In his Washington Post Politics post, “Democrats eagerly seeking signs of success with health-care law,” Ed O’Keefe discusses the new strategy to challenge the GOP’s last-ditch campaign to repeal Obamacare:

…Democratic senators are being asked to use social media — especially the Twitter call-out #GotCovered — new “Got Covered Today” sections of their Web sites and specialized e-mail addresses to highlight people who “had a positive experience” enrolling for new health plans.
Any new success stories “will provide us with the ammunition we need to rebut Republican claims that the law isn’t working,” the memo said.
The effectiveness of this approach is an open proposition and in some ways exposes the divisions among Democrats about how to deal with the problem.
One senior Democratic aide familiar with the plan said that new push was needed because the White House was failing to tout the law’s early successes. “Democrats expected the White House to be more aggressive in promoting positive stories surrounding the Affordable Care Act, but that effort hasn’t gotten off the ground,” said the aide, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the plan and requested anonymity. “Congressional Democrats are recognizing they need to fill that gap.”

A few of these Obamacare success stories are starting to pop up here and there. But a much broader counterpunch is needed. Twitter is great for making young people more aware and to help persuade them to enroll in the plan. But seniors and moderates should also be made more aware of the success stories, if Dems want to win the day.
Smart Republicans know that ACA repeal is not going to happen. They just want to shroud the reality with exaggerated horror stories so they can make it a campaign issue in 2014. Fortunately, by next summer Democrats should have amassed hundreds, perhaps thousands of impressive success stories — and they should use them in all media.

The following article by Frederica Mayer is cross-posted from DCorps:
While most of the political class fixates on the botched Affordable Care Act rollout, Congress is gearing up for a vote on raising the minimum wage. There is almost no chance this Congress will pass this bill, but it’s important that Democrats – and others who care about safeguarding the opportunity to earn a living wage in America – call attention to the inequality that increasingly characterizes the nation, and has been institutionalized by a conservative political agenda.
In 2010, Democracy Corps launched the Economy Project: Our ongoing and in-depth study of how middle-class and working people adapt to the economy, and how progressives should address it on their terms.
What we have learned is that while people generally sense a macro recovery, and even notice job growth, they also feel that the jobs that are being created do not pay a living wage..
…In real dollars, the minimum wage was actually higher 40 years ago than it is today.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the minimum wage was $1.60 in 1968. Had it kept up with inflation, it would be $10.74 today. Instead, it’s stagnant at $7.25 an hour. Working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, a minimum-wage employee can expect to earn $15,080 — below the federal poverty level for a family of two. This is not enough to live on, anywhere in the country.
We know that this is a crucial issue — not just one of fairness and opportunity, but of common sense and national economic stability.
When we looked at the national response to President Obama’s last State of the Union address, we found tremendous support for raising the minimum wage. When the president urged Congress to take up this issue and pass a living wage bill, the response was overwhelmingly favorable among all but Republicans.
RAISING THE MINIMUM WAGE PRODUCES A HUGE SPIKE IN SUPPORT, WHILE REPUBLICANS FAIL

This is simply not a controversial issue. In its November 11 survey, Gallup found that three-quarters of Americans are in favor of raising the minimum wage to $9 an hour — including majorities of Republicans (58 percent), Independents (76 percent), and Democrats (91 percent).
Meanwhile, 19 states — 12 of which are wholly controlled by Democrats — have a minimum wage higher than the national rate. Of the nine states with a minimum wage lower than the federal rate, or without any state minimum, all but one are wholly GOP-controlled. Despite overwhelming national support for setting a higher minimum, Congress has voted to raise it only three times in the last 30 years. And this Republican-controlled Congress is unlikely to break the trend.

In his latest Washington Post column, E. J. Dionne, Jr. sheds light on why the Dems had to nuke the filibuster (or part of it, anyway):

…With their dramatic decision, Senate Democrats have frankly acknowledged that the power struggle over the judiciary has reached a crisis point and that the nature of conservative opposition to President Obama is genuinely without precedent…This era’s conservatives will use any means at their disposal to win control of the courts. Their goal is to do all they can to limit Congress’s ability to enact social reforms. At the same time, they are pushing for measures — notably restrictions on the right to vote — that alter the electoral terrain in their favor.
And it is simply undeniable that in the Obama years, conservatives have abused the filibuster in ways that liberals never dreamed of. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid cited the Congressional Research Service’s (CRS) finding that in our history, there have been 168 cloture motions filed on presidential nominations. Nearly half of them — 82 — happened under Obama. According to CRS, of the 67 cloture motions on judicial nominees since 1967, 31 occurred under Obama. Faced with this escalation, senators long opposed to going nuclear, among them Reid and California’s Dianne Feinstein, concluded it was the only alternative to surrender.
Republicans gave the game away when all but a few of them opposed Obama’s three most recent appointments to the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit not on the merits but by accusing the president of trying to “pack the court.” In fact, Obama was simply making appointments he was constitutionally and legislatively authorized to make. His nominees were being filibustered because they might alter the circuit court’s philosophical balance. The GOP thus demonstrated beyond any doubt that it cares far more about maintaining conservative influence on the nation’s second most important judicial body than in observing the rules and customs of the Senate.

As Dionne concludes, “This is why the Senate Democrats’ action will, in the end, be constructive. The first step toward resolving a power struggle is to recognize it for what it is. The era of denial is finally over.”

The following article by Laura Clawson is cross-posted from Daily Kos:
The New York Times channels Senate Republicans to let us know: Thursday’s use of the nuclear option “could usher in an era of rank partisan warfare beyond even what Americans have seen in the past five years.” In translation, now that Republicans can’t obstruct quite as much in one of their favored ways, they’re going to find new ways to harm the function of the nation’s government.

Republicans, wounded and eager to show they have not been stripped of all power, are far more likely to unify against the Democrats who humiliated them in such dramatic fashion.

These are people who were arguing there should be fewer judges on the nation’s second most important court simply to prevent President Barack Obama from filling vacancies. Frankly, there’s not that much more they can unify against Democrats. Oh, sure, occasionally a few Republicans helped break the filibuster on legislation and now they might refuse to do the part of their jobs that involves passing laws–Sen. Susan Collins is making noises about how the nasty partisanship involved in preventing Republicans from keeping the judiciary desperately understaffed might cause her to take her ball and go home join in filibusters of things like the Violence Against Women Act.
That’s the story: Republicans are committed to obstruction and to destruction of the government’s function. One tool of obstruction has been taken from them, so they’re going to wield the others with more fury–possibly even in cases where they think legislation like VAWA is necessary. But that’s not about Democrats somehow ushering in a new age of partisanship. It’s about Democrats forcing Republicans to shift tactics in the age of Republican extremism we’re already living through.

The following post is by James Carville of Democracy Corps:
One of the things Pope Francis teaches us is that we should share, and that those of us who have more should be willing to give to those who are less fortunate. Those of us who are Democrats follow proudly in the footsteps of real champions of this idea — individuals who have fought for progress, economic justice, and equity. People we can be proud to call Democrats: FDR, JFK, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama.
By contrast, our Republican friends have pathetically little in their past to honor. That’s why you cannot listen to a Republican speech without every other word being “Reagan.” They simply don’t have anyone else, except Lincoln, of course, but he would not recognize this Republican Party as his own. So they have to find someone new to talk about — after all, they cannot talk about Sarah Palin. And in their quest to find a new hero, they have decided to claim John F. Kennedy as their own. They have determined, apparently, that underneath it all he was really a conservative Republican.
I know your first inclination is to think, “How can they say this?” But I think we Democrats should take our cue from Pope Francis, and be charitable. As the holidays approach, we should actually feel sorry for the sparsity of gifts they have under their holiday tree and share.
Oh, and to the question of whether John F. Kennedy was really a conservative? Perhaps we should ask Kennedy himself, because he actually had something to say about that:

If by a “Liberal” they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people–their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights and their civil liberties–someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a “Liberal,” then I’m proud to say “I’m a Liberal.”

If you are still wondering, ask yourself if this sounds more like Bill Clinton or Sarah Palin.
So, my dear friends in the GOP, I’m in a giving mood. And in the spirit of Pope Francis, we will let you use Kennedy for the holidays — and then we’re gonna take him back.

From TDS managing editor Ed Kilgore’s Washington Monthly post, “False Idols of the Senate“:

As predicted, prophecies of “buyer’s remorse” over Senate Democrats’ invocation of the “nuclear option” are flying around promiscuously, as though it did not occur to Harry Reid and company that the filibuster won’t be available to future Democratic minorities (it wouldn’t have been in any event). After that meme wears itself out, we’ll start hearing the Old Wise Heads of Washington lament the passing of the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body, where Ds and Rs used to get drunk and play golf together, etc., etc.
…As a former Senate employee, I may have less patience than most towards that chamber’s hoary self-congratulatory lore. But the argument that the proper functioning of the Senate depends on the power to obstruct has it all backwards. Compromise is not a virtue in itself; it can produce bad as well as good legislation, and has the potential of generating confused and self-contradictory and even corrupt legislation. There is nothing in the Senate rules that keeps Lamar Alexander or Susan Collins from influencing the majority or forming coalitions with moderate Democrats, and absolutely nothing in the Constitution that keeps House and Senate members from cooperating with each other, within or across party lines…

In an earlier post, “No Buyer’s Remorse Here on the Filibuster,” Kilgore added,

…it was a foregone conclusion that Republicans would “go nuclear”–certainly over judges, and maybe over everything–if and when they were back in power. I mean, seriously, does anyone think that after forty years of promises to the Christian Right the GOP is going to be able to deny its “base” the fifth sure Supreme Court vote (perhaps) necessary to overturn Roe v. Wade? Over a Senate rule? No way. The judicial filibuster power was doomed anyway, and all it served to do at present was as a temporary instrument for GOP power that would be exercised by any means available.
Beyond that, I have to say I prefer bad government to dysfunctional government. Perhaps without the fallback measure of the filibuster, the shape of the Supreme Court and of constitutional protections can become an open instead of a submerged issue in Senate and presidential elections. And if the nuclear option is eventually extended to legislative filibusters, perhaps we’ll obtain more coherent policies, and more accountable government, regardless of who wins elections…The recent frequency of filibusters was making a mockery of democracy. It had to end

After The Village pundits are done with the hand-wringing, the senate will continue much as before, only with a little more grumbling from obstructionist Republicans, which is the sound of our democracy functioning a bit better. As Kilgore concludes, “So dry your tears, ye nostalgic mourners for the days when the Titans of the Senate walked tall. In many respects, you are worshiping false idols of a past, well-buried.”

The following article by TDS Founding Editor Ruy Teixeira, is cross-posted from ThinkProgress:
Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock the last few weeks, you’ve undoubtedly endured a fair amount of breathless media coverage about Chris Christie’s landslide win in New Jersey and how his “moderate” approach could save the GOP. I am skeptical.
The first big problem with this claim is that Christie is not a solution to the GOP’s ongoing demographic dilemma. The contours of this dilemma are well-known, particularly the rise of minorities and the Millennial generation and the decline in conservative white working class voters. Just the ongoing decline of the white working class and the rise of minorities should, all else equal, increase Democrats’ margin in 2016 by almost 2 percentage points over 2012. Put another way, if they reran the 2012 election with the probable 2016 electorate, Obama would win by 6 points, not 4.
Christie can’t do anything directly about this change in the mix of voters, but the theory seems to be that he will be able to get a significantly larger share of the minority vote due to his personal appeal to minority voters. If he did, that could negate the benefit Democrats would normally enjoy from ongoing demographic change.
But how plausible is this? It is true that, in the afterglow of his landslide re-election in New Jersey he has polled relatively well among Hispanics in the two national polls that have tested Christie-Hillary Clinton matchups, losing this group by an average of around 10 points, very good for a Republican in recent years. And it is also true that in his reelection victory in New Jersey, he actually carried the Latino vote by 51-45, according to the New Jersey exit poll. It is the latter data point in particular that has inspired most of the heavy breathing about Christie’s minority appeal.
However, on close scrutiny, Christie’s ability to carry this group in a very easy re-election victory is not particularly impressive, and certainly not indicative of future success with Latino voters. A deeper look at the same exit poll that showed Christie carrying New Jersey Hispanics by 6 points should make this plain.
Another question on the poll asked New Jersey voters whom they would support for President in 2016 if the choices were Chris Christie and Hillary Clinton. New Jersey voters favored Clinton by 4 points, but New Jersey Latinos favored her by 24 points — a 30 point swing against Christie when compared to their vote for governor. It seems that the Latino voters who know Christie best are not so enthusiastic about him as a potential president.
What about Hispanics in the rest of the country? Would increased exposure to Christie and what he stands for make these voters fonder of him? The reverse is far more likely. Given his record in New Jersey, he is likely to run for President, if he does, on a “severely” conservative program of cutting taxes and government and taking on organized labor. That puts him on a collision course with America’s Hispanics who are probably the most pro-government constituency in the country.
But hasn’t Christie said some nice-ish things on immigration? Won’t that endear him to Hispanics? Leaving aside the fact that immigration is hardly the only issue Latinos vote on, it is true that several years ago he supported both a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrant and in-state tuition rates for undocumented students. However, post-election, when asked by George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s This Week whether these were in fact his positions on immigration, he declined to defend them and tried as fast as he could to change the subject. We’ve probably seen the last of Christie’s relatively moderate position on immigration.
This brings us to Christie’s second big problem. No matter how moderate his positions may be on certain issues — and there are only a few; as Isaac Chotiner recently noted, he is fundamentally quite conservative — he is unlikely to retain these positions through the Republican primary process. If he wants to win, that is.
This can be seen from someterrific data assembled by Alan Abramowitz in a recent post on Sabato’s Crystal Ball. For starters, he shows data from the 2012 National Election Study demonstrating just how different Tea Party Republicans are from not just the overall electorate but even from other Republicans. Note especially the huge gaps on social and economic issues.

But here’s the killer chart. This looks at Tea Party supporters (and strong supporters) as a share of Republicans, again using NES data. As the charts shows, Tea Party supporters are 52 percent of all Republicans, 57 percent of general election voters, 64 percent of primary voters (Christie strategists take note!), 76 percent of rally attendees and a remarkable 80 percent of donors. Wow:

That’s the gauntlet Christie has to run to get the nomination. Not much will be left of Christie the moderate if and when he gets to the other side. And not much will be left of Christie, the savior of the GOP, either.

The Fixx’s Chris Cillizza makes a pretty strong case that President Obama won re-election in 2012 with a superior ground game based on human contact. Here’s Cillizza mulling over data from a study by Ohio State’s Paul Beck and Erik Heidemann:

In the battlegrounds, the Romney campaign actually had more total contacts with voters than did the Obama campaign — holding clear edges on direct mail and phone contacts. “These data challenge the claim of an Obama advantage in the ground game, especially one substantial enough to be credited with a victory built upon a virtual sweep of the battleground states,” write Beck and Heidemann. “Instead, and especially in the battlegrounds, the Romney campaign and Republican party seemed to duel the Obama campaign and Democratic party to a draw.”…There is an important caveat to all of the above. While Romney out-contacted Obama overall, the president’s campaign held a lead in one critical place: In-person contacts.
Write Beck/Heidemann: “While the edge was based on contacts with only a small slice of the electorate, it probably was the most consequential of all the contacts….we project that the Obama campaign personally contacted about 7 million more voters than the Romney campaign in all states and about 3.6 million more in the battleground states, which Obama won by a total of 1.6 million votes.”

No doubt Cillizza, Beck and Heidemann have a point — that person to person contact in electioneering is better than all other kinds. But none of this proves that the respective character, views and image of Obama and Romney were not decisive factors.