicans have been eager to spend trillions of dollars on ‘the war against terrorism.’ Yet, no Republican presidential candidate has expressed support for even modest gun control measures, and many have been quick to disparage Democrats for doing so — another major difference between the two parties on a matter of critical national security.

On Monday J. P. Green flagged a Newsweek article “Should Voting Be Compulsory?” by William A. Galston and E. J. Dionne, Jr. The article summarized their more accurately-titled Brookings paper, “The case for universal voting: Why making voting a duty would enhance our elections and improve our government,” which fleshes out an idea that is generating buzz among those who are interested in electoral reforms.
The Brookings Paper deserves a close read. Their proposal would make American democracy less of a spectator sport with a more robust citizenship commitment. As the authors write in the introduction to their paper:

When we receive a summons for jury duty, we are required to present ourselves at the court. Should we treat showing up at the polls in elections the same way? Although the idea seems vaguely un-American, it is neither unusual, nor undemocratic, nor unconstitutional. And it would ease the intense partisan polarization that weakens both our capacity for self-government and public trust in our governing institutions.
It is easy to dismiss this idea as rooted in a form of coercion that is incompatible with our individualistic and often libertarian political culture. But consider Australia, whose political culture may be as similar to that of the United States as the culture of any other democracy in the world.

Galston and Dionne highlight “the Australian Solution,” requiring all eligible voters to show up at the polls on Election Day. They don’t have to mark their ballots. But they do have to show up or pay small fines — about the same as for routine traffic tickets. But the fines do increase with each failure to show, with exceptions like illness and foreign travel. All fines can be appealed in court. The Australian law also required citizens to register to vote, and the system facilitates registration.
“The results were remarkable. In the 1925 election, the first held under the new law,” write Dionne and Galston, “turnout soared to 91 percent. In the 27 elections since World War Two, turnout in Australia averaged 95 percent…It is hard to doubt that there is a causal connection…” The authors cite “additional evidence from the Netherlands, which operated under similar legislation from 1946 to 1967. During that time, turnout averaged 95 percent. After the Netherlands repealed this law, turnout has fallen to an average of 80 percent.”
The authors explain that the Australian experience enhanced citizen commitment dramatically and made it more of a norm nationwide. “Their sense of civic duty
makes them reluctant to cast uninformed ballots and inclines them to learn at least the basics about issues, parties and candidates.” They believe the reform could be tweaked to work in the U.S., where the quality of voter awareness and commitment is declining.
Among the reform’s numerous benefits:

Universal voting would help fill the vacuum in participation by evening out disparities stemming from income, education, and age. It would enhance our system’s ability to represent all our citizens and give states and localities incentives to lower, not raise, procedural barriers to the full and equal participation of each citizen in the electoral process.
If citizens had a legal obligation to vote, managers of our electoral process would in turn have an obligation to make it as simple as possible for voters to discharge this duty. The weakening of the Voting Rights Act by the Supreme Court has allowed many states to impose new requirements on voters and to cut back on early and Sunday voting.
Universal voting would change the presumptions in favor of broad democratic participation and put states on the side of promoting that goal. It would also improve electoral competition. Campaigns could devote far less money to costly, labor-intensive get-out-the-vote efforts. Media consultants would not have an incentive to drive down turnout with negative advertising (even though such advertising would no doubt remain part of their repertoire). Candidates would know that they had to do more than appeal to their respective bases with harshly divisive rhetoric and an emphasis on hot-button issues.
This brings us to a benefit of universal voting that goes to the heart of our current ills. Along with many other factors, our low turnout rate pushes American politics toward hyper-polarization. Intense partisans are more likely to participate in lower-turnout elections while those who are less ideologically committed and less fervent about specific issues are more likely to stay home. Although responding to strong sentiments is an important feature of sustainable democratic institutions, our elections tilt much too far in that direction.

