The following is cross-posted from The American Prospect:
Ever since the vice president jumped the gun on gay marriage last week, “forcing” President Obama to make an announcement he’d already planned to make, the Dump Biden meme has come roaring back. But if anyone needed reminding why Biden makes an ideal complement to the cucumber-cool commander-in-chief–and some fretful Democrats do–the last two days should have pretty well clinched the case.
Playing his role as the president’s minister of outreach to the white working class, the veep was dispatched to eastern Ohio, traditional Democratic territory where Obama floundered in 2008. Biden grabbed headlines again with his rip-snorting speech yesterday in Youngstown, excoriating the rich-guy politics of Mitt Romney and the Republicans with a pent-up and highly personalized anger. “They don’t get us,” he flat-out hollered. “They don’t get who we are. My mother and father dreamed as much as any rich guy dreams.” This time, it was conservatives who were fuming: This wasn’t Obama’s brand of “class warfare,” which never actually sounds like a declaration of war. This was righteous fury. The real thing. From the gut.
And that, more than the fact that he comes from white working-class stock, is what makes Biden so valuable as Obama’s teammate. He can think, like the boss, but he can also feel–he can’t help it, in fact. In the most compelling defense of Biden’s role in the gay-marriage episode, The New Yorker’s George Packer compared it to LBJ’s nudging of President Kennedy on civil rights in the heated summer of 1963. Some issues, Packer points out, are made “for politicians whose egos are not under tight rational control–who are, come heaven or hell, passionate.” The same can be said for some political moments. And 2012, when Democrats need a populist message that resonates both intellectually (the president’s forte) and emotionally (Biden’s), is one of those moments.

TNR’s Alec MacGillis comments on Kimberly Strassel’s silly Wall St. Journal article, “The President Has a List,” which likens one of the Obama campaign’s websites posting of “A brief history of Romney’s donors” to Nixon’s ‘White House Enemies List.” According to Strassel,

In the post, the Obama campaign named and shamed eight private citizens who had donated to his opponent. Describing the givers as all having “less-than-reputable records,” the post went on to make the extraordinary accusations that “quite a few” have also been “on the wrong side of the law” and profiting at “the expense of so many Americans.

In other words, “Gasp….How dare they rat out our rich donors!”
MacGillis has a little fun with Strassel’s warped reasoning, and notes,

Got that? Identifying on a campaign Web site the people who are giving to the opponent’s super PAC in six and seven-figure increments is the equivalent of Nixon’s enemies list, which, as John Dean explained it at the time, was designed to “screw” targeted individuals via “grant availability, federal contracts, litigation, prosecution, etc.”

Nixon’s white house enemies list was about harassing citizens who dared to publicly criticize the President. Outing fat cat donors who hide in the shadows is not quite the same thing. MacGillis explains it well, along with citing the hypocritical double standard of the GOP and their media defenders:

When you are giving at levels hundreds of times larger than the $2,500 maximum for a regular donation to a campaign, or thousands of times larger than the size checks regular people send to candidates, then you are setting yourself apart. And the only thing that the rest of the citizenry has left to right the balance even slightly is to give you some added scrutiny–to see what personal interests, biases, you name it, might be prompting you to influence the political system in such an outsized way. It’s all we’ve got, really–the Internet, the phone call, the visit to the courthouse. And yes, this applies to everyone. Why does everyone on the right know so much about George Soros? Because they were outraged at the scale of his giving in 2004 and 2006 and dug up everything they could on him. As is only right and proper. And now people are going to look into Frank VanderSloot, Harold Simmons and Paul Singer and the rest of Romney’s million-dollar club.

Fair enough. If rich donors want to use their wealth to influence elections, the notion that they should have their anonymity in doing so protected is not likely to win much sympathy outside their ranks.

Yes, we posted on the ungainly demise of Americans Elect just yesterday. But Paul Krugman’s short, but juicy obit on the hapless organization and their fruitless search for a standard-bearer merits a plug. As Krugman opines,

And the center not only did not hold, it couldn’t seem to get any attention whatsoever. Americans Elect, a lavishly funded “centrist” group that was supposed to provide an alternative to traditional political parties, has been a ridiculous flop. Basically, about seven people were actually excited about the venture — all of them political pundits. Actual voters couldn’t care less.

