As someone who has spent a long time paying attention to the Iowa Caucuses, I have discounted a lot of ritual Iowa-bashing, but suspect the latest move against its privileged status in the presidential nominating process is real, and I wrote about that at New York.

The Iowa Caucuses have been the first stop on the road to the White House since the early 1970s, and efforts to strip the state of its privileged place are just about as old. Over the years, Iowa has protected its privileged status by linking arms with New Hampshire, which holds the first-in-the-nation primary, and by going along with a 2004 expansion of the group of “protected” early states to include two more-diverse states, Nevada and South Carolina.

But hatred of the Iowa event — some born of envy over the money and media attention the caucus attracts, and some related to Iowa’s very white demographics and its arcane and not terribly well-attended caucus system — kept building up like barnacles on a rusty boat. Then Iowa appeared to create a huge opening for its disparagers in 2020, when its Democratic caucuses collapsed under the burden of national party-reporting mandates, questionable technology, and a rickety infrastructure of volunteer labor. The state party could not report results at all on Caucus Night, and TV talking heads denied anything on which to pontificate furiously condemned Iowa, joining the long-standing criticism of its primacy.

Then a pandemic and a wild presidential election culminating in an attempted coup intervened; suddenly, Democrats had much more important things to worry about than hating on the Iowa Caucuses. It began to look like the furor over what happened on February 2, 2020, might fade before the next presidential cycle. The odds of some seismic change in the nominating process were also reduced by Republicans’ happiness with the status quo, since any move to a state-financed primary and/or coordination of calendar dates for nominating events required bipartisan cooperation.

But now it appears the desire for a “reformed” Democratic presidential nominating process has gotten a second wind. Indeed, there is an emerging plan for dumping Iowa, as the Des Moines Register reported last week:

“National Democratic leaders have drafted a proposal that could significantly reshape the party’s presidential nominating process and put an end to Iowa’s prized first-in-the-nation caucuses …

“A draft resolution, obtained and corroborated by the Des Moines Register, would set new criteria for early-voting states that favor primaries over caucuses and diversity over tradition.”

The idea is to eliminate entirely the current system whereby four “early states” are in the privileged window at the beginning of the nominating calendar. Instead, states would have to reapply for the privilege under criteria Iowa cannot possibly satisfy: the ability to run a “fair, transparent and inclusive primary” (not possible without action by the Republican-controlled state legislature); demographic diversity (Iowa is 90 percent white); and general-election competitiveness (the state has veered hard red during the last two presidential elections, and all but one member of its congressional delegation are Republicans). This is like everyone on a president’s Cabinet or corporate board being forced to resign so one miscreant can be fired. Yes, New Hampshire might experience some heartburn under these criteria, but it is a very competitive state and obviously already has a primary. More to the point, New Hampshire has a state law, fiercely and equally supported by both parties in the Granite State, that requires the secretary of State to move the primary as far back as possible to maintain its first-in-the-nation status.

So the draft proposal is clearly designed to be a “solution” to the Iowa “problem.” It was discussed at a March 11 meeting of the Democratic National Committee panel that is responsible for the nominating process, as the Washington Post reported: “The meeting of the Democratic National Committee’s Rules and Bylaws Committee came to no final decisions, but for the second time this year, a majority of speakers made clear their openness to shaking up the presidential primary calendar to better reflect what speakers described as the party’s values.”

The Rules and Bylaws Committee is tentatively planning on formally announcing the new criteria for early-state status next month. We’ll soon see how much pushback the anti-Iowa advocates encounter, and whether they have the appetite to fight and win.

Since it is very unlikely that the Iowa legislature’s ruling Republicans will accommodate some shift to a taxpayer-financed primary in order to boost the state Democratic contest’s chances for survival, the hostile move would leave Iowa Democrats with limited and unsatisfactory options. This would include keeping their current caucus event but moving it to later in the calendar, which would greatly diminish its significance; or holding a party-paid and -sponsored “firehouse primary” (so called because they typically utilize cheap or free public facilities like firehouses for their limited polling places), which might not satisfy Iowa-haters anyway.

 Iowa has overcome the haters time and again, but this may represent its biggest challenge.

