Six weeks before election day political strategy articles are multiplying like guppies. Greenberg Quinlan Rosner addresses an important and frequently overlooked topic of interest to Dems — increasing the turnout of unmarried women voters (Executive Summary here and PDF Memo here)…Alternet has a pair of political strategy must-reads: George Lakoff’s “12 Traps That Keep Progressives from Winning” and Iara Peng’s “How Progressives Can Win in the Long Run,” a precription for correcting the left’s comparatively weak efforts for youth leadership development…Chris Bowers has a very encouraging wrap-up of House races at MyDD showing 40 seats “in serious play”…NYT’s Adam Nagourney reports on the escalating use of nasty attack ads in congressional campaigns, while Janet Hook focuses on GOP attack ads in the L.A. Times…WaPo‘s Amit R. Paley reports on two polls — one by the U.S. State Department — that show a large majority of Iraqis want U.S. forces to leave pronto…Harold Meyerson’s WaPo op-ed shreds the “moderate Republican” myth…In These Times contributing editor Hans Johnson reports on the rapidly rising tide of GOP politicos switching to the Democratic party…As the focus sharpens on congressional races, don’t forget that there are many important ballot initiatives across the nation. Swing State Project references 194 ballot propositions in 32 states (Summary here) and R. Neal takes a look at some of them in his Facing South article “Ballot Initiatives around the South.”…Arthur I. Blaustein’s Mother Jones call-to-arms “Campaign 2006: The Issues, the Stakes, the Prospects” provides a shot of political adrenalin for progressives.

The Republican strategy of characterizing Democratic candidates as “soft on terrorism” just suffered a damaging if not lethal blow in the form of a leaked “National Intelligence Estimate.” The report reflects “U.S. intelligence community’s first formal evaluation of global trends in terrorism since the April 2003 invasion of Iraq,” according to Washington Post reporters Michael Abramowitz and Jonathan Weissman. The authors say “the report concludes that the Iraq war has fueled the growth of Islamic extremism and terror groups.”
In his article “No Silent Majority for Bush,” WaPo columnist E. J. Dionne, Jr. notes further:

…News over the weekend of a National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq is especially troublesome for Republican electoral chances. By finding that the war in Iraq has encouraged global terrorism and spawned a new generation of Islamic radicals, the report by 16 government intelligence services undercuts the administration’s central argument that the Iraq war has made the United States safer.
Nor is there any way to dismiss the assessment as partisan, left-wing or unpatriotic. That high-level government officials have offered their own criticisms of the war’s impact makes it difficult for Republicans to force the argument into a classic “he said-she said” framework in which facts can be set aside and the claims of critics dismissed as political.

Meanwhile a new CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll conducted 9/22-24, indicates that 59 percent of Americans oppose the Iraq war and 55 percent of likely voters said they would vote for a Democrat if the election were held now, compared to 42 percent for a republican.
There will be a lot more said and written about the leaked report over the next seven weeks. But it’s clear that the “soft on terrorism” label the GOP has tried to pin on Dems so frequently now has “backfire” written all over it.

In nation-wide polls ranking the political priorities of voters, foreign trade rarely scores very high. Indeed the issue is often submerged in voter concerns about “the economy.”
But trade is a major issue this year in key congressional and state-wide elections, reports Molly Hennessy-Fiske in today’s L.A. Times. Hennessy-Fiske focuses on Democratic convert Jack Davis’s campaign to unseat Republican Thomas M. Reynolds from his western NY district as a marquee campaign with trade as a pivotal issue, and she provides an interesting run-down of how the issue is playing out at the state and district level:

With wages stagnating for many Americans, trade has become a significant campaign factor this fall in parts of New York, Pennsylvania, Georgia and other states. In Ohio, Michigan and North Carolina, where manufacturers continue to shutter plants and cut jobs, free trade has become a major issue of campaigns.
In Michigan, Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow, who is seeking reelection, recently ran a TV ad highlighting her effort to create a “trade prosecutor” to investigate unfair foreign competition.
In Ohio, Republican Sen. Mike DeWine and his Democratic challenger, Rep. Sherrod Brown, have repeatedly sparred over trade, with Brown calling for “fair-trade” policies that hold foreign companies to U.S. workplace standards.
In North Carolina, Republican Rep. Robin Hayes, a textile heir, is under attack from his opponent, a former textile worker, for supporting the Central American Free Trade Agreement last year. Hayes cast the deciding vote

Trade is an issue that clearly has GOP candidates dodging and equivocating, particularly with working-class voters. Democratic candidates who successfully articulate strong “fair trade” arguments in districts hit hard by job losses to foreign trade may have the edge that leads to victory on November 7.

With 47 days to go before the mid-term election, Democrats have a 15 point lead over Republicans among registered voters in a generic vote for congressional representatives, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll conducted 9/15-19. As Adam Nagourney and Janet Elder explain in their NYT poll summary:

In the poll, 50 percent said they would support a Democrat in the fall Congressional elections, compared with 35 percent who said they would support a Republican….In one striking finding, 77 percent of respondents — including 65 percent of Republicans — said most members of Congress had not done a good enough job to deserve re-election and that it was time to give a new people a chance. That is the highest number of voters saying it is “time for new people” since the fall of 1994.

But Elder and Nagourney warn that Dems should temper their expectations because of several factors:

But the poll found that Democrats continued to struggle to offer a strong case for turning government control over to them; only 38 percent said the Democrats had a clear plan for how they would run the country, compared with 45 percent who said the Republicans had offered a clear plan…Democrats face substantial institutional obstacles in trying to repeat what Republicans accomplished in 1994, including a Republican financial advantage and the fact that far fewer seats are in play…Most analysts judge only about 40 House seats to be in play at the moment, compared with over 100 seats in play at this point 12 years ago, in large part because redistricting has created more safe seats for both parties.

Still, Democrats can be encouraged by the fact that 43 percent of respondents said they were “more enthusiastic” about voting on November 7. In addition, Dems have narrowed the GOP advantage on addressing terrorism to 5 percent, according to the poll.

For an insightful analysis of current congressional campaigns in key swing states, read “Mood Indigo: A Democratic Revival” by John B. Judis in the New Republic Online. Judis, NR senior editor, author and visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, has recently returned from swing states Colorado and Ohio, where he interviewed voters and candidates. His report has a lot for Dems to be encouraged about, including:

…this year, Democrats could unseat as many as five House Republicans in Ohio and win a Senate seat and the governor’s mansion. In Colorado, Democrats are very likely to win the governorship and both state legislatures, and to take as many as three House seats from the Republicans. And, in both states, it’s not just a sudden and fleeting reaction to Bush, but the resumption of a movement among upscale suburban voters and working-class Reagan Democrats. America may not turn blue this year, but it looks as if it is definitely becoming purple.

Judis says there are two general types of districts that are morphing Democratic:

The first is suburbs of older manufacturing regions in the East, Midwest, and West that have shifted to producing high-tech information services. These areas are heavily populated by professionals–from scientists and software programmers to teachers and nurses–who began voting Democratic in the late ’80s and early ’90s in response to the GOP’s embrace of the religious right and adoption of a deregulatory, anti-New Deal business agenda. Democratic support in these areas was particularly high among women voters and voters with a postgraduate education.
…The second kind of district where Democrats have a chance of unseating Republicans is white, working-class, and located in or near a mid-sized city like South Bend or Louisville. Voters in these districts tend to be less affluent, less educated, and more socially conservative.

Judis has a lot more interesting detail and analysis about this trend and the political dynamics of the campaigns — particularly the role of women voters. His article is highly reccommended for everyone interested in Democratic political strategy.