Krugman shines brightly on the why of the disaster:

Why Americans Elect? Because there exists in America a small class of professional centrists, whose stock in trade is denouncing the extremists in both parties and calling for a middle ground. And this class cannot, as a professional matter, admit that there already is a centrist party in America, the Democrats — that the extremism they decry is all coming from one side of the political fence. Because if they admitted that, they’d just be moderate Democrats, with no holier-than-thou pedestal to stand on.
Americans Elect was created to appeal to this class of professional centrists — which meant that it was doomed to go nowhere. Because outside that class, the large number of people who believe in all the good stuff the centrists claim to favor are, you know, going to vote for Obama. The large number of people who don’t believe in any of that are going to vote for Romney. All AE could ever have been was a distraction; and it turns out not to have managed even that.

Conceived as it was on the flimsiest of premises, Americans Elect never had much going for it, other than the support of false equivalency pundits, who clearly don’t know squat about coalitions or what it takes to build a real protest movement.

At The Washington Monthly’s ‘Political Animal’ blog, Ed Kilgore has a post up addressing the Democratic response to Karl Rove’s forthcoming $25 million ad buy, and it’s not encouraging for Dems:

…The people behind the three biggest pro-Democratic Super-PACs (the Senate-focused Majority PAC, the House Majority PAC, and the presidentially-oriented Priorities USA Action) are planning a gigantic, coordinated blowout fundraising effort at the Democratic National Convention. In a collective lapse of imagination, they are calling it “Super-O-Rama.”
Gotta say, folks, this news bears the aroma of desperation, or at least procrastination. Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS has just committed to buying $25 million in ads during the next month, matching the Obama campaign’s ad blitz. Not to be intimidated, Democratic Super-PACs are talking about raising some serious jack in September. In case it’s slipped anyone’s mind, the election is in November, and I suspect an awful lot of ad time will be off the table by September.

Kilgore acknowledges “the logic of using the convention for a fundraising blitz,” with its “unique concentration of political and non-political celebrity talent…” But he warns, “…The Super-PACs will be competing for the attention of big money people with an awful lot of other events…The very features of a convention that make it an ideal place for money and star-power to come together also make it a logistical nightmare.”
On the upside, Kilgore adds that “…It’s good the money-hustlers have some idea of how they will get within shouting distance of conservative money this year,” and they will have an edge with an incumbent president, a smaller, but well-heeled donor base and better ground game resources.
Nonetheless, Kilgore concludes, “it would be helpful to ensure that Democratic Super-PACs aren’t in a position of “competing” with Rove and company by dominating the critical 2:00-3:00 a.m. time slot.” It’s a high stakes poker game, and it sounds like Dems could use a better hand.

Since President Obama lost Arizona by 8.5 percent in 2008, it’s easy to understand why many commentators are skeptical about buzz that he has a good chance of carrying the state this year. But TDS Co-Editor Ruy Teixeira’s article in the New Republic presents a compelling argument that “a convergence of factors” indicates that Arizona is indeed a good bet for the Obama campaign: As Teixeira explains:

Start with the “McCain effect” on the 2008 result in the state. There are compelling reasons to believe that GOP performance in Arizona would have been far weaker in 2008 had it not been the home state of the Republican nominee, John McCain. Indeed, Arizona was statistically an outlier, especially for its area of the country, when it came to the polls. For example, the overall national margin swing toward Obama was around 9.7 points–he won by 7.3 points and Kerry lost by 2.4 points. If the Arizona swing had matched the national swing, Obama would have lost the state by less than a point. And if Arizona had swung as much as the nearby southwestern states of Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico (all between 14 and 16 points, for an average of 15 points), Obama would have actually won the state by 4 points. So there is a reasonable case to be made that the 2008 election result drastically understates Democratic strength in the state in Presidential elections.
Next, consider the influence of ongoing demographic changes in the state which have been steadily increasing the percentage of minority eligible voters, mostly Hispanics, and reducing the share of relatively conservative white working class voters. According to William Frey’s analysis of census data, these trends have continued and perhaps accelerated in the last four years. The composition of the Arizona electorate in 2012 could be 3 to 4 points more minority (chiefly Hispanic) and 3 to 4 points less white working class than in 2008.