 

At Sabato’s Crystal Ball, Kyle Kondik takes on “Gas Prices and Presidential Approval: There is some connection historically, but that connection is getting weaker,” and writes: “That a president would prefer to have lower gas prices than higher ones is obvious. That high gas prices actually do contribute to lower presidential approval is not as obvious, although there is some limited evidence for it based on what we’ve found in our research. But we also are in an era of fairly stable presidential approval ratings, meaning that it shouldn’t be surprising that whatever impact a single factor (gas prices) might have on presidential approval, the importance of that factor might be declining.” Kondik shares this chart:

E. J. Dionne, Jr. comments on Ukranian President Zelensky’s address to the U.S. Congress, and notes, “The power of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s video addressto Congress on Wednesday owed to something more than charisma born of clarity, tenacity and personal bravery….Five words, unlikely to make a list of Top 5 sound bites, defined why this is a battle for a generation. The confrontation in Ukraine, Zelensky declared, is a fight “to keep justice in history.”….He’s right. Allowing Russia’s aggression to succeed would mean ratifying a future that privileges power over justice, autocracy over self-determination and impunity over accountability….The potentially heartening development is that Ukraine has “woken people up to what impunity represents as a threat to global order, never mind to human rights and to human decency,” according to David Miliband, former Foreign Secretary of the U.K. and president of International Rescue Committee….“It’s woken up the liberal democracies to what is at stake,” he continued. “And it’s not just values and it’s not just interests, it’s the future, because the future is either one of impunity in which the powerful do as they please and leave the rest to do as we must, or it’s a future of accountability in which impunity is tamed.”….Democracy will not fare well in a world where impunity runs rampant….Zelensky’s performance has been commanding because of the moral commitment behind his passion. He makes an unassailable case that the struggle he’s leading is a hinge point in democracy’s story.”

I’m a bit ambivalent about posting Republican snarkage here. But in this case, it’s instructive. David Smith writes at The Guardian, “A messaging battle is under way with the White House seeking to tie Putin to the price rise. But [Republican consultant Ed] Rogers said: “Republicans have a bumper sticker. Democrats have an essay. Just see how that goes.” In other words, ‘keep it short, stupid.’ A 2014 AP/NORC study found, for example that “Overall, 41 percent of Americans report that they watched, read, or heard any in-depth news stories, beyond the headlines, in the last week” (I’d be surprised if the percentage was actually that high). Many people, including not a few swing voters, don’t have the time or inclination to read windy essays, however eloquent. Respect the target constituency’s time. Sure, it’s good to have well-thought out policy papers and articles about each issue. But don’t make them the primary messaging tools. Put more effort into getting campaign messages out with soundbites, one-liners, bumper stickers, short video clips, slogans, memes and headlines. Of course, even brevity can be overdone, and short messages must have real substance to be persuasive.

Speaking of brief messaging, SendHub has a pretty good 10-point primer on text messaging. Some excerpts: “2. Reaching a Younger Demographic….New York Times article by one political operative, no one under the age of 45 wants a phone call. Ever since peer-to-peer (P2P) texting became commonplace in the 2016 election, mobile has been a popular method for getting the word out….The SMS market is always changing and it’s important for candidates to keep up on market trends. These trends not only help you reach your audience, but they also help you stay compliant and keep your number from being spam filtered….And younger voters (aged 18-29) are almost entirely tapped into technology, so it’s crucial that campaigners use every tool in their wheelhouses to reach this key demographic….4. Did we mention open rate?….For decades, campaigns contacted voters primarily by knocking on doors and by making phone calls….According to a Medium article, “The very best at door knocking will only be able to reach 30 voters an hour at a 25% completion rate depending on the time of day. That means for every hour of human labor; you are only connecting with 5–10 voters. That means it will take a lot of hours of labor to reach enough voters to swing an election. Phone calls are even worse. Although you can contact more people per hour by calling them, they are less likely to be convinced, and the contact percentage can be as low as 2–3%.”….6. Get Responses Immediately! ….Average response rate of the text is 45%. Being that time is of the essence on a political campaign, you need to get your message read and often times you need a response! A good political field game listens to voters and collects information about who they’re supporting and what issues they value.”

Some insights from excerpts of a FiveThirtyEight chat in response to the question, “Is Biden’s Approval Rating Really Rebounding?”

sarah (Sarah Frostenson, politics editor): In the last two weeks or so, President Biden’s approval rating has ticked up from 41.1 percent to 42.9 percent, according to FiveThirtyEight’s presidential approval tracker.¹ The share of Americans who disapprove of the job he’s doing has ticked down, too, from 53.6 percent to 52.3 percent.

nrakich (Nathaniel Rakich, senior elections analyst): It’s impossible to totally disentangle all the events of the past month or so, but I think the simplest answer (which is usually the right one) is the crisis in Ukraine.