Further,

Bringing less partisan voters into the electorate would reduce this instability, and it would offer parties and candidates new challenges and opportunities. The balance of electoral activities would shift from the mobilization of highly committed voters toward the persuasion of the less committed.
Candidates unwilling or unable to engage in persuasion would be more likely to lose. If political rhetoric cooled a bit, the intensity of polarization would diminish, improving
the prospects for post-election compromise. Rather than focusing on symbolic gestures whose principal purpose is to agitate partisans, Congress might have much stronger incentives to take on serious issues and solve problems. To pick up a term of the moment, universal voting might combat the “Trumpification” of politics.

“Right now,” say the authors, “citizenship in America is radically unbalanced: it is strong on rights but weak on responsibilities. With the abolition of the universal draft, citizens are asked to pay their taxes and obey the law– and show up for jury duty when summoned. That’s about it. Making voting universal would begin to right the balance. And it would send an important message: we all have the duty to help shape the country that has given us so much. ”
Galston and Dionne acknowledge that the political deck is stacked against their proposal at this political moment. They urge that some of the states who may be more amenable to universal voting begin the experiment with the idea, while moving forward on other needed voting reforms, like automatic, on-line and election day registration.
“We have advanced a proposal that stands outside the perimeter of what is now likely,” note the authors in their conclusion. “We hope that doing so will enrich the public debate–in the short term, by advancing the cause of more modest reforms that would increase participation; in the long term, by expanding our understanding of what is worth trying. For as recent events have demonstrated, ideas can sometimes move from the impossible to the inevitable at a pace that once seemed unimaginable. Universal voting could do so as well, for it is as deeply American an idea as Lincoln’s promise of a government “of the people, by the people, for the people.”
For an audio clip in which Dionne and Galston further discuss their proposal, click below:

View more details on Brookings.edu

In his New York Times op-ed, “What if All Politics Is National?,” Thomas B. Edsall addresses gnarly issues for Democrats, including the increasing polarization of national politics, the “inefficient distribution of Democratic voters,” the role of growing inequality, and most troubling of all, the triumph of the GOP in state politics. As always, Edsall’s entire column merits a thoughtful read. We’ll just quote from his observations about Republican domination at the state level, a problem which cries out for a more effective Democratic response:

In the states, just over half the population lives under one-party Republican rule. While Congress and the White House cannot agree on taxes, spending, immigration or any major issue, leaders in the 24 Republican-controlled states are winning enactment of a comprehensive conservative agenda.
Put another way, in a nation where the two major political parties are roughly equal, Republicans have full control of 24 states with 47.8 percent of the population, 152.4 million, Democrats have full control of only 7 states with 15.8 percent, 49.1 million. The remaining 17 states are under split control.
…Republican success at the state level – in contrast with control of the United States House and Senate – has empowered the party to actually make policy without the crippling effects of partisan gridlock.
More law and regulatory policy – much of it conservative and controversial – has been enacted at the state level than at any other level of government in the past five years. In terms of policy initiatives, the 24 states where Republicans are in full control are the most productive of all: the 11 Confederate states, except Virginia, along with Arizona, Idaho, Indiana, Wisconsin, Kansas, Michigan, Nebraska (with a nominally non-partisan legislature), Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Wyoming and Utah.
It is in these states that the retrenchment from social and economic liberalism is moving into high gear, as much of the rest of the country and the federal government remains mired in conflict…Democrats may have the edge in presidential elections, but Republicans now have the advantage where it counts: in the states, where they can set the policies that govern a majority of citizens’ daily lives.

