Even though strong majorities favor higher taxes on the wealthy, Americans still grossly underestimate the gap in wealth distribution, according to “Sweden: Home of the American Dream,” a post by Rachel Black at the New America Foundation website:

In a survey conducted by a psychologist at Duke University, 7,000 people across America were given three pie charts displaying different distributions of wealth and asked which they thought was the United States. 92 percent chose the distribution of wealth in Sweden (where the top fifth owns 36 percent of the wealth, the bottom fifth owning 11 percent) over that in the United States where the richest fifth owns 83 percent of the wealth, leaving the bottom 40 percent with .3 percent of the wealth. The number that chose the third chart where each fifth held 20 percent amounted to a rounding error.

All of which suggests that Dems could gain even more public support for tax reform, if they put more effort into educating the public about the facts of income distribution in the U.S.

“In 1960 Martin Luther King supported Kennedy instead of Nixon
to prevent America from going backwards.
Then he marched in the streets of Birmingham to pass the Civil Rights Act
to move the nation ahead.
In 1964 Martin Luther King supported Johnson instead of Goldwater
to prevent America from going backwards.
Then he marched in Selma to pass the Voting Rights Act
to move the nation ahead
For Dr. King there was no conflict between voting strategically
to prevent the triumph of reaction and leading a nonviolent mass movement
to pressure a president to achieve profound social change.
When we in the movement struggled for social justice we helped weak presidents become stronger.
When we in the movement struggled for social justice we helped good presidents become great.
Rev. Jesse Jackson Jr. at the evening reception of the joint AFL-CIO/Martin Luther King Center conference on Jobs, Justice and the American Dream.
To view a webcast of the entire conference, click here:

If any Democrats you know need a reason to raise hell about the GOP-led effort to restrict early voting, please direct them to Ken McCall’s Dayton Daily News article, “Changes to early voting rules could hurt Dems.” The headline is actually an understatement, as McCall’s article makes clear:

A Republican-sponsored state law designed to curb voter fraud by significantly limiting the number of days to vote early has a greater potential to hurt Democrats than Republicans, according to a Dayton Daily News analysis of voter patterns from the 2008 presidential election.
The Daily News examined precinct-level voting results in five counties and found that Democratic voters were much more likely than Republicans to come to boards of elections offices and vote early in the 2008 presidential election, especially in urban counties.
The analysis of voting in the 2,830 precincts in Montgomery, Franklin and Hamilton counties found that precincts won by Democrat Barack Obama had significantly more early votes than those that went for his Republican challenger, John McCain.
And the more a precinct went for Obama, the more early, in-office votes were cast….In the top 10 Obama precincts — all from Dayton and all voting 98 percent for the Democrat — early, in-office votes made up almost 29 percent of all votes cast. In the top 10 precincts for McCain — all in rural or suburban areas of the county — only 2.4 percent of the ballots were cast at the board of elections before Election Day….
House Bill 194, now known as the Elections Reform Bill, contains more than 180 changes to election law, including provisions cutting early, in-office voting by about two-thirds — from 35 days to the equivalent of 11.

Even the nonpartisan League of Women Voters has expressed concern about the bill as an instrument of voter suppression. “The League never talks about people’s motivations, but the effect of it will be to depress the vote,” according to the League’s Peg Rosenfeld, quoted in McCall’s article.
Former Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner has filed petitions to overturn the law. Hopefully there will be mounting protests against the legislation, which targets African American voters as well as Democrats. In any event, the Republican-lead campaign against early voting should underscore the urgency of Dems having stronger GOTV programs in every state where early voting is under assault.
It’s about as naked an attempt to suppress pro-Democratic voters as we are likely to see in the months ahead. For all of the GOP’s flag-waving and blustering about freedom, when you get right down to it, they want to make it harder for people to vote.

Charles Dameron, a Robert L. Bartley Fellow at the Wall St. Journal, has a provocative article, “Rick Perry’s Crony Capitalism Problem” which douses a little rain on the Texas Governor’s parade. Dameron lays bare the GOP presidential hopeful’s raw favoritism toward his large contributors in dispensing funds from “one of his signature development initiatives.”
Despite Perry’s crowing about job creation in Texas under his governorship, Dameron reports that “the Texas Emerging Technology Fund–has lately raised serious questions among some conservatives,” and explains further:

The Emerging Technology Fund was created at Mr. Perry’s behest in 2005 to act as a kind of public-sector venture capital firm, largely to provide funding for tech start-ups in Texas. Since then, the fund has committed nearly $200 million of taxpayer money to fund 133 companies. Mr. Perry told a group of CEOs in May that the fund’s “strategic investments are what’s helping us keep groundbreaking innovations in the state.” The governor, together with the lieutenant governor and the speaker of the Texas House, enjoys ultimate decision-making power over the fund’s investments.
Among the companies that the Emerging Technology Fund has invested in is Convergen LifeSciences, Inc. It received a $4.5 million grant last year–the second largest grant in the history of the fund. The founder and executive chairman of Convergen is David G. Nance.
In 2009, when Mr. Nance submitted his application for a $4.5 million Emerging Technology Fund grant for Convergen, he and his partners had invested only $1,000 of their own money into their new company, according to documentation prepared by the governor’s office in February 2010. But over the years, Mr. Nance managed to invest a lot more than $1,000 in Mr. Perry. Texas Ethics Commission records show that Mr. Nance donated $75,000 to Mr. Perry’s campaigns between 2001 and 2006.
The regional panel that reviewed Convergen’s application turned down the company’s $4.5 million request when it presented its proposal on Oct. 7, 2009. But Mr. Nance appealed that decision directly to a statewide advisory committee (of which Mr. Nance was once a member) appointed by Mr. Perry. Just eight days later, on Oct. 15, a subcommittee unanimously recommended approval by the full statewide committee. On Oct. 29, the full advisory committee unanimously recommended the approval of Convergen’s application…”

Nance wasn’t the only contributor to benefit from Perry’s generosity with taxpayer dollars, according to Dameron:

ThromboVision, Inc., a medical imaging company, was also the recipient of an award from the Emerging Technology Fund: It received $1.5 million in 2007. Charles Tate, a major Perry contributor, served as the chairman of a state committee that reviewed ThromboVision’s application for state funding, and Mr. Tate voted to give ThromboVision the public money. One month after ThromboVision received notification that it would receive a $1.5 million state grant in April 2007, Mr. Tate invested his own money in ThromboVision, according to the Dallas Morning News. The Texas paper later found that by 2010 Mr. Tate owned a total of 200,000 preferred shares in ThromboVision.
According to a Texas state auditor’s report, ThromboVision failed to submit required annual reports to the fund from 2008 through 2010, when the company went bankrupt. The report noted the tech fund’s managers were “unaware of ThromboVision, Inc.’s bankruptcy until after the bankruptcy had been reported in a newspaper.” ThromboVision’s bankruptcy filing revealed not only that Mr. Tate had been a preferred shareholder in ThromboVision, but so had prominent Perry supporter Charles Miller, who owned 250,000 preferred shares in the company and has donated $125,000 to the governor’s campaigns…
All told, the Dallas Morning News has found that some $16 million from the tech fund has gone to firms in which major Perry contributors were either investors or officers, and $27 million from the fund has gone to companies founded or advised by six advisory board members. The tangle of interests surrounding the fund has raised eyebrows throughout the state, especially among conservatives who think the fund is a misplaced use of taxpayer dollars to start with.

And it wasn’t just the ETF that Perry has tapped to reward his supporters:

Starting in 2008, Mr. Perry also appropriated approximately $2 million in federal taxpayer money through the auspices of the Wagner-Peyser Act–a federal works program founded during the New Deal and overseen in Texas by Mr. Perry’s office–to a nonprofit launched by Mr. Nance called Innovate Texas. The nonprofit was meant to help entrepreneurs by linking them to investors. It began receiving funding on Dec. 31, 2008, soon after Mr. Nance’s previous company, Introgen Therapeutics, declared bankruptcy on Dec. 3. According to state records, Mr. Nance paid himself $250,000 for the two years he ran Innovate Texas. Innovate Texas, whose listed phone number is not a working number, could not be reached for comment…

Dameron quotes tea party state rep David Simpson, who says of Perry’s exploitation of the Emerging Techonology Fund “It is fundamentally immoral and arrogant,” and it “opened the door to the appearance of impropriety, if not actual impropriety.” Dameron adds that Simpson filed a motion in the Texas House in May “to shutter the fund and redirect the money to other portions of the budget. That measure passed 89-37 to cheers from the chamber.” However, the fund was kept operational by a legislative conference committee and still has has $140 million for Perry to dole out.
It’s hard to cite an example of a Republican being denied the GOP’s presidential nomination because of excessive ‘crony capitalism.’ GOP primary voters — and to some extent the public at large — have a disturbingly high tolerance for it. If Perry is successful at spinning his track record for job-creation in a favorable light, it won”t be surprising if voters give him a pass on his lavish rewarding of campaign contributors.
But Dameron’s report does broaden avenues for investigative reporters to mine in search of damaging details. Meanwhile Perry’s hope to become a ‘unity candidate’ for the GOP faces a hurdle in that segment of the tea party which frowns on use of taxpayer funds to reward political contributors.