According to Marist/NPR/PBS, Biden’s approval/disapproval spread on the issue of Ukraine shot up from 34/50 in mid-February to 52/44 in early March. His overall approval/disapproval increased from 39/55 to 47/50. And according to Morning Consult/Politico, his approval/disapproval on Ukraine went from 42/45 in late February to 46/42 in early March. His overall approval/disapproval went from 41/56 to 45/51 over that same span….And I think overall media coverage has had more to do with that than the State of the Union.

ameliatd (Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux, senior writer): A recent Morning Consult poll indicated Democrats and independents were driving the shift in Biden’s approval

geoffrey.skelley: It’s really hard to say. Some polls have shown Biden gaining, while others have shown his approval largely unchanged. For instance, CBS News/YouGov put Biden’s approval at 44 percent in late February, and at 43 percent (so basically the same) a week and a half into March.

nrakich: Yeah, Quinnipiac also found his overall approval/disapproval mostly unchanged, from 35/55 in mid-February to 38/51 in early March, even as Americans warmed to his handling of Ukraine, which went from 34/54 to 42/45.

sarah: So … maybe Biden’s approval rating isn’t rebounding?

ameliatd: Well, I think it’s important to remember that this is happening in the context of a big spike in gas prices — which would normally be terrible news for a president’s approval rating.

ameliatd: One thing that is shifting, though, is that Americans are more likely to see Russia as an enemy and more likely to see Ukraine as a friendly country or an ally. Interestingly, that shift is happening among both Republicans and Democrats, which could explain why we’re not seeing more of a shift in Biden’s approval rating. People are having a reaction to the war — maybe even an emotional one — but it’s dampened by partisanship.

nrakich: Well, his approval rating on the pandemic has actually improved. In fact, in our coronavirus presidential approval tracker, he rose above water in early March for the first time since early January.

sarah: There’s also some evidence that Americans don’t trust Democrats to handle the pandemic as much as they once did. A recent Wall Street Journal poll found that voters thought Democrats were best able to handle the pandemic — compared to Republicans — by an 11-point margin, but that’s down 5 percentage points from mid-November….Moreover, as Geoffrey said, the pandemic isn’t the key issue it once was for voters; instead, it’s the economy. And on that issue, Biden gets abysmal ratings. Sixty-three percent of voters said they “somewhat” or “strongly” disapproved of Biden’s handling of inflation and rising costs in that Wall Street Journal poll, with 47 percent saying they thought Republicans were best equipped to handle inflation, versus 30 percent who preferred Democrats.

All of these comments could be written in sand, depending on what happens over the next few months with headline issues, like Covid, inflation and the Ukraine. There is a historic pattern of the President’s party losing seats in congress in its first midterm election. It looks like inflation will be an additional negative factor for Biden and the Democrats, while Covid and the Ukraine crisis could play out in their favor….or not.

In addition, a host of other issues, demographic factors, candidate and campaign quality, voter suppression and partisan election counts could all play a role in midterm election outcome. Even if historic patterns prevail, Biden and the Democrats can minimize the damage with smart strategy.

The following article by Ruy Teixeira, author of The Optimistic Leftist and other works of political analysis, is cross-posted from The Liberal Patriot:

Is the GOP Becoming the Party of the Multiracial Working Class?

In my view, Democrats are far too complacent about this possibility. I discuss in my latest at The Liberal Patriot:

“Republicans have increasingly been talking about becoming the party of the multiracial working class. This is less far-fetched than you might think. After all, in a loose sense they already are. In the 2020 election, Trump carried the overall working class (noncollege) vote by 4 points (Catalist two party vote), about the same margin he had in 2016. The same data source also shows Republicans carrying the working class Congressional vote in three of the last four elections (the exception was 2018 when the working class vote was split down the middle between Republicans and Democrats).

Democrats have generally comforted themselves that their poor performance among the working class was purely a matter of white working class voters, who they presumed were motivated by retrograde racial and cultural attitudes. But since 2012, nonwhite working class voters have shifted away from the Democrats by 18 margin points, with a particularly sharp shift in the last election and particularly among Hispanics. This gives Democrats’ nonchalance about their losing record among working class voters a bit of a whistling past the graveyard quality.

Data since the 2020 election confirm a pattern of declining Democratic support among the nonwhite working class. Put another way: education polarization, it’s not just for white voters anymore. As a result, Democratic strength among the multiracial working class continues to weaken.”