That’s a lot for Democrats to worry about. It took a long time, too long, for Democrats to put together a challenge to the Koch brothers-funded American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which has been credited with spearheading the GOP’s domination of state politics. Progressive organizations like the State Innovation Exchange (SIX), the Association of State Democratic Chairs and Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC) are struggling to develop effective strategies and resources for restoring political balance in the nation’s state legislatures.
The Center for Media and Democracy has had some impressive success in holding ALEC’s corporate supporters accountable. CMD reports that “As of August 2015, at least 106 corporations and 19 non-profits — for a total of 120 private sector members — have publicly announced that they cut ties with the American Legislative Exchange Council…(four of those corporations have subsequently returned to ALEC, and many of the non-profits listed by ALEC as “lapsed” in August 2013 share an ideological agenda with and noted their desire to return to ALEC).”
Looking forward, ending ALEC’s reign of reaction in the state legislatures will require that a lot more progressives pay attention to politics at the state level and support Democratic candidates for state legislatures. Even with a Democratic landslide in 2016, winning back political balance in state governments will be a long, difficult haul. A more energized progressive coalition to meet this challenge is overdue.

The following article by Democratic strategist Mike Lux, author of The Progressive Revolution: How the Best in America Came to Be, is cross-posted from huffPo:
High tech hyper-libertarians, and increasingly right wing politicians who love both their money and their vision of marketplaces with no regulations, love to sell the virtues of the “sharing economy”, as they call it. Others slightly less enamored might call it the gig economy or the on-demand economy (which might be the most descriptive term, as I will write more of below), but whatever you call it, there are real concerns with having marketplaces with no rules to govern them.
Check out this great rant by Bill Maher to get the funniest take on these problems:

What the hyper-libertarian dreamweavers of Uber and AirBnB are spinning is a world where anyone can earn a little extra money on the side driving people around or sharing their extra room, and all of the rest can have more convenience besides. No need for rules: just some sharing among the new friends you meet through the app, right? The problem with no rules between new app-friends is that the old norms of safety and reliability and fairness go out the window- not to mention the stable jobs all those industries companies like Uber and AirBnB are competing with provide. Worried about safety on your trips? Stories like this. Worried about what AirBnB is doing to housing prices as it becomes a bigger and bigger business? Studies like this sure drive me to wonder. Do you have a disability and want to rent from AirBnB or ride with Uber? I’m hearing a lot of bad stories from my friends in the disability community. Want to stay in a building where the fire codes are done right? No guarantees at all with your new friend you just found on AirBnB.
And now AirBnB is starting to partner with the apartment industry, which will lead further away from individuals renting out their spare room, and more toward what would essentially be illegal hotels with no health and safety rules.
The issues go on and on, but at the center of it all is what kind of society are we trying to build. As the video my organization American Family Voices put out yesterday, I want an economy that is built around a prosperous and expanding middle class, where there is some stability in jobs, wages steadily rise, and most of the nation’s income is going to the bottom 90% of people rather than the top 1%. How does an on-demand economy get us to those goals? The whole idea of “on-demand” in corporate America was to have goods delivered exactly when they were needed. The problem with doing that in services is that you turn your workers into expendable cogs in your giant corporate wheel. That doesn’t lead to stability or higher wages or better benefits or economic security for anyone but the extremely wealthy executives at a few tech companies with clever apps.
There’s also an issue with these companies quickly joining the small number of firms- the big banks on Wall Street, Wal-Mart, a few big energy and food companies, etc- that have such incredible power in the economy and in politics that they can bully or bribe politicians into doing anything they want them to do.
So you know what? Let’s keep some basic ground rules in our economy. I want to stay at a place on my trips that has some health safety regulations they have to abide by; I want there to be an even playing field so that Uber and AirBnB have to live by the same rules that taxi companies and hotels do; if Uber drivers are full time, if AirBnB hosts are renting out apartments most of the time, they ought to be treated like employees and have their payroll taxes paid.
Today, there is a hearing in the House about the on-demand economy. The Republicans love the idea of the app-driven wild, wild west economy. Their answer to leveling the playfield for everyone else is to just de-regulate everything so there will be no rules that anyone has to live by in the modern economy. Not sure that works for anyone but the very wealthiest, but that is fine by them. In the meantime, the rest of us ought to keep a wary eye out for the on-demand libertarians: their vision could impoverish, and make unsafe and unfair, the entire society in the years to come.