The latest Gallup Poll conducted Aug 4-7, after the S&P credit rating downgrade, affirms a favorable trend for Democratic House candidates, as well as recent polls indicating a big downer for tea party Republicans. According to Lydia Saad’s Gallup post,

Gallup’s first measure of the 2012 congressional elections shows Democrats leading Republicans, 51% to 44%, in registered voters’ preferences for which party’s candidate they would support in their district “if the elections for Congress were being held today.”

Saad notes that the Dem advantage is not quite as large as in ’06 and ’08, when Democrats enjoyed double digit leads in Gallup polls leading up to the election. But the trend line nonetheless appears favorable for Dems.
The poll also brings some unwelcome news for Republicans who have linked their election hopes to the tea party:

Gallup also asked registered voters how a Tea Party endorsement would affect their likelihood of voting for a congressional candidate. The effect is nearly 2-to-1 negative, with 42% saying they would be less likely to vote for such a candidate versus 23% saying they would be more likely. About a third say it would make no difference or are unsure.
Among registered voters, most Republicans say a Tea Party endorsement would either make them more likely to vote for a candidate (44%) or make no difference (42%), while most Democrats say it would make them less likely to vote for a candidate (66%). Independents’ reactions are similar to the national average, with 25% more likely to vote for a candidate endorsed by the Tea Party and 38% less likely…These results echo those of a separate question in the new survey showing that, by 20% to 14%, more Americans strongly oppose the Tea Party movement than strongly support it.

Evidently, ‘tea party downgrade’ applies to electoral politics, along with America’s credit rating. Maybe a good bumper sticker for Dems in the months ahead should say “Had Enough Tea?…Vote Democratic.”

Kos nails it cold:

I’ve got to say, I expected to be torn up if we didn’t get to three seats. I expected to suffer through yet another bout of electoral depression, bummed at coming up short yet again. And we did come up short!
Short of what? Short of taking the Wisconsin Senate? Sure. That would’ve been nice.
But let me just say, if tonight was a loss, I hope we have many more such “losses” in 2012.
We took the fight into red territory, and took two seats. What was a safe 19-14 GOP advantage is now a narrow 17-16. If we had those numbers going into 2011, the anti-labor bill would never have passed–one GOPer voted with the Democrats (and hey, Sen. Dale Schultz, the water is mighty fine on our side of the aisle!).
The execrable Randy Hopper is gone. He can cry in his 20-something-year-old mistress’s arms tonight. And Kapanke too. It sucks being unemployed in Wisconsin these days. Maybe they can get a non-union job at McDonald’s.
Beyond Wisconsin, if we can enjoy a similar “loss rate” in Republican-held districts (picking up 33 percent of them), Speaker Nancy Pelosi will have a huge majority in 2013. We had a message that resonated with large numbers of working people in overwhelmingly white working-class districts that shifted hard against Democrats in 2010. GOP overreach is winning them back for us. Just think, before today, only 13 state legislators had been recalled in the entire history of this nation.
So yeah, I feel strangely energized and elated.
It’s going to be a long year, and tens of millions of dollars of Koch money (in addition to hundreds of millions more from Rove and allies) are going to force us to fight like hell for every inch of territory. They won’t cede it willingly or fairly. They’ll do their best to cheat or buy whenever they feel they can’t win fairly.
That’s our challenge. I, for one, am ready for it.

In his Daily Kos post, “Democrats’ message in Wisconsin recall: don’t cut safety net to pay for corporate tax breaks,” Chris Bowers finds their ad message promising for Dems, not only in Wisconsin, but nation-wide. Bowers explains:

The closing television ads from We Are Wisconsin, the labor-dominated coalition group coordinating pro-Democratic independent expenditures in the Wisconsin recalls, takes exactly the same angle we are taking in our closing online ads (which start running tomorrow). The ads argue that this election is fundamentally about Republicans cutting vital aspects of the social safety net for the working and middle class, such as public education and health care, in order to pay for tax breaks to corporations and the wealthy. For example, here is their closing ad against Sheila Harsdorf:

We Are Wisconsin is running the exact same ad, changing only the names, against Republicans Alberta Darling and Luther Olsen. As such, this message of Republicans cutting public services to pay off corporations appears to be the centerpiece of their closing campaign. As Greg Sargent notes, Scott Walker also features prominently in these ads, so the message is perhaps most accurately described as “fighting back against Scott Walker’s class war.”
Still, even if it is largely tied into an unpopular figure like Walker, it is notable that a group like We Are Wisconsin has chosen a class war themed message at all for its closing ad. By their very nature, umbrella organizations like We Are Wisconsin do not often take risks. If this is the message that they are closing with, then it must have proven, quantifiably, to be their most successful message during polling and voter contacts.
That’s the real story here: the strongest possible Democratic message right now is that they oppose Republicans who would take from the working and middle classes in order to give to the rich. Further, given that all six of the Republicans facing recalls won their most recent elections in 2008 despite the national Obama wave, if Democrats are able to defeat those Republicans using this message in 2011, then it will stand out as perhaps the strongest Democratic message in a generation.

Bowers concludes with a pitch for ActBlue’s Wisconsin support campaign and adds, “Democrats should run on this message, and not just in Wisconsin and not just in this electoral cycle. This should be exactly what we stand for as a party, both in elections and in terms of what we deliver when we are in governance.”

In his latest ‘Public Opinion snapshot,’ TDS Co-Editor Ruy Teixeira has what should be the last word in any discussion about Medicare cuts. “Conservatives have successfully held the country’s economy hostage by refusing to raise the debt ceiling,” notes Teixeira. “But they’ve been less successful in cutting Medicare. There’s a simple reason for this: Cutting Medicare to reduce the deficit is very, very unpopular.” Teixeira adds,

Fifty-nine percent of respondents in the latest Kaiser Health Tracking Poll say there should be no reductions in Medicare to reduce the deficit, compared to 30 percent who support minor reductions and just 10 percent who support major reductions.

In fact, the public doesn’t even want to talk about the possibility, Teixeira explains:

Even more definitively, the public thinks reductions in Medicare spending should not even be part of the discussion about reducing the long-term budget deficit by an overwhelming 67-28 margin.

The message is clear for Dems, says Teixeira. “So progressives should continue to defend Medicare vigorously with the confidence that they have the public’s strong support.”

If you know anyone who believes that a disinformation campaign to confuse voters is beneath the dignity of the GOP, have them read Eric Kleefeld’s Talking Points Memo post “Koch Group Mails Suspicious Absentee Ballot Letters In Wisconsin” and think again. Kleefeld explains:

Is the Koch-backed conservative group Americans For Prosperity up to no good in the Wisconsin state Senate recalls?
As Politico reports, mailers have now turned up from Americans For Prosperity Wisconsin, addressed to voters in two of the Republican-held recall districts, where the elections will be held on August 9. The mailers ask recipients to fill out an absentee ballot application, and send it in — by August 11, after Election Day for the majority of these races.
“These are people who are our 1’s [solid Democrats] in the voterfile who we already knew,” a Democratic source told Politico. “They ain’t AFP members, that’s for damn sure.”

A little creative snooping helped i.d. the source of the disinformation, as Kleefeld reports:

There are two other recall elections being held on August 16, targeting two Democratic incumbents, but they are both a distance away from the recipients of these particular mailers.
Furthermore, a close look at the mailer shows a continuation of irregularities that have already involved conservative groups and absentee ballots in the state.
The mailing address for the applications is listed as “Absentee Ballot Application Processing Center, P.O. Box 1327, Madison WI 53701-1327.” A Google search shows that this address is not any sort of government office, but has been used by the conservative group Wisconsin Family Action.
In addition, Wisconsin Right To Life previously used the same address for absentee ballot application letters and phone calls that were sent out shortly before the July 12 Democratic primaries, but after the official deadlines for the applications. The group responded to criticism, saying the phone calls were intended to be for the general elections in August.
Calls placed by TPM to Americans For Prosperity Wisconsin, and to Wisconsin Family Action, were not immediately returned.

Kleefeld goes on to report that Americans for Prosperity Wisconsin director Matt Seaholm told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that the August 11 date in the mailer was a typo, and that the group is not trying to mislead voters. “No (mailing) list is perfect,” Seaholm said.
But “George C” adds in the comments in response to Kelfeld’s post “Not uncommon. Some guys on the Repub payroll were recently convicted in Maryland of posting fliers in African American communities stating that the actual voting day was the day after Election day. Not to mention the guy in NH who blocked calls to the Dem HQ on election day.”
UPDATE: According to Jason Zimmerman’s report at WBAY’s website (ABC Green Bay affiliate),

The Wisconsin Government Accountability Board is working to clear up confusion surrounding absentee voting in the upcoming recall elections…The board says it has reports of automated phone calls or telephone polls giving people the wrong election dates.
The GAB also says it has several reports of unofficial absentee ballot applications going out to voters.
While it’s legal for political parties and other groups to distribute absentee ballot applications, the GAB getting reports of forms containing errors, such as incorrect voting addresses and dates.

Gee, wonder who is behind all that? Sounds like it’s time for the DOJ to step in, find out and prosecute.

TDS Co-Editor Stanley B. Greenberg’s article, “Why Voters Tune Out Democrats” in the Saturday edition of The New York Times addressed the disconnect between the public’s relatively progressive views on economic policy and their lack of faith in politicians and the government as a critical problem for progressives. Noting that voters in industrial democracies are “generally turning to conservative and right-wing political parties” in this time of economic crisis, Greenberg observes:

It’s perplexing. When unemployment is high, and the rich are getting richer, you would think that voters of average means would flock to progressives, who are supposed to have their interests in mind — and who historically have delivered for them.
During the last half-century or so, when a Democratic president has led the country, people have tended to experience lower unemployment, less inequality and rising income compared with periods of Republican governance. There is a reason, however, that many voters in the developed world are turning away from Democrats, Socialists, liberals and progressives.
My vantage point on voter behavior comes through my company, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, and its work for center-left parties globally, starting with Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign in 1992. For the last decade, I have worked in partnership with James Carville conducting monthly polls digging into America’s mood and studying how progressives can develop successful electoral strategies. (I am also married to a Democratic congresswoman from Connecticut, Rosa L. DeLauro.)
In analyzing these polls in the United States, I see clearly that voters feel ever more estranged from government — and that they associate Democrats with government. If Democrats are going to be encumbered by that link, they need to change voters’ feelings about government. They can recite their good plans as a mantra and raise their voices as if they had not been heard, but voters will not listen to them if government is disreputable.
Oddly, many voters prefer the policies of Democrats to the policies of Republicans. They just don’t trust the Democrats to carry out those promises.

It’s a disturbing paradox, Greenberg explains further:

When we conducted our election-night national survey after last year’s Republican sweep, voters strongly chose new investment over a new national austerity. They thought Democrats were more likely to champion the middle class. And as has become clear in the months since, the public does not share conservatives’ views on rejecting tax cuts and cutting retirement programs. Numerous recent polls have shown that the public sides with the president and Democrats on raising taxes to get to a balanced budget.
But in smaller, more probing focus groups, voters show they are fairly cynical about Democratic politicians’ stands. They tune out the politicians’ fine speeches and plans and express sentiments like these: “It’s just words.” “There’s just such a control of government by the wealthy that whatever happens, it’s not working for all the people; it’s working for a few of the people.” “We don’t have a representative government anymore.”
…Just a quarter of the country is optimistic about our system of government — the lowest since polls by ABC and others began asking this question in 1974. But a crisis of government legitimacy is a crisis of liberalism. It doesn’t hurt Republicans. If government is seen as useless, what is the point of electing Democrats who aim to use government to advance some public end?

The bailouts added to the perception that government primarily serves the elites, Greenberg adds:

GOVERNMENT operates by the wrong values and rules, for the wrong people and purposes, the Americans I’ve surveyed believe. Government rushes to help the irresponsible and does little for the responsible. Wall Street lobbyists govern, not Main Street voters. Vexingly, this promotes both national and middle-class decline yet cannot be moved by conventional democratic politics. Lost jobs, soaring spending and crippling debt make America ever weaker, unable to meet its basic obligations to educate and protect its citizens. Yet politicians take care of themselves and party interests, while government grows remote and unresponsive, leaving people feeling powerless.
…When presented with vivid descriptions of income inequality in America, people are deflated, rather than empowered to bring change. In surveys, they tell me that they think the politicians and the chief executives are “piggybacking off each other.” They think that the game is rigged and that the wealthy and big industries get policies that reinforce their advantage. And they do not think their voices matter.
That government and the elite appear blithely to promote globalization and economic integration, while the working population loses income, makes the frustration more intense.
Our research shows that the growth of self-identified conservatives began in the fall of 2008 with the Wall Street bailout, well before Mr. Obama embarked on his recovery and spending program. The public watched the elite and leaders of both parties rush to the rescue. The government saved irresponsible executives who bankrupted their own companies, hurt many people and threatened the welfare of the country. When Mr. Obama championed the bailout of the auto companies and allowed senior executives at bailed-out companies to take bonuses, voters concluded that he was part of the operating elite consensus. If you owned a small business that was in trouble or a home or pension that lost much of its value, you were on your own. As people across the country told me, the average citizen doesn’t “get money for free.” Their conclusion: Government works for the irresponsible, not the responsible.

To address the concerns about Democrats in particular, Greenberg outlines a new messaging approach for Dems:

Read more…