Some scary nuggets from “Democrats Hispanic Peril” by Russell Contreras and Mike Allen at Axios: “A Wall Street Journal poll last week found that by 9 points, Hispanic voters said they’d back a Republican candidate for Congress over a Democrat….In November, the parties were tied….Democrats saw evidence of this shift in 2020 in House races in south Florida, Texas and southern New Mexico….Key factors, operatives say, include skepticism among Hispanic voters about programs they view as handouts. And many Hispanics are social conservatives, with what L.A. Times columnist Gustavo Arellano has called a “rancho libertarianism streak.”….The national party also needs to do better with messages that distinguish among Americans whose families hailed from Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico or Central America, several Democrats tell me…..Democrats talk about climate change, but dismiss the fact that many Latinos work in lucrative oilfield jobs in New Mexico and West Texas….Democrats talk about diversity. But by pleasing white progressives, they push out moderate Hispanic candidates….Democrats target Latinos by talking about immigration. But polls show immigration ranks 5th or 6th among the issues most important to these voters. The economy is usually the top concern.”

From Bill Scher’s “After Ukraine, Which Party Will Be the National Security Party? War changes history and politics. Putin’s bloody gambit could redraw the American political map” at The Washington Monthly: “‘We’re Zelenskyy Democrats. And they’re Putin Republicans’ would be my bumper sticker,” said Representative Sean Maloney, who heads the House Democratic campaign arm.” However, “After two massive wars and two American defeats, voters aren’t sold on either party regarding war and peace. What’s more, each party has its hawk/dove divisions.” In the optimistic scenario, Biden’s skill at building an international coalition for economic sanctions against Russia forces Putin to back off, and Biden emerges as the international leader of the ‘free world.’ That could win some swing votes, if inflation doesn’t get much worse. Biden will certainly accomplish his stated goal of making the invasion of Ukraine a painful economic disaster for Russia, if he hasn’t already achieved it. Even in the worst case scenario, Biden looks like a grown-up who can work with our allies on the international stage, in stark contrast to his petulant predecessor, who behaved like a sulking brat at the international meetings he attended.

We may be approaching the point where reasonable people can disagree about who is the head of the Republican Party. For now, however, Trump is the face in front, if not their 2024 front-runner. At Talking Points Memo, Editor Josh Marshall has a few choice words for political media that have given the GOP an easy ride for their refusal to hold Trump accountable for his disastrous coddling of Putin: “I must say that I am looking forward to the raft of articles in the works from the Times, WaPo, Politico and above all Axios about the GOP’s reckoning with the fact that their party leader (and most of his party) has spent the last several years toadying and obsequiously embracing Vladimir Putin and Russia. I jest of course since I have little hope that any of these pieces will be written. But the leader of this party has spent the last seven years fawning over the increasingly dictatorial leader of the country who has now tipped the world into the biggest international crisis in a generation and I guess we’re somehow not going to talk about that. I mean, he actually got impeached over it and for participating in a scheme to make the country Russia just invaded easier to invade.”

The U.S. Supreme Court’s “shadow docket” of rulings on emergency petitions yielded a significant decision with mixed political implications, and I tried to unravel it at New York.

When North Carolina and Pennsylvania Republicans petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn state-court decisions against their attempted congressional gerrymanders, there were two issues at hand. The most immediate matter involved the gerrymanders themselves: Was there any federal constitutional bar to state courts interpreting state laws to smack down state legislative regulation of federal elections? There was also a longer-term issue casting a big shadow on the 2024 presidential elections: Do state legislatures have constitutional superpowers that may let them override state and even federal laws governing the designation of presidential electors, as Donald Trump’s campaign claimed in 2020 as part of its efforts to overturn that year’s results?

As Mark Joseph Stern noted at Slate when rulings came down on both petitions, the Pennsylvania GOP effort to reverse a state-court redistricting decision was a stretch: “The plaintiffs demanded at-large congressional districts for the first time since the 18th century because there was no backup map in place and no time for the legislature to draw one.” So the Supreme Court rejected the Pennsylvania petition without dissent or comment.

But in the North Carolina case, the Supreme Court said “no” to the GOP gambit to overturn new court-imposed maps and “maybe” to the broader claim of legislative superpowers. Six justices — John Roberts, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett — rejected the North Carolina legislature’s petitions to overturn its state court’s redistricting ruling that could shift as many as four U.S. House seats toward Democrats as compared to the original legislative map. Three justices (Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch) dissented, with an opinion from Alito citing the famous “independent state legislature” doctrine, under which neither federal nor state courts can overrule legislative determinations of rulings affecting federal elections.

