Not a good message at a time when Georgia has the highest unemployment rate of all 50 states. Meanwhile Kristina Torres reports at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Georgia is experiencing a surge in voter registration.
Democratic Senate candidate Michelle Nunn looked sharp and assertive in last night’s debate in Perry, GA, as did Democratic candidate for governor Jason Carter. Both Democratic candidates seem to have amped up their media skills significantly in recent weeks. Republicans should be very worried.
Neither Democrat has done too much with their respective political pedigrees, perhaps assuming that name recognition alone does the job adequately. But one long-time observer of Georgia politics suggests that the most potent use of Michelle Nunn’s father, former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn and Jason Carter’s grandparents, former President Jimmy Carter and former First Lady Rosalynn Carter would be to deploy them in interviews, rather than ads, and have them work nursing homes to get a larger share of the high-turnout senior constituency.
UPDATE: For more insight on uptick in GA voter registration and new details on how Georgia’s demographic transformation is not well-reflected in most recent polls, see Jay Bookman’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution column, “Warning to Ga. GOP: Demographic change may be closer than it appears.” See also Kos’s “If we turn out, we win: A Georgia update.”

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:
Almost every election year has a driving narrative that determines how voters (and, just as importantly, those who choose not to vote) are thinking headed into the election. Four weeks from November 4, the narrative of this election remains muddled. There are so many issues, so many contradictory trends in play, that no one knows for sure what election day has in store for us or what the key voters will come to view as the story of this election. That is especially true in presidential election years, but it is also true even in most off-year elections.
In 1994, the early missteps of Clinton and the perceived corruption of Democrats who had been a majority in the House fired up Republican base voters and depressed Democratic turnout: Republicans swept into control of both the House and Senate. In 1998, the over-reach and obsession of the Republican House with the Lewinsky scandal allowed Democrats to make a compelling case that it was time to move on and deal with the country’s real problems. The result was that for the first time since 1823, a president’s party picked up seats in the House in the 6th year of his presidency. In the wake of 9-11 in 2002, security against terrorism drove the election discussion, and the Republicans had a good year. In 2006, the combination of Bush’s incompetence and Republican corruption made for a big Democratic year. And in 2010, the rise of the tea party to “take back the country” was the dominant narrative, firing up a Republican base that turned out in big numbers.
The closest thing to a narrative today is that President Obama is facing a world of troubles. Pundits are assuming there will be low Democratic turnout and a bad year for Democrats. But things are more complex than that. In a fascinating memo from Stan Greenberg and James Carville’s Democracy Corps and Page Gardner at Women’s Voices Women’s Vote Action Fund, they suggest that there is a modest but nonetheless quite significant trend toward Democratic candidates in the battleground Senate races. Obama’s approval rating is beginning to go up; the Democratic base is more engaged; and key constituencies like unmarried women are starting to move toward the Democrats. They argue that a populist message especially focused on women voters’ top economic concerns and attacking the big money corporate interests that want to “make sure CEOs paid no higher taxes and that their loopholes are protected, while working men and women struggle” moves these razor-tight races an average of 4 crucial points, from -2 to +2.

Read more…

From a Democracy Corps E-blast:
For the first time in this election cycle, the WVWVAF-Democracy Corps Senate battleground shows a consistent move toward the Democrats across a broad range of indicators that suggest the Democrats are more likely to hold control of the U.S. Senate than not. This election is still on a knife-edge; the overall vote remains unchanged and many states are within a couple of points. But the underlying dynamics and key metrics have all moved away from the Republicans and some of these changes are dramatic. The context remains a battleground that Romney won by 8 points, though, Democrats are poised to hold on.
This is a unique and large scale survey for Women’s Voices Women Vote Action Fund. It includes a core battleground survey of 1,000 interviews and an additional 1,200 interviews conducted in the battleground states of North Carolina, Iowa, Georgia and Colorado. These surveys were completed on October 1 and were incorporated into the battleground.
The big story is that the Democratic campaigns have succeeded in making the candidates’ positions on women’s issues the second biggest reason voters are voting for the Democrat – after the economy, of course. At the same time, minority voters’ support for the Affordable Care Act has risen dramatically – and for them, the health care law has become the second largest factor in their vote.
The result is that those voting Democratic are as consolidated and as intent on voting as those voting for Republicans. That Republican advantage is now gone in the battleground.
A Democratic “in-your shoes” agenda for working women and men and strong populist message is beginning to become the dominant narrative, even in this very Republican battleground. But when Republicans are attacked on their opposition to equal pay and to women not being charged more for insurance, and when they are attacked on their use of unlimited secret money to keep taxes down for billionaires and CEOs, the race shifts from Republicans ahead by 2 points to Democrats ahead by 2. That gain is produced by even more gains among the Rising American Electorate, including unmarried women.
The reason why the battle has become less uphill is the improved position of the Democratic Party and Democratic incumbents, and the worsening standing of Republican candidates and Mitch McConnell. At the same time, the President’s approval rating has risen, and support for his handling of ISIS is strong. Support has risen for the Affordable Care Act. But perhaps as important, Republicans and conservative Republicans are not as strongly opposed to the President.
It all adds up to a final month where Democrats have the chance to take these gains a step further and hold on to their Senate majority.
Read the full memo here.