But Teixeira cautions that “This does not mean, of course, that Obama will have an easy time carrying Arizona. On the contrary, it will likely be quite difficult,

…But it can be done, especially if the Obama campaign can change three key elements of 2008’s electoral equation. First, the share of Hispanic voters must grow and their support level for Obama must increase. In 2008, 16 percent of voters were Hispanic; based on eligible voter trends that number should rise to 19 percent given solid work to register and mobilize this population. And in 2008, Hispanics supported Obama by just 56-41 in the state. Given everything that’s happened in the state in the last four years and the absence of McCain, a politician famous for his moderate record on immigration, on the ticket, it should be possible to move that number up to national support levels (67-31 in 2008 and possibly higher this year).
Second, a projected 3 point decrease in the size of the total white vote should come entirely from white working class voters. Based on recent data, this is a highly plausible assumption. Eligible voter trends since 2008 are consistent with such an outcome and, in 2008, the decrease in the white vote (4 points) did in fact come entirely from working class voters, according to the exit polls.
Finally, Obama’s performance among white college graduates needs to improve over 2008 levels, when he lost this group by 17 points. This was unusually weak compared to Kerry’s performance in 2004, when he lost this group by only 4 points, and to Gore’s in 2000, when he lost the group by 7 points. Returning to these earlier levels of white college graduate support will be crucial for Obama.

Teixeira believes that “the locus of these changes would likely be in the Phoenix metropolitan area” (64 percent of the statewide vote), where eligible minority voters are increasing fastest, white working class voters are rapidly declining and Democratic candidates have been increasing their support since 1988.
AZ now looks like Obama’s best prospect for a pick-up. “If there is one state that Obama can plausibly win that he did not in 2008, Arizona is it,” says Teixeira.

Ed Kilgore posts today at The Washington Monthly on the failure of Americans Elect to nominate a presidential candidate via it’s much-trumpeted on-line nominating process by it’s Monday deadline:

…The organization is publicly admitting that under its own rules it won’t have a candidate for president, due to a lack of interest among potential candidates and “delegates” alike…It’s pretty shocking that even with the bait of general-election ballot access in 27 states and counting, AE couldn’t attract a candidate capable of getting 1,000 online votes from 10 states. Kinda makes you wonder about its foundational belief that the only barrier to a victorious presidential ticket embracing a vague if deficit-hawky “bipartisanship” was the entrenched opposition of the major parties.
…Presumably AE could delay its timetable and hope someone (Buddy Roemer?) eventually crosses the bar to become a nominatable candidate. It could lower its already pathetically low threshold for candidate viability. Or it could just make a mockery of the entire bottom-up process that is supposedly the group’s signature and pick a candidate (or candidates) to put forward, assuming anybody even remotely credible out there would accept the damaged goods of a nomination.

Kilgore then suggests tongue-in-cheek that AE go ahead and nominate a “Very Serious Ticket” topped by Thomas Friedman, with another “centrist” pundit veep candidate, such as David Brooks, Richard Cohen or Robert Samuelson.
By now, however, it should be clear to most reality-based observers that AE failed because there are not any credible “centrists” midway between a moderate liberal like Obama and an extremist right-wing party like the Republicans.

Michael Tomasky ruminates at The Daily Beast on the likeability gap between President Obama and Governor Romney. Okay, it’s more like a chasm, as Tomasky points out:

…This is the biggest washout of modern times, folks. Gallup just this week put the likeability ratings at Obama 60, Romney 31. It’s not that Obama’s number is unusually high. Look back at those Kerry-Bush numbers. Americans are an open-hearted lot, at least presumptively, so they want to like the guy who’s going be the president. But they Do. Not. Like. Mitt. Romney.
It would be more interesting for all of us if there were some great mystery here, but there isn’t. He reeks of privilege. Every time he says something off the cuff he says something obnoxious. Corporations are people, pal. I like firing people. Where on earth did you get those Godforsaken cookies?

Then there’s the rich guy thing. Not the charming rich guy like JFK thing. More like the in-yer-face, flaunter-of-great-wealth thing:

…We’re constantly told that Americans don’t have any class envy, and compared to some European nations they don’t. But even Americans have limits. A few million, even $50 million; okay. But a quarter billion dollars? A house with an elevator . . . for the cars? It also matters to people how the money was made. It’s okay to be worth a gajillion dollars if you’re Bill Gates or Steve Jobs and have made everyone’s lives more interesting and cooler. But what’s Mitt Romney done? Helped give us Domino’s Pizza.
Even so, Romney might still pass muster, but he has no grasp of the one crucial reality of class in America: you can be filthy rich as long as you don’t look or act like it. Gates doesn’t comb his hair, much. Jobs wore sneakers. Romney just looks too pressed. Even when he’s wearing those jeans. You can look at Romney on television and practically sense how he smells–of costly ablutions whose brand names the rest of us probably don’t even know. And he acts relentlessly rich.

For Tomasky, Romney’s bully behavior in prep school fits the disturbing pattern. As Tomasky puts it, “Romney’s biggest problem. The likability factor. He ain’t got it. And he ain’t got much of a way to get it.”
Discouraging though it is that Romney is apparently the best the GOP can do at this political moment, there is an upside in all this, as Tomasky concludes: “…The black guy with the weird name who’s been called everything under the sun is twice as likeable as the rich white guy. This is the America that drives the wingers crazy, but that the rest of us–the majority–live in, and love.”

In his latest ‘Public Opinion Snapshot,’ TDS Co-Editor Ruy Teixeira reports that environmental protection retains strong public support, despite conservative hopes that it would become a fading concern, as a “conflicting priority to jobs and economic growth.” But it looks like conservatives’ “environment-wrecking agenda” will have to wait, as Teixeira explains:

…The public didn’t get the memo. In the recently released poll from Yale University’s and George Mason University’s climate change communication programs, 58 percent of poll respondents said that protecting the environment improves economic growth and creates new jobs. Just 17 percent thought environmental protection hurts growth and jobs, and 25 percent thought there was no effect.
In the same poll, when asked to choose directly which was more important–environmental protection or economic growth–the public decisively favored protecting the environment 62 percent to 38 percent when there is a conflict between the two goals.

The false choice between jobs and environmental protection is proving to be a tough sell for the GOP — and that’s very good news for President Obama, as well as Democrats.

Steve Kornacki nails a crucial insight about the Republican party’s increasing extremism exceptionally-well in his Salon.com, post, “The neutering of Mitch McConnell.” The most interesting point is not so much about the Senate Minority Leader; Rather it’s that tea party-inspired extremism changes the role of the GOP from constituent representation to a combat organization, which prefers never-ending political paralysis to bipartisan reform. As Kornacki aptly puts it:

The primary challenges of the current Tea Party era are not defined by similarly vast ideological gulfs. Lugar, for instance, was generally a party man in his Senate votes, racking up a fairly conservative record and voting against President Obama’s major domestic initiatives. But he did leave some room for independence and compromise, particularly in his specialty area of foreign policy. His opponent, Mourdock, was to Lugar’s right on some issues, but what really distinguished him is his belief that the Senate is a venue for partisan warfare.
“Bipartisanship,” Mourdock declared last week, “ought to consist of Democrats coming to the Republican point of view.”
This is as concise a distillation of the Tea Party’s governing vision as you’ll find. It’s not really about moving the GOP to the right; the party is already there, and has been for a while. It’s about reflexively opposing the other party on every issue, resisting compromise at all costs, and exploiting every available legislative tool to stymie the other side. This mind-set is already pervasive in the House, and as the Times story shows, it’s now making its way into the Senate.

Along with Kornacki’s insight, it should be added that the ‘politics as warfare’ strategy evolves more from tea party and wingnut “leadership,” than genuine rank and file sentiments, as Vega, Kilgore and Green point out in this TDS Strategy Memo.

David Atkins and Digby have a well-done tag-team take-down of the ‘austerity mavens’ up at Hullabaloo. A couple of teasers to whet your taste-buds…Here’s Atkins, riffing on Justin Lahart’s Wall St. Journal post “Unemployment Rate Without Government Cuts: 7.1%“:

…People who know the first thing about public policy laugh at the bipartisanship fetishists and the people who insist that “both parties have gotten too extreme.” The facts are pretty one-sided here. They suggest that if anything, the President and the mainstream Democratic Party in the United States are too far to the right and too beholden to the austerity mavens, and the Republicans are living on a extremist conservative moon base with Newt Gingrich…

Then Digby, persuasively concluding after presenting several compelling charts demonstrating that state austerity policies (esp. CA) have been a disastrous drag on the economy :

If the federal government continues to refuse to help out the states financially — especially a state as large as California, whose economy is actually bigger than Spain’s, it’s hard to see how it doesn’t drag down the entire country….I realize that Europe and the US face different problems. But one of the problems they have in common is a daft belief among policy makers in austerity during a depression As California goes even further into hardcore austerity mode, I’d expect some unpleasant side effects to the US economy as a whole.

Not a good week for the austerity crowd, what with France, Germany, England and now this Digby-Atkins take-down.