It’s not clear, however, that the Court’s majority rejected that doctrine. Kavanaugh’s concurring opinion explicitly reserved judgment on it, instead basing his rejection of the North Carolina petition on the close proximity of the 2022 elections. Chief Justice Roberts (who has expressed support for strong legislative election prerogatives in the past) and Barrett were silent.

So a short-term victory for the prerogatives of state courts interpreting state election laws (which in these two cases benefited Democrats) could later give way to a bigger defeat that puts legislatures in the driver’s seat in future election controversies — you know, like controversies over who actually won a presidential election. Trump’s frustrated 2020 effort to get Republican legislatures to overrule state-certified electoral-vote rewards might fare better in 2024 with more time to prepare the groundwork for a coup. And even if that doesn’t happen, legislatures — not courts, governors, or secretaries of State — could have the final word on election and voting procedures. As election-law expert Rick Hasen warned after the North Carolina order, we could see a “big, bad election law precedent potentially coming down the line.”

In his article, “The Coming Republican Civil War Over Russia: The crucial debate goes on hold during the invasion of Ukraine, while Republican realists remain MIA” at The Nation, Jeet Heer shares his thoughts on Republican factions of the political moment:

In a Washington Post column, Amber Phillips provided a useful taxonomy of three primary types: the Hawks, the Putin Sympathizers, and the “Why Should We care?” Contingent. (For the sake of clarity, I’ve shifted the order of her listing.) To this list one could note there is a fourth ideological type that existed in the past but now is notably missing: the Republican Realists.

The Hawks are the most familiar of the four types. These are the unreconstructed Cold Warriors, the people who never trusted the Russkies and perhaps thought glasnost and perestroika were fake. Some of them still tend to refer to Russia as the Soviet Union. Mitt Romney is the emblematic figure here. The Hawks want a strict hard-line policy of containing and isolating Russia. They want NATO to act as the guard dog that makes sure Russia doesn’t dare cast a shadow outside its own borders.

The Putin Sympathizers are the traditionalist authoritarians who have come into prominence in the Trump era. They see Putin as a bulwark against global liberalism, someone who upholds gender norms and Christian values. Although often associated with Trump, this tradition can be seen earlier in Pat Buchanan.

The “Why Should We Care?” Contingent are the heirs of the older Robert Taft Republican isolationists. They insist that America needs to look after its domestic concerns first and foremost and avoid being drawn into foreign quarrels. Missouri Senator Josh Hawley gave voice to these sentiments by saying, “Sending new troops, expanding the security commitment and expanding NATO—I just think that’s a strategic mistake.” In terms of policy, this group aligns with the Putin Sympathizers.

The Republican Realists are the missing voices in the debate. These are national security types who prioritized advancing American business interests, which often meant making deals with hostile powers and finding a way to accommodate international differences. This is the tradition of James Baker and Brent Scowcroft. Unlike the Hawks, this group both understands and values diplomacy—especially when dealing with peer rivals like Russia and China. Unlike the Putin Sympathizers or the ”Why Should We Care?” Contingent, the Republican Realists were not unilateralists. They valued international agreements and building alliances.

If the current Ukraine crisis recedes, we’re likely to see a renewed debate among the Hawks, the Putin Sympathizers and the “Why Should We Care?” Contingent. Yet all of them offer unsatisfactory solutions. They are either too militaristic or too unilateralist. The disappearance of Republican Realists means that we’re not likely to get a shrewd and prudential Republican foreign policy alternative. Which is too bad, since in a two-party system that’s something that is desperately needed.

For Democratic midterm candidates, the challenge is to benefit from the deepening GOP divisions. Yes, Dems must do a better job of promoting the Biden Administration’s real accomplishments. But Democrats, not just candidates, should also unite in branding the Republican party as elitists focused on: providing ever-larger tax cuts for billionaires, expressing contempt for democracy and having a high tolerance for bigots who trash our county’s best values (see Sasha Abramsky’s “Putin’s Republican Sympathizers,” also in The Nation).

Hit hard and often. Leverage the magic of repetition. That’s what Republicans do.

The Medicare for all cause has been derailed by grim political realities and distractions, including Covid, conservative Democrats and now Ukraine. In addition, experiments with state level ‘single payer’ systems have also tanked, Jean Yi reports at FiveThirtyEight. But Yi’s article also provides a more encouraging discussion of the possibilities for the public option at the state level. as Yi, writes, “Americans may have an appetite for a public option, or government-run health insurance that people can opt into at the state level.”

