Yes, it’s too early to make informed predictions about which party will have control of the House of Representatives after the 2012 elections. And much depends of the quality of individual candidates, many of whom are not yet selected. But knowing where Dems stand in polls and redistricting can be useful in formulating strategy.
Toward that end, Kyle Kondik, a political analyst at the U.Va. Center for Politics, has an interesting post, “Channeling Truman? The Race for the House” up at Larry J. Sabato’s Crystal Ball. Kondik weighs current redistricting snapshots and polls, and has this to say about Dem House prospects:

Democrats are focusing on the 61 districts that Obama carried in 2008 that are now represented by Republicans in the House (again, this is under old maps); other than two in Texas and one each in Nebraska and Kansas, all of these Obama/Republican districts are in states Obama carried. Generally, these seats are clustered around Chicago and across the Upper Midwest; between Philadelphia and Rochester; and across Florida and Southern California. Geographically, these are the places where Democrats need to make their move.

But he warns that “History is not in the Democrats’ favor: In 16 post-World War II presidential elections, the party of the winning presidential party has picked up an average of only about 13 House seats,” the grand exception being 1948, when Dems picked up “an eye-popping 76 House seats, thus reclaiming the House”.
Can it happen again? Kondik says

Democrats need less than a third — 24 — of the seats Truman’s Democrats won in 1948 to recapture the House, but it is still a very tall task.
…Can they do it? Paul Ryan’s budget plan, which would effectively change Medicare into a voucher system, gives Democrats a potentially potent weapon, especially among seniors, who are the most committed voters. And an economic recovery, combined with a weak GOP presidential candidate, could sweep Obama back into office with, if not Truman-like coattails, enough strength to move the House back into the Democratic column. Such a combination of sunny factors for the Democrats is an unlikely forecast, but in this era of wild weather, it is at least possible.

Kondik believes that Republicans are on track for a very small net gain in House seats as a result of redistricting, but warns that could be offset by Democratic redistricting success in Illinois and California. Another wild card that may help Dems, says Kondik, is Democratic control of the DOJ, which will hopefully challenge the GOP’s dilution of Black voting strength in redistricting. Kondik concludes,

So at this very early stage, the Crystal Ball would place a decent-sized bet on the Republicans to retain the lower chamber of Congress. Yet out of an abundance of caution — instilled by history’s sometimes erratic, fickle gyrations — we are not yet ready to write off Democratic chances in the House completely. There are too many land mines on the long and winding road to November 2012 for both parties to be absolutely sure of anything 481 days before America votes.

It remains unclear whether the theatrics of Republican House members in recent weeks will hurt their party in the 2012 House elections. Of course, economic recovery over the next 15 months remains the pivotal factor for Democrats. But it’s clear Dems can also benefit by vigorous enforcement of the Voting Rights Act with respect to redistricting, calling the GOP out on their proposals to weaken Medicare and Social Security and highlighting the Republicans’ failure to come up with any job-creating proposals other than tax cuts.

According to a just-released Gallup Poll conducted 7/7-10, an overwhelming majority of Americans favor a mix of spending cuts and tax increases to address the deficit, contrary to the Republicans refusal to consider any tax hikes whatsoever.
As Nate Silver explains it in his Five Thirty Eight blog:

Few Americans, however, take the view that spending cuts alone should be made in a deal, with no tax increases at all. In fact, only 26 percent of the Republican voters surveyed in Gallup’s poll took that position, along with 20 percent of voters overall.
We can also use the Gallup poll to tease out what mix of tax increases and spending cuts the public would like to see in a deal. Assume that the people who told Gallup that they wanted “mostly” cuts would prefer a 3-to-1 ratio of spending reductions to tax increases, and that those who said they wanted mostly tax increases would prefer a 3-to-1 ratio in the opposite direction. (The other choices that Gallup provided in the poll — an equal mix of tax increases and spending cuts or a deal that consisted entirely of one or the other — are straightforward to interpret.)
The average Republican voter, based on this data, wants a mix of 26 percent tax increases to 74 percent spending cuts. The average independent voter prefers a 34-to-66 mix, while the average Democratic voter wants a 46-to-54 mix…

But the no-tax position of the House Republicans is absurdly out of step, not only with the public, but with Republican voters in particular. As Silver notes,

Consider that, according to the Gallup poll, Republican voters want the deal to consist of 26 percent tax increases, and Democratic voters 46 percent — a gap of 20 percentage points. If Republicans in the House insist upon zero tax increases, there is a larger ideological gap between House Republicans and Republican voters than there is between Republican voters and Democratic ones.

Noting the the House Republicans seem wedded to their no-tax pledge, regardless of public opinion, Silver concludes of the debt ceiling negotiations, “…Democrats have little reason to capitulate either: they are on the right side of public opinion.”

Alan I. Abramowitz takes the punditry to task once again, for their refusal to acknowledge the truth about the category termed “independent voters.” From Abramowitz’s latest post at Larry J. Sabato’s Crystal Ball:

There they go again. The presidential campaign season is barely under way but already pundits and pollsters are making misleading claims about independent voters and the role they play in presidential elections. Here are some of the things you’ve probably read or heard in recent weeks:
Independents make up the largest segment of the American electorate.
Independent voters are up for grabs in 2012.
Whichever party wins a majority of the independent vote will almost certainly win the presidency.
These beliefs about the crucial role of independent voters in presidential elections have become the conventional wisdom among the Washington commentariat, reinforced by groups like “No Labels” and “Third Way” that try to promote centrist solutions to the nation’s problems. Recently, the Pew Research Center provided additional support for this theory with a report claiming that independents constitute a rapidly growing and diverse group of voters who swing dramatically back and forth from election to election.

It’s mostly baloney, Abramowitz argues:

…The large majority of independents are independents in name only…the large majority of self-identified independents are “closet partisans” who think and vote much like other partisans. Independent Democrats and independent Republicans have little in common. Moreover, independents with no party preference have a lower rate of turnout than those who lean toward a party and typically make up less than 10% of the electorate.

As for the myth that Independents are the big, bad pivotal constituency of the American electorate, Abramowitz adds, that “…In all three closely contested presidential elections since 1972, the candidate backed by most independent voters lost.”:

In 1976, most independents voted for Gerald Ford but Jimmy Carter won the overall popular vote. In 2000, most independents voted for George W. Bush but Al Gore won the overall popular vote (despite losing the Electoral College). And in 2004 most independents voted for John Kerry but George W. Bush won the overall popular vote.

Abramowitz explains how the ‘Independents’ category is grossly inflated by the inclusion of ‘leaners’:

Let’s start with the claim that independents make up the largest segment of the American electorate. That’s true only if you lump all independents together including those who don’t vote and those who lean toward a party. In 2008, according to the American National Election Study, independents made up 40% of eligible voters but only 33% of those who actually voted. Moreover, of that 33%, only 7% were true independents with no party preference. The other 26% were leaners.
And what about those independent leaners? Fully 87% of them voted for the candidate of the party they leaned toward: 91% of independent Democrats voted for Barack Obama while 82% of independent Republicans voted for John McCain. That 87% rate of loyalty was identical to the 87% loyalty rate of weak party identifiers and exceeded only by the 96% loyalty rate of strong party identifiers.
It’s hardly surprising that the vast majority of independent leaners voted for their party’s presidential candidate in 2008. The evidence from the 2008 ANES…shows that independent Democrats and Republicans held very different views on major issues — views that were very similar to those of their fellow partisans. Independent Democrats were more liberal than weak Democrats and about as liberal as strong Democrats while independent Republicans were less conservative than strong Republicans but just as conservative as weak Republicans.
These results suggest that the high level of support given by independent leaners to their own party’s presidential candidate was not due simply to a short-term preference for that candidate over his opponent but instead reflected longer-term ideological and policy preferences. Based on this evidence, independent leaners are unlikely to be “up for grabs” in 2012. Regardless of who wins the Republican presidential nomination, we can expect the overwhelming majority of independent leaners, like the overwhelming majority of strong and weak identifiers, to remain loyal to their party because they strongly prefer their party’s policies to the opposing party’s policies.

Abramowitz concludes: “In a close election, a candidate with an energized and unified party base can sometimes overcome a deficit among independent voters. That doesn’t mean the candidates should ignore independents, but it does mean that unifying and energizing their own party’s base is just as important as appealing to the independents.”

Republicans still want to slash Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security benefits to reduce the debt, but the latest public opinion data indicates they will be facing overwhelming public opposition in doing so. TDS Co-Editor Ruy Teixeira explains in this week’s ‘Public Opinion Snapshot’:

…A just-released Pew poll documents the extent of public opposition. The poll asked respondents what is more important, reducing the budget deficit or keeping Medicare and Social Security benefits as they are. By an overwhelming 60-32 margin the public prefers to keep Medicare and Social Security as they are.

The same opposition applies to GOP proposals to make people pay more for their Medicare benefits:

The public is also opposed to increasing the health care costs Medicare recipients are responsible for. By 61-31, the public believes people on Medicare are already paying enough of their health care costs.

Nor is there much public support for reducing medical benefits for low-income Americans:

…By 58-37, they say that low-income people should not have their benefits taken away, rather than agreeing that states should be able to cut back on Medicaid eligibility to deal with budget problems.

All of the media hype about debt reduction notwithstanding, the public remains unconvinced that “slashing Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security has to be part of any such deal,” says Teixeira. “Conservatives, if they have any sense, will back off on this one.”

Princeton historian Julian E. Zelizer has an insightful post up at CNN Opinion, “President’s Bully Pulpit Is Not What It Used to Be,” which should be of interest to political junkies across the left-right spectrum. As President Obama takes to the bully pulpit today to win public support for his debt ceiling and budget plans, Zelizer provides an excellent mini-history of the use of the bully pulpit and then explains its limitations in 2011:

…The current structure of the media has emasculated the bully pulpit. Regardless of how good a president is on the stump, it is almost impossible for him to command public attention, because there is no singular “media” to speak of. Instead, Americans receive their media through countless television stations and websites.
During the 1960s, when Presidents Kennedy, Johnson or Nixon spoke, the choice was to hear them or turn off the television and radio. Today, if President Obama wanted to conduct a fireside chat, it is doubtful that many people would be listening.
With the end of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, the media were also able to shed the appearance of neutrality and objectivity. Every perspective did not have to receive equal time. On many television and radio stations, objective reporters have been replaced with openly partisan commentators. Any presidential message is quickly surrounded by polemical instant commentary that diminishes the power of what he says.
Making matters worse, on the Internet, presidents can’t even fully control the time they have as they must compete with live blogs and video commentary as they try to share their message. Even within most households, the era of the single family television is gone. Now in many middle-class families everyone has their own media and is watching their own thing.

Zelizer may be overstating his case a bit — free live television time is nothing to be sniffed at, since most people still get their political information from TV. But there is no question that Zelizer is right about the multiplicity of options diluting the bully pulpit in recent decades. Nonetheless, a president who learns how to leverage multimedia tools to project a single message will gain an edge unavailable to his predecessors.

From Daily Kos, Chris Bowers reports that labor unions and small donors have given Democratic challengers a significant edge in fundraising in six campaigns to recall Republican state senators who supported eviscerating collective bargaining rights for public workers:

…Democrats have an edge in cash on hand in four of the six campaigns. It’s pretty unusual for challengers to lead incumbents in cash on hand, much less for the majority of challengers to lead, so this is a very strong showing for the Democratic candidates.
What’s particularly impressive is how the Democratic candidates built this advantage. According to a press release from the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, the average donation to the six candidates ranged from a low of $19.27 for Nancy Nusbaum (who faces Republican Robert Cowles), to a high of $37.14 for Sandy Pasch (who is up against Republican Alberta Darling). Without Pasch, the highest average donation to a Democratic candidate was $23.99 to Jennifer Shilling. Overall, the six Democrats raised $1,556,000 from about 70,000 donors who gave an average of roughly $22.

Bowers quotes from Tom Tolan’s Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel article on the unions contribution to recall fund-raising:

political action committee formed by a coalition of unions active in state recall races says it has raised more than $4 million in the past six weeks, and has $2 million on hand to help Democrats.
…In a filing prepared for the state Government Accountability Board, We Are Wisconsin listed more than $3 million in donations from the national AFL-CIO’s Committee on Political Education. The group also received contributions in the hundreds of thousands of dollars – both cash and in-kind – from units of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; the Wisconsin Education Association Council, the state’s biggest teachers union; and the United Food and Commercial Workers.

Bowers reports that “We Are Wisconsin volunteers have knocked on over 100,000 doors across the state” and more than 100,000 donors “have given to the recall effort in some fashion” and adds,

…It is particularly heartwarming that in the Wisconsin recall elections, the Democratic spearhead is being forged almost entirely by small donors, volunteers on the ground, and unions. Given that this remains, by far, the fight in 2011 with the most potential to build progressive power, perhaps it had to unfold this way or else the fight would not have happened at all.

As Bowers concludes, “We do not fight an infinitely powerful opponent. We really can win if we stick together and push back hard. So far, in Wisconsin we’re doing just that.”

It seems to have escaped MSM attention, but congressional dithering about the depressed housing market and the home foreclosure epidemic could be a sleeper issue with voters. As TDS Co-Editor Ruy Teixeira observes in his latest ‘Public Opinion Snapshot’ at the Center for American Progress web pages:

…In a new CBS/New York Times poll, 53 percent say the federal government should be helping people who are having trouble paying their mortgages compared to 40 percent who disagree.
And a solid plurality (45 percent) say the government should be doing more to help the housing market improve compared to just 16 percent who think the government should be doing less and 30 percent who believe the government is currently doing the right amount.

As Teixeira concludes, “The sorry state of the housing market may be off the current congressional agenda. But it remains very much alive among the many who feel its effects everyday.”

Mark Engler has a revealing post up at Dissent, “Boycott Power and the Fall of Glenn Beck,” which ought to open up a new era of political activism for those who are looking for ways around tiresome political gridlock. As Engler explains Beck’s demise as King of wingnut TV:

One can find a variety of explanations for his departure. Observers invariably note Beck’s declining ratings. (According to the New Republic, his viewership fell “from an average of 2.9 million in January 2010 to 1.8 million in January 2011.”) Some also cite political reasons for him and Fox splitting ways. Hendrik Hertzberg speculated at the New Yorker that Beck was bad for morale at the network because he became an embarrassment for those on staff who consider themselves “news professionals.” More recently, Leslie Savan argued at the Nation that Beck was expendable because “he’s served his purpose for Fox and its subsidiary, the Republican Party.” Once the backlash against Obama was well underway and more respectable faces of extreme conservatism were in power–folks like Paul Ryan and Scott Walker–Beck was no longer needed.
These things may have been part of the story. But, if we’re handing out credit, I think we need to take time to recognize the innovative and relentless boycott that set out to strip Glenn Beck of his sponsors. The boycott was amazingly effective at doing just that–ultimately convincing several hundred corporations (including major names such as Wal-Mart, GEICO, and Procter & Gamble) to agree not to advertise on his show.
The online advocacy group ColorOfChange.org first launched the boycott in August 2009, after Beck stated that President Obama was a racist with a “deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture.” Following this, the activists did a great job of documenting the crazy and offensive things that Beck would say, and then presenting advertisers with the evidence. They got 285,000 people to sign a petition to Beck’s sponsors, and they used online tools to transmit people’s concerns to the targeted corporations. Advertisers, generally averse to controversy, left in droves.

Impressive, and it gets better. As Engler notes “ColorOfChange.org crunched some numbers and estimated that the boycott was costing Fox News more than $500,000 per week.” The boycott was shrewdly targeted, as Engler observes:

There are some lessons here about what makes a good boycott. The ColorOfChange.org drive wasn’t about getting the average American not to watch the show. It was different from the endless array of lefty boycotts that tell people not to shop at this store or buy that product, campaigns that–beyond those commandments–have no real plan for winning their demands or even for quantifying the impact they’ve made. The Beck boycott was far more strategic. Its organizers identified wary advertisers as their point of leverage, targeted specific corporations that were buying ads, and used the announcement of each new company that agreed to withdraw as a way to build momentum. By March 2011 the New York Daily News reported that “the number of advertisers currently boycotting Beck’s program is now closing in at 400.”

Engler notes that MSM explanations for Beck’s demise credit myriad factors and tended to diss the boycott. But Engler makes a strong case, and activists looking for new avenues to battle the right wing obstructionists should give his piece a read.
MLK once said advocates of social justice should do two things in every campaign: register voters and conduct boycotts. In recent years progressives have done some voter registration (not enough) but very little boycotting. Apparently the time is right to pick up the slack.

In yesterday’s edition of Daily Kos, Chris Bowers had a pitch and a good point to make — and it’s still cross-post worthy:

Today is the last day of the second fundraising quarter in 2011. Hundreds of federal candidates are racing to fill their campaign coffers so that they can boast as large a total as possible in their next FEC disclosure report. The idea is that the larger their fundraising total, the more seriously they will be taken by party higher-ups, the better coverage they will receive from political reporters, and the more fear they will put into electoral challengers both real and potential.
Due to the political ramifications of these fundraising totals, today’s frenzied quest for donations is undeniably an important event. However, it’s also very abstract and insidery. Candidate fundraising totals are completely disconnected from the reality of the lives of the voters who will, eventually, determine the fate of the political careers of these candidates. No swing voter is out there thinking, “Well, I haven’t gotten a raise in three years, but I’m voting for the guy who had a huge Q2 FEC haul.”
Contributing to the Wisconsin recall elections is very different. For one thing, the recall elections are happening this summer, rather than in 2012. Further, there is nothing abstract about it. The Republican budget went into effect yesterday, causing tens of thousands of Wisconsinites to lose their collective bargaining rights. Teachers are already being laid off too, including several hundred just in Milwaukee.
Right now, fundraising in Wisconsin is not a contest over favorable coverage from beltway rags, scaring candidates out of campaigns, or other insider positioning for 2012. Instead, contributions to Democratic recall candidates in Wisconsin will go directly into what is already the end-stage of biggest electoral fight–and arguably political fight–of the year.
As I wrote yesterday, it’s a fight that can prove a determined, people-powered movement can defeat the wave of austerity conservative politicians are pushing at the behest of billionaires and big corporations.
You have probably been bombarded with fundraising requests today, but I humbly ask that you contribute $1 to each of the Democratic candidates in the recall elections on top of what you have already given. When you do, you will be joining with nearly 18,000 of your fellow Kossacks in one of the most remarkable grassroots fights this country has seen in a long while.
Please contribute $1 to each of the Democratic candidates in the Wisconsin recall elections. The FEC deadline is important, but right now what’s happening in Wisconsin is much more so.

Supporting the restoration of collective bargaining rights in a bellwether state — a great way to celebrate America’s patriotic holiday weekend.

John Nichols’ post, “Democracy is Coming to Ohio: 1.3 Million Voters Force Referendum to Restore Labor Rights” in The Nation does a solid job of updating the popular uprising against GOP union-bashing.
Nichol’s focuses on Ohio, where Republican Governor John Kasich is undoubtedly grateful that his state does not have a recall provision, which would have put his tenure at serious risk. But he can’t be too happy that Ohio voters can repeal legislation he sponsored to eradicate collective bargaining rights for state employees. As Nichols writes:

Opponents of Ohio Governor John Kasich’s push to strip public employees of collective bargaining rights–as part of a national push by newly elected Republican governors to silence opposition to their cuts in funding for public education and services — needed to collect 231,000 valid signatures to force a referendum that would override anti-labor legislation enacted by Kasich and his allies.
That was a tall order. But the labor and community groups that have come together to defend public employees, teachers, schools and services have exceeded it –by more than one million signatures.
With petitions carrying 1,298,301 signatures packed in 1,500 boxes carried by a semi-truck, organizers of the We Are Ohio campaign and thousands of their allies marched to the Ohio Secretary of State’s Office in Columbus Wednesday–one day before the deadline–to file the paperwork necessary to force a November vote on overturning Ohio Senate Bill 5 and Kasich’s attack on labor rights.

The Ohio GOP also has cause for concern:

Wednesday’s festive Million Signature March–complete with bagpipes, drum lines and antique fire truck blaring their sirens offered a taste of what is to come in a referendum campaign that labor leaders say will be the most energetic the state has seen in decades–perhaps since the famous 1958 referendum in which historically Republican Ohio rejected an anti-labor “right-to-work” law and swept Democrats into the governorship and other state posts.

Putting the GOP’s nation-wide union-bashing campaign in perspective, Nichols explains:

But the anti-labor push met with fierce opposition, first in Wisconsin, where Governor Scott Walker’s proposed legislation drew mass demonstrations of as many as 150,000 people outside the state capitol in Madison. The demonstrations in Lansing, Indianapolis, Columbus and other capital cities quickly grew in size. But so, too, did the recognition that electoral strategies would need to be coupled with the protests.
In Wisconsin, tens of thousands of signatures were gathered in petition drives that have forced recall elections against six Republican senators who backed Walker’s agenda. Primary elections associated with those recalls will begin July 12, with the runoff elections in August. If three GOP senators are removed (and if three Democratic senators who have been targeted by Republicans retain their seats), control of the state Senate will flip to the Democrats and Walker will no longer have complete control of the governing process.

And putting the ‘We Are Ohio’ campaign in historic perspective, Nichols adds “The Ohio petition drive, which began a statewide phenomenon, has yielded the largest number of signatures ever gathered in the state’s history. In fact, the almost 1.3 million signatures filed Wednesday represents one of the most remarkable examples of petitioning for the redress of grievances–and of popular democracy–in American history.”