From Maria Liasson’s post “Senate Battleground Tilts Republican, But Still Anybody’s Game” on NPR’s latest new poll of LV’s, conducted by Republican Whit Ayres of Resurgent Republic and Democrat Stan Greenberg of Democracy Corps:

“The direction of the country is overwhelmingly perceived to be in the wrong direction. Barack Obama is exceedingly unpopular in the Senate battlegrounds,” he says. “The generic party preference for a Senate candidate favors the Republicans by three points. So the playing field still tilts strongly to Republicans in these 12 battleground states.”
Democrat Greenberg doesn’t try to sugarcoat the outlook for his party. But he points out that although not that much has changed since we last polled the Senate battleground in June, the president is a little more popular today, mostly because the public supports his military action against ISIS.
“The mood is bleak, the president’s not popular,” Greenberg says, “but it’s not entirely stable. That is, we’re looking at a president that is slightly improved. … The Democratic candidates, incumbents, are a net positive in their own personal favorability and their job approval. And so they’re clearly withstanding the trend that we’re talking about.”
There’s another phenomenon this year that shows up in the poll. In the battleground, Democrats and Republicans are equally energized, highly likely to vote, and they are not up for grabs. Big majorities of both parties say their minds are made up.
“But these elections are still within a point or two, and so despite this consolidation, the campaigns matter and can still impact both on preference and on turnout,” Greenberg says.
Ayres says he agrees. “Democrats are locked in, the Republicans are locked in, and that’s why it’s so important the independents prefer a generic Republican by 53 percent to 37 percent — 16-point preference,” he says.

Liasson adds, “But the poll also shows that Democrats have been successful at driving an agenda aimed at their top targets — female voters. Democrats in our poll rank a candidate’s position on women and women’s issues just behind the economy.” Ayers notes “there’s not yet evidence of a wave comparable to 2006 or 2010” and Greenberg notes that many recent elections have “broken at the end for Democrats, winning almost all the competitive Senate races.”
Liasson concludes, “History and the number of red states voting tells us that the GOP should win the Senate. But Republicans have fallen short of expectations in the past two cycles.”
Dems can also hope that the just-announced decline of the unemployment rate below 6 percent and other signs of economic recovery may also give their senate battleground candidates a little nudge, which could help tip a close race or two into blue territory (The poll shows that “Jobs/Economy” are still the top priority for voters of every stripe). But all indications are that a fierce GOTV effort remains the Dems best hope for holding their senate majority.

The excerpt below comes from a cheesy staff story in the “Washington Free Beacon,” pretty much what you would expect from a conservative e-rag:

In last night’s Iowa Senate debate, Rep. Bruce Braley used the familiar Democratic attack alleging Republican candidate Joni Ernst will “owe the Koch brothers everything” after election day.
Morning Joe’s Joe Scarborough wasn’t buying it. The MSNBC host ridiculed the Iowa congressman’s attack.
“This Koch brothers thing, it’s ridiculous,” Scarborough said. “Especially when they’re getting tons and tons of money on their side.”
…”It doesn’t even work in Manhattan, where people thank God for David Koch,” Scarborough said. David Koch has donated nearly $300 million to New York City medical and cultural institutions.
“If you go to the hospital for special surgery because you’re mortally injured you will be thanking David Koch,” co-host Mika Brzezinski said.

Apparently the Morning Joe gang thinks their Koch Brothers sponsors should get a free ride on their support of voter suppression (see here, here or here, for example), trashing Social Security, their polluting industries, crushing labor unions, gutting health and safety regulations, opposition to the minimum wage and lavishly supporting right-wing candidates who oppose reforms to help working people.
There may a point when Democrats get diminishing returns on the strategy of calling out the Koch brother’s funding of extremist causes and candidates. But characterizing the Koch brothers as humane business leaders is a stretch too far for all but the more willfully ignorant media puppets.

Joan McCarter has a Daily Kos post up flagging a McLaughlin & Associates poll which generated the Weekly Standard headline “60 percent of voters want Obamacare to be repealed.” Here’s the question that produced the numbers behind the headline:

“Would you support or oppose repealing and replacing Obamacare with a conservative alternative that would save $1 trillion, reduce premiums, enhance access to doctors, and increase the number of people with private insurance by 6 million, but would cover 6 million fewer people overall because fewer people would be on Medicaid?”

No, this is not a joke. In the interest of even-handedness, however, we would like to suggest a follow-up question to insure a semblance of balanced inquiry:

“Would you support the Affordable Health Care Act if it lowered your federal taxes, paid for your kids college education, cured breast and lung cancer, secured the border and gave you a coupon for five all-expense-paid nights in Vegas with the movie star of your choice?”

OK, we’ll throw in an Ipad.

The blogger Spocko at Hullabaloo has an informative read for those who were glad to see Google dump the Koch Brother’s wing nut wrecking ball, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). As Spocko explains:

This is a big deal. It comes on the heels of a number of other corporations like Microsoft, Google, Facebook and Yahoo! having left ALEC. These things don’t just happen magically. There are a lot of people who have worked very hard to make that happen.
… I think it’s important to acknowledge this success and see what we can learn from it. Like the actions used to get advertisers to leave Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and other RW radio hosts, part of this is educating sponsors and advertisers about the person or entity’s comments and actions so people can decide they don’t want to taint their brand with the association.
We often think that if we just give people the facts they will make the right decision. That does apply in some cases, especially when dealing with Vulcans. Other times we think people only make decisions to maximize revenue, and that’s true when dealing with Ferengi. But humans are more complex, and we need to look at and combine multiple methods to persuade, convince or pressure.

Spocko links to a list of organizations which were instrumental in persuading Google to bail from ALEC’s funding. Spocko goes on to reveal that ALEC’s opposition addressing climate change rubbed Google’s execs the wrong way and was probably hurting their image among socially-conscious young people who are concerned about the environment. In addition,

CEOs aren’t always the final decider, but when you can line up multiple reasons ranging from financial through emotional and into brand image they can be convinced to take a different course of action.
ALEC and Rush appeal to people’s most selfish impulses. They use greed, fear and ignorance to get what they want. They want us to believe that everyone thinks like they do, when in fact it is a self-selected minority that holds these beliefs. They say if you only believe them, you will be among society’s winners.
But when we go to the interested third parties and educate them, many of those real winners are disgusted with what they hear. Combining that education with appeals to both personal and stated corporate values systems and you have a solid package to help them decide to walk away.
If you want to convince people within the corporate form to walk away from a right wing media personality or a right wing legislation bill mill, learn who they are, what they say their company is about and ALL the things that they care about. We have lots of ways to find that out now, just Google them.

Good advice, certainly. There are numerous reasons for companies that seek a measure of social cred to back away from ALEC’s Kool-Aid. But let’s not assume that even large companies that support ALEC are all driven by an ardent wingnut perspective. Some are run by execs who are merely politically, well, low-information. They have to be educated about the destruction ALEC is wreaking on America. The coalition effort lead by Common Cause to meet this challenge is a great start, which merits more support from progressives.

For perspective on the difference between Democratic and Republican midterm strategy, you really have to read Derek Willis’s NYT Upshot post “Democrats Are Spending More on the Ground in Key Senate Races.” The centerpiece in his post, quite a jaw-dropper really, is a chart, “A Democratic Edge in Key Senate Races,” which graphically depicts how much of the midterm outcome is riding on Dem’s GOTV spending.
In Alaska, for example, Dems are spending $1.9 million for “local staffers; get-out-the-vote efforts and other field operations.” to re-elect Mark Begich, vs. less than $225K for the Repubican candidate. In Colorado the difference is even greater, with Dems spending $4.4 million on staff and voter contact operations, compared the the Republicans’ spending a paltry $556K for their candidate. In North Carolina Democrats are spending $3.2 million on ground game efforts to re-elect Sen. Kay Hagan, compared to less than $836K for her GOP opponent. In Iowa it’s $1.3 mill for Democrat Rep. Bruce Braley against $105K for his adversary.
Willis adds that outside groups, such as super PACs, environmental and reproductive rights groups “working on behalf of Democratic candidates have extended the advantage.” Republicans, lacking the ground troops, have for the most part opted for investments in more traditional methods, such as media and postal ads.
Much depends on how good Democratic high-tech voter targeting efforts like the Bannock Street Project really are, vs. the GOP’s ad saturation strategy. But Dems are not withdrawing from the ad wars in any sense, explains Willis:

In Alaska, Colorado, Iowa and North Carolina, the number of network television spots is split roughly evenly between the two sides, according to data compiled by Echelon Insights, a Republican digital consulting firm…Spending on field operations is still a fraction of the amount that goes to television and other forms of advertising, and campaigns are reluctant to take money away from trying to reach mass audiences, even if it’s unclear in many cases how many persuadable voters broadcast advertisements reach.

Democrats clearly recognize that they have to remain competitive in fronting strong television ads, matching the Republican investment. But they also believe they can target swing voters better than can the Republicans, and they can put more trained canvassers on their front porches– and with a better message.
It’s a big gamble. But credit Democrats with the realization that getting different midterm results requires a different GOTV strategy. So far, dozens of better-than-expected snapshot polls suggest they may be right.