Yi explains that ” Three states (Colorado, Nevada and Washington) have already passed a public option. It’s not single-payer health care reform, but it’s possible that we might see more states adopt their own public-option reforms…..Colorado and Nevada, for instance, successfully passed a public option in 2021, joining Washington, which passed one in 2019. Colorado’s success in advancing a public option is particularly striking, given that almost 80 percent of people voted against its single-payer proposal in 2016.” Further, Yi writes,

To be sure, though, efforts to implement a public option aren’t without their own challenges. In 2021, during its first year of implementation, Washington state’s public option struggled to enroll people and get health care providers to agree to lower payment rates. State lawmakers have tried to fix this problem by introducing legislation that would require more providers to participate and bring down premiums by increasing subsidies. Proponents have also cautioned that it might take years before the public option really gains a foothold with Washington state residents.

It’s not clear yet how successful these state-run public option plans will be, but it is possible that a public option may prove more popular than single-payer. For starters, while single-payer health care is popular among Democrats, the public option still polls much better among Republicans and independents. According to a Morning Consult/Politico poll from March 2021, the public option was roughly as popular as Medicare for All among Democrats — about 80 percent said they supported each. But support for the public option was much higher than support for Medicare for All among both Republicans and independents. Just 28 percent of Republicans and 50 percent of independents supported Medicare for All versus 56 percent of Republicans and 63 percent of independents who supported a public option.

Moreover, a public option may align more naturally with Americans’ existing views on the role of government in health care. Polls have long found that Americans still want a choice in their health care, even though they believe that providing health insurance to the uninsured is the government’s responsibility.

Ultimately, any health care reforms would be easier to implement on a federal level than a patchwork, state-by-state approach. But Washington, Colorado and Nevada remain important tests of state governments’ ability to implement a public option in lieu of action by the federal government. It’s not single-payer, but it’s still some of the most consequential health care reforms in decades — and a potential sign of where the debates over health care are heading.

The old cliche about states being “laboratories of democracy” has limited application when it comes to providing decent health care for all citizens. But the public option at the state level, which is based on giving consumers a choice between public and private insurance coverage, may have a brighter future — particularly if the experiments with it in CO, NV and WA have a good track record in a couple of years. If that happens, Democrats can lead the way forward.

From “Republicans prove they are their own worst enemy in 2022” by Chris Cillizza at CNN Politics: “And despite a rocky start to the health care program — the failure of the initial website to sign up for coverage being the most obvious example — the public has warmed to the law, which is colloquially known as Obamacare. In an October 2021 Kaiser Family Foundation poll, almost 6 in 10 (58%) of Americans said they had a favorable view of the law, while just 41% viewed it unfavorably….Taking the ACA away — or even talking about taking it away — then is politically unwise….Which may explain why [WI Republican Sen. Ron] Johnson, who faces re-election this year, released a statement Monday night, um, clarifying his position. “During a radio interview I used our failure to repeal and replace Obamacare as an example of how we need to be prepared to deliver on whatever agenda items we decide to run on,” said Johnson. “I was not suggesting repealing and replacing Obamacare should be one of those priorities. Even when we tried and failed, I consistently said our effort should focus on repairing the damage done by Obamacare and transitioning to a health system that works.”….Which, well, ok! But, the problem for Johnson — and for McConnell and other members of Republican leadership — is that Johnson initially said what he said, which sounded a whole lot like Republicans would work to repeal and replace Obamacare if they were in the Senate majority.” Cillizza also discusses deepening divisions within GOP leadership over Sen. Rick Scott’s (R-FL) “policy agenda for America.” Here’s hoping Democrats will  emphasize such GOP divisions on the midterm campaign trail.

I like how Thomas B. Edsall put it in his column, “There Are Glimmers of Hope for Biden. Or Maybe Slivers” in The New York Times: “On the negative side for Republicans: Donald Trump’s admiration for and long courtship of Vladimir Putin has begun to backfire, causing conflict within Republican ranks; and these intraparty tensions have been compounded by Mike Pence’s growing willingness to challenge Trump, as well as by an internal strategy dispute between Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, and Senator Rick Scott, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee….On the plus side for Democrats: The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that in February, employers added 678,000 new jobs and unemployment fell to 3.8 percent. Meanwhile, the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection disclