Note: Working America, the AFL-CIO’s community organizing affiliate with over 3 million members, is the largest and most active progressive organizing initiative operating today in white working class and lower middle class communities. Working America does extensive door to door canvassing and organizing, collecting unique data on the evolving attitudes of moderate and persuadable “Average American” voters. TDS will periodically share their “Messages From The Field” which provide unique insight into this key voting group.

• In a phone survey of Working America members taken right after the decision, we found that 44% agreed with the decision, with 12% saying they disagreed and 25% saying they weren’t sure. When asked what their biggest concern was in finding health coverage, 42% cited cost–by far the biggest issue.
• In an online survey, provisions of the ACA drew strong support, with more than 80% saying they liked the provisions preventing people from getting dropped if they’re sick or discriminated against for a pre-existing condition. The issue of cost is paramount: more than 80% said they’d look at cost as an important factor in choosing a plan.

The takeaway? There are still a lot of people who are undecided and don’t know much about ACA. Once they get a clear explanation of what the law is, they are much more receptive.
Karen Nussbaum, Executive Director
Working America

At Larry J. Sabato’s Crystal Ball, Alan I Abramowitz mines some relevant data to ask and answer a question of consequence: “Do Presidential Campaigns Matter? Evidence From the 2008 Election.” His method:

In order to answer the question of whether presidential campaigns matter, I analyzed evidence from the 2008 election. In 2008, just as in 2012, the presidential campaigns focused their efforts overwhelmingly on voters in a relatively small number of swing states. According to spending data compiled by CNN, 15 states accounted for almost 90% of total spending on television advertising by the Obama and McCain campaigns. These same 15 states were also heavily targeted for grassroots voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives by the campaigns. According to data compiled by Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com, as of early August, more than 80% of Obama field offices and more than 90% of McCain field offices were located in these states.

For openers, Abramowitz notes,

…Altogether, the Obama campaign and its allies spent about $258 million on television ads in these 15 states, compared with about $164 million by the McCain campaign and its allies, a better than three-to-two advantage.
Perhaps reflecting its greater emphasis on grassroots campaigning and ability to capitalize on the enthusiasm of its supporters, the Obama campaign had an even bigger advantage when it came to field organization in the battleground states. As of early August, according to Nate Silver, the Obama campaign had opened 281 field offices in these 15 states, compared with only 94 for the McCain campaign, almost a three-to-one advantage.

Noting that “the size of these advantages varied considerably from state to state,” Abramowitz performs a regression analysis and adds ‘…According to the results of the regression analysis, every 1% increase in Obama’s share of advertising spending in a state increased his share of the vote by about .08 percentage points, and every 1% increase in Obama’s share of field offices in a state increased his share of the vote by .06 percentage points.” Further,

Based on these results, it is likely that both advertising spending and field organization affected the election results in these 15 swing states. And the size of these effects appears to be large enough to have tipped two states that would otherwise have voted for John McCain into the Obama column: Indiana and North Carolina. We can estimate that the combined effects of Obama’s advantages in advertising spending and field organization increased his share of the vote by almost six points in Indiana and by almost five points in North Carolina. And a massive 27-7 advantage in field offices almost put Obama over the top in Missouri: adding almost two points to Obama’s share of the vote and left him just short of victory.

It’s an impressive case for the power of campaigns, as Abramowitz concludes:

It is far from certain whether we can expect the same sorts of campaign effects in 2012. It is probably unusual for one candidate to enjoy substantial advantages in both advertising spending and field organization in a presidential election as Obama did in 2008. Neither the Obama campaign nor the Romney campaign is likely to enjoy a decisive advantage in ad spending this year. And an election with an incumbent running for a second term may be different from one without an incumbent. Nevertheless, the findings presented here suggest that under some conditions, presidential campaigns can affect election outcomes in swing states.
These results also suggest that the impact of field organization can be just as great as that of spending on TV ads. The Obama campaign enjoyed an even larger advantage in field organization than in advertising dollars in 2008, and the findings presented here indicate that this advantage played a major role in Obama’s victories in Indiana and North Carolina and almost turned Missouri blue for the first time since 1996. Given the relative costs of field offices and TV ads, investing in field organization in the battleground states may be a more efficient use of campaign resources than spending on television advertising.

Take note Democrats. Contribute what you can, and, perhaps more importantly — get involved in GOTV.

The following article by Democratic strategist Robert Creamer, author of Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win, is cross-posted from HuffPo:
Romney’s trip abroad has demonstrated that his foreign policy operation is “bush league” in more ways than one.
By now the entire world has gotten a chance to see that Mitt Romney is no foreign policy or diplomatic genius.
He went to Britain and insulted his host’s preparation for the Olympic Games — leading major British papers to run banner headlines like: “Mitt the Twitt” and “Nowhere Man.”
He massively damaged whatever ability he might have had to broker Middle East peace were he elected president by theorizing that the economic difficulties of Palestinians stemmed from their inferior “culture.”
On his visit to Poland, Romney received the endorsement of former Polish President and Solidarity leader Lech Walesa. The Polish Solidarity union itself — with which Walesa is no longer associated — responded by issuing a statement attacking Romney as an enemy of working people.
Romney’s debut on the foreign policy stage opened to horrible reviews.
He seems to insult people wherever he travels. He has demonstrated that he is completely tone-deaf — that he has no ability to understand what other people hear when he speaks. That’s bad enough in domestic politics — but it disqualifies a leader from effectively representing the interests of the United States in dealings with other countries.
America simply can’t afford to have a president who is a bull in a china closest careening around the world insulting people and making enemies. As Obama campaign spokesperson Jennifer Psaki put it, “he’s been fumbling the foreign policy football from country to country.”
And he has fumbled not just in failing to show diplomatic skill — but also when he has tried to demonstrate policy expertise. In explaining his theory that Palestinian economic difficulties resulted from their “culture,” Romney cited the difference between the per capital Gross Domestic Product of Israel and the Palestinian territories. “….for instance,” he said, ” in Israel, which is about $21,000, and compare that with the GDP per capital just across the areas managed by the Palestinian Authority, which is more like $10,000.”
But he didn’t even get that right. Not even close. In fact, according to the World Bank, Israeli per capita GDP is $31,282 compared to only $1,600 for the Palestinian areas.
All of this led the Washington Post to conclude that:
Romney has distinguished himself from Obama, but perhaps in ways he did not intend.
From a tactical point of view, Romney has faltered at times in trying to prove he has the policy expertise, personal skills and cultural intelligence to represent the country abroad.
Pretty bush league, right? But Romney has demonstrated his foreign policy operation is “Bush league” in another way as well.
Twelve years ago another Republican was running for president with very little foreign policy skill or experience. He made benign noises — sounded almost like an isolationist — during the campaign. But when George W. Bush took office he surrounded himself with a cadre of foreign policy Neo-Cons who left the country unprepared for 9/11 and then sent the country careening into the worst foreign policy disaster in half a century: the War in Iraq.
The worst part about Romney’s audition on the foreign policy stage is that it made it crystal clear that the Neo-Cons are back.
All you need to do is have a look at the Romney foreign policy team:
John Bolton — Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security and Ambassador to the United Nations under George W. Bush. Bolton cherry-picked intelligence reports in the rush to war in Iraq.
Elliot Cohen — Defense Policy Advisory Board and Counselor of the Department of State during the Bush administration. Cohen pushed false claims that there was a connection between Saddam Hussein and 9/11.
Robert Joseph — Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security under George W. Bush. Insisted on including the false claim that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger in Bush’s 2003 State of the Union Address.
Dov Zakheim — Comptroller for the Secretary of Defense under George W. Bush. He predicted that Iraq War spending would be billions less than it was.
Cofer Black — Department of State Coordinator for Counter Terrorism under George W. Bush. Black played a key roll in the CIA’s use of “enhanced interrogation techniques.”
Dan Senor — Senior Advisor and Chief Spokesman for the Coalition Provision Authority in Iraq under George W. Bush. The New York Times wrote that, ” As Iraq was entering its bloodiest days, Mr. Senor was a prophet and cheerleader for the Bush administration.”
All of these people were on the Bush foreign policy team. Now they are all on the Romney foreign policy team.
In fact, Dan Senor, who was one of the most ardent apologists for the disastrous War in Iraq, has emerged as Romney’s chief foreign policy spokesman.
This same group — together with people like Paul Wolfowitz and Dick Cheney — surrounded the inexperienced George W. Bush and led him around by a ring in his nose. They will do exactly the same thing to the utterly spineless Mitt Romney if he is elected president.
This week’s Newsweek magazine has a cover story about Romney’s “Wimp factor” — the fact that he has no core values and as a result would, if he were elected, be a puppet for the far right of the Republican Party.
The same would be true when it comes to foreign affairs.
Bottom line: if you liked the War in Iraq, you’ll love the Bush foreign policy.

George Lakoff and Elisabeth Wehling, authors of “The Little Blue Book: The Essential Guide to Thinking and Talking Democratic,” offer Dems some messaging points in their HuffPo post on “Obama’s and Romney’s Opposed Visions for a Free America.” Among the authors more salient observations:

…President Obama recently reminded us that private life, private enterprise, and personal freedom depend on what the public provides…”The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet. (…) when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own… there are some things we do better together. That’s how we funded the GI Bill. That’s how we created the middle class. That’s how we built the Golden Gate Bridge or the Hoover Dam…That’s how we sent a man to the moon. We rise or fall together as one nation and as one people…”
Obama is acknowledging an important truth about American private life and enterprise: It builds on the public. From the beginning, the American public jointly created the means for knowledge, health, commerce, and recreation: Schools and libraries, hospitals, public roads, bridges, clean water and sewers; a federal banking system, a system of interstate commerce, public buildings and records, a court system mostly for commercial disputes, an army and a navy, police and firemen, public playgrounds and parks. The American public has always provided such things to promote private business and individual freedom.
More recently, the public has added funding for food safety and public health, university research, telecommunications, urban development, and subsidies for corporate profit in corporate-run industries like energy, agribusiness, and military contracting. There are thousands of ways, large and small, in which the public, all of us acting together, provides the essentials for individual freedom and opportunity and thriving businesses.
…The President states a simple truth here. Business owners across America do not build their own roads and bridges, sewers and water systems; they do not single-handedly maintain the health of their employees; they do not finance their own court system; and they did not build their own Internet to market and sell their products. The public provides these things, together. The government manages our shared financial resources to make these things happen. That’s the government’s job.

The authors concede that that “Obama could have communicated this fact better,” and argue that, “In the conservative worldview, the public’s role for personal success is largely hidden or ignored. Instead, conservatives have a different vision of what America should be: everyone ought to look out for him- or herself…”
Going forward, Wehling and Lakoff call on progressives to hone their messaging about the proper role of government: and the Republican ‘alternative’:

What the conservatives are missing, and what Obama and progressives and Democrats across the country should communicate clearly, is this: Maintaining a robust public provides the conditions for a decent life and for individual success. This is about giving citizens the freedom to succeed. And the contributions of individuals to the public are a way to show commitment to both their own continuous success and to the American nation as a whole.
This is a central issue, not a minor one. It underlies the political division in our country. Obama and the Democrats want to continue the public provisions upon which freedom and material success has been built in our nation. Romney and conservative Republicans want to dismantle the public, and would thereby end the freedoms, the opportunities, and the conditions for success that the public provides.
…The future of our nation is at stake. We must openly and regularly talk about the function of the public. And we must repeat the fact that the public constitutes the people working together to better their lives. The public is, and has always been, requisite for our freedom, our success, and our humanity as a nation. Every candidate for office and every patriotic American should be saying this out loud, over and over. The role of the public is the central issue in this election. It is the issue that will determine our future.
We dare not be intimidated by conservative misrepresentations. Our message is clear. It is obvious if you think about it. But it has to be repeated clearly and effectively. The president and all who believe in the promise of America need to go on the offensive on this issue. We cannot afford to be defensive about what is required for our freedom, our prosperity, and our sense of humanity.

It’s a bold shift in Dems’ messaging strategy, emphasizing a positive vision and role for government over negative attacks against the opponent. But if Lakoff and Wehling are right, voters will respond in a way that increases the Democratic party’s credibility — and influence.

Ahh, If only every American voter would watch this extraordinary clip from MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show. Republicans would not only fail to take the white house and U.S. Senate; they would likely lose control of the House. Maddow, helped by Sens. Harkin, Mikulski and Boxer, and Rep. Jan Schakowsky, explains (a.) Why Obamacare is a tremendous advancement that benefits millions of Americans and (b.) why the often-heard term “Republican war on women” is not all that much of a stretch.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

When Republicans threaten to repeal life-saving reforms and replace them with the status quo ante the Affordable Care Act, and then go even further in restricting the rights of women to make decisions about their own health, lives will be lost and the health of millions will certainly be threatened. It’s hard to blame those at risk for likening it to a “war.”

A good choice if you want to read just one election-related article today would be “Meet the Undecided” by Larry M. Bartels and Lynn Vavreck in The New York Times. Among their salient observations:

The one fact everyone seems to agree on is that there aren’t many of them. …The Washington Post describes the election as “a settled issue for nearly nine in 10 voters.” The race is “tight and stable,” according to the Post’s Ezra Klein, who adds that “Romney and Obama are realistically fighting over three or four percent of the electorate.” And Paul Begala says “there are about as many people in San Jose as there are swing voters who will decide this election” — 916,643 people in six swing states, to be much too precise.

The authors take a data-driven crack at it, tapping the Cooperative Campaign Analysis Project survey, mining the responses of 10,000 individuals in a “mega-sample” surveyed each month since January. Further, say the authors

… Crucially for our purposes, 592 of the 10,000 respondents (5 percent of the weighted sample) said they were not sure which presidential candidate they would vote for, then declined to express even a tentative leaning toward Obama or Romney in response to a follow-up question. These people seem to be truly undecided — and there are enough of them to provide an unusually detailed and reliable picture of undecided voters in the country as a whole.

Their findings strongly suggest a large “low information” segment among the undecided:

…they are rather less knowledgeable about politics, and much more likely to say they follow news and public affairs “only now and then” or “hardly at all.” (Almost 40 percent are unsure which party currently has more members in the House of Representatives, and another 20 percent wrongly answered that it was the Democrats.)

In addition, 69 percent call themselves “moderates.” Yet only about 30 percent of them are real independents, with 40 percent leaning Democratic and 23 percent leaning toward Republicans. The authors believe President Obama could “make some headway” in securing the Democratic leaners in the months ahead, although the data does not much clarify which are the hot button issues that could be leveraged toward that end. A whopping 60 percent of the Democratic leaner undecideds have an unfavorable opinion of Romney. If the right “ifs” fall into place, Bartels and Vavreck see “a seemingly “tight and stable” race narrowly in favor of the incumbent.”

Apparently the GOP meme that a tax hike for the wealthy would be unfair and bad for the economy is getting very little traction. As TDS Co-Editor Ruy Teixeira explains in his latest ‘Public Opinion Snapshot’ at the Center for American Progress web pages, a recently released Pew Research Center poll indicates quite the opposite:.

To start, most people do not believe raising taxes on those making $250,000 or more would make the tax system more unfair. Only 21 percent of Americans endorse that idea, while more than double that number (44 percent) think raising taxes on the rich would actually make the system fairer. Another 24 percent think it would have no effect one way or the other on fairness.
As for the suggestion that raising taxes on the rich would hurt the economy, only 22 percent of Americans agree. Again, twice that number (44 percent) hold the directly opposite view–that raising taxes on the rich would help the economy. Another 25 percent do not think the economy would be affected negatively or positively.

As Teixeira concludes, “These data suggest that conservative arguments on taxing the rich do not convince the public. On the contrary, the public is clearly open to seeing taxes rise on the affluent. Policymakers need to take note.”

The following article by Alan I. Abramowitz, author of The Polarized Public, is cross-posted from HuffPo:
According to the Gallup Poll, there is a fairly large enthusiasm gap between Democrats and Republicans when it comes to voting this year. In an article just published on their website, Gallup’s Jeff Jones reports on the findings of a USA Today/Gallup poll conducted from July 19-22 in which Americans were asked whether, compared with previous elections, they were more or less enthusiastic about voting this year. Fifty-one percent of Republican identifiers and leaners said that they were more enthusiastic than usual versus only 39 percent of Democratic identifiers and leaners.
The 39 percent of Democrats who were more enthusiastic than usual about voting this year represents a sharp decline from four years ago when 61 percent of Democrats reported that they were more enthusiastic than usual. On the other hand, the 51 percent of Republicans who are more enthusiastic than usual this year represents a significant increase from the 35 percent of Republicans who were more enthusiastic than usual four years ago.
According to Gallup’s Jones, the 12 point enthusiasm gap between Democrats and Republicans, which was up from 8 points in February, would pose a serious threat to President Obama’s chances of reelection if it continues into the fall and results in a Republican turnout advantage. But before speculating about how the enthusiasm gap might affect turnout of party supporters in November, there is an important question that needs to be asked. Is the enthusiasm gap real or is it an artifact of the way this particular question was worded?
A potential issue with the wording of this question is that it asks about enthusiasm compared with previous elections which would appear to cue respondents to think about their feelings during the most recent presidential election in 2008. Thus, Democrats might be comparing their level of enthusiasm this year with their very high level of enthusiasm four years ago while Republicans might be comparing their level of enthusiasm this year with their relatively low level of enthusiasm four years ago.
The fact that Democrats feel less enthusiastic than four years ago and Republicans feel more enthusiastic than four years ago does not necessarily mean that Democrats are now less enthusiastic than Republicans in any absolute sense. To determine whether that is the case, we would need to ask a question that focuses on respondents’ absolute level of enthusiasm, not their enthusiasm compared with 2008. Fortunately, the Gallup poll asked just such a question one month ago and the results present a very different picture of the relative enthusiasm of Democrats and Republicans.
In a national survey conducted on June 25-26, Gallup asked Americans to rate their enthusiasm about voting this year on a five-point scale. The choices offered were extremely enthusiastic, very enthusiastic, somewhat enthusiastic, not too enthusiastic or not at all enthusiastic. On this question there was almost no difference between the responses of Democratic identifiers and leaners and those of Republican identifiers and leaners: 43 percent of Republicans were extremely or very enthusiastic compared with 39 percent of Democrats. On the other hand, 34 percent of Republicans were not too enthusiastic or not at all enthusiastic compared with 32 percent of Democrats. On a 1 to 5 scale, where 1 is the highest enthusiasm score and 5 is the lowest, the average score was 2.87 for Democrats and 2.88 for Republicans.
These results indicate that Democrats are just as enthusiastic about voting this year as Republicans. And other evidence from Gallup’s national tracking poll suggests that there is unlikely to be an unusually large Republican turnout advantage in November. In Gallup’s most recent three-week compilation of their tracking poll results from July 3-22, 83 percent of registered Democrats said that they would definitely vote in November compared with 87 percent of registered Republicans.
One important point to bear in mind when it comes to turnout is that Republicans almost always turn out at a higher rate than Democrats, regardless of enthusiasm. So the 4 point gap in the Gallup tracking poll is nothing unusual. In fact, according to evidence from the highly respected American National Election Study surveys, Republicans turned out at a higher rate than Democrats in both 2004 and 2008 despite the supposed Democratic advantage in enthusiasm in those elections.
Republicans will almost certainly enjoy an advantage in turnout this year but it won’t be because of their greater enthusiasm. It will be because Republicans identifiers are disproportionately white and affluent and find it easier to overcome numerous obstacles that make it difficult for many lower income and minority citizens to register and vote including, increasingly, voter identification laws enacted by Republican legislatures.

Steven Perlberg reports at Think Progress that The Centers for Medicare And Medicaid Services (CMS) has just released data indicating that more than 5.2 million seniors and people with disabilities have already saved nearly $4 billion on prescription drugs “as a direct result of the Affordable Care Act.”
This is very significant, especially considering that seniors are the demographic group with the highest voter turnout, as well as a potentially-pivotal demographic in a key swing state, Florida. Perlberg adds,

The CMS data also showed that over 1 million people with Medicare saved an average of $629 on prescriptions in the “donut hole” coverage gap since the beginning of the year. So far in 2012, Medicare coverage for generic drugs in the coverage gap has risen to 14 percent, saving Medicare beneficiaries a total of $687 million. Over the next few years, the government will cover more and more of brand-name and generic drugs until donut hole is closed in 2020.

Of course, the political benefit in November will undoubtedly depend to a great extent on how effectively this information is shared with seniors. This story deserves the full attention of Dems’ best messaging gurus.

Slate.com’s “The GOP’s War Against Facts” by Dahlia Lithwick and Raymond Vasvari puts the high beams on a fundamental change in American politics that you’re not going to hear much about in the traditional broadcast and print media. Subtitled “The truth became dangerous for the Republican Party when it ran out of arguments,” Vasvari and Lithwick open their case with a point about the much-noted “decline of reasoned discourse in America”:

…The real end of civic discourse can be traced to the new conservative argument that facts themselves are dangerous…It’s a dangerous contention not just for what it hides, but also for what it reveals: a lack of any other arguments…First Mitt Romney–interviewing for the position of president–declined to release his tax returns because, as he explained, the Obama team’s opposition research will “pick over it” and “distort and lie about them.” He isn’t actually claiming that his opponents will lie. He’s claiming he’s entitled to hide the truth because it could be used against him. As Jon Stewart put it, “You can’t release your returns, because if you do, the Democrats will be mean to you.” These are tax returns. Factual documents. No different than, say, a birth certificate. But the GOP’s argument that inconvenient facts can be withheld from public scrutiny simply because they can be used for mean purposes is a radical idea in a democracy. It has something of a legal pedigree as well.
Probably not coincidentally, last week Senate Republicans filibustered the DISCLOSE Act–a piece of legislation many of them once supported–again on the grounds that Democrats might someday use ugly facts against conservatives. The principal objection to the law is that nasty Democrats would like to know who big secret donors are in order to harass, boycott, and intimidate them. The law requires that unions, corporations, and nonprofit organizations report campaign-related spending over $10,000 within 24 hours, and to name donors who give more than $10,000 for political purposes. Even though eight of the nine justices considering McCain-Feingold in Citizens United believed that disclosure is integral to a functioning democracy, the idea that facts about donors are dangerous things is about the only argument Senate Republicans can muster…

Lithwick and Vasvari quote Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell whining that “This amounts to nothing more than member and donor harassment and intimidation” and relate it to identical language used in Republican efforts to prevent a California ruling that the state had a compelling interest public disclosure of campaign contributions.” The authors add:

The California case was brought by James Bopp, a conservative Indiana lawyer, who has relentlessly challenged campaign disclosure laws in the courts with only limited success. Mitch McConnell borrowed a page from his playbook last week when he warned that forcing deeply established and well-funded groups to make their donations in the bright light of day would invariably bring howling mobs to their doors. In an effort to do away with transparency, McConnell needs to paint an apocalyptic image of wealthy donors in fear for their very lives. Enemies lists! Intimidation! Nixon!!!!
..There is a shameful irony in Mitch McConnell and James Bopp attempting to shield the political contributions of the well-funded establishment–indeed, in the senator’s case, the economic elite–from public gaze through a doctrine meant to protect the weak and disenfranchised; cynically invoking the legacy of the Edmund Pettus Bridge to let the Koch brothers write their massive checks in private. Overheated rhetoric about violent protest and “enemies lists” is supported by no factual showing. It’s a fantasy used to obscure the truth about who is buying and selling our candidates and state referendums.
Three years ago, James Bopp sued the state of Washington, seeking to prohibit the disclosure of names on a ballot initiative that would have put the question of repealing domestic partner benefits just extended to same sex couples to a vote. In 2010, the Supreme Court rejected the plaintiffs’ claim that making the names of those who sign petitions public always threatens to silence political speech because signatories might fear retribution.
Eight justices rejected that argument, none of them so strongly as Justice Scalia, whose distaste for political anonymity lead him to write separately a warning that merits repetition here, both with respect to the DISCLOSE Act, and the argument that truth must be hidden because some people may be mean someday.
There are laws against threats and intimidation; and harsh criticism, short of unlawful action, is a price our people have traditionally been willing to pay for self-governance. Requiring people to stand up in public for their political acts fosters civic courage, without which democracy is doomed.
Someone should tell Mitch McConnell.

McConnell’s whining is about what you would expect from a leader of a political party that has run out of fresh ideas. For Dems, however, the challenge is to put full disclosure of all large-scale campaign contributions in the forefront of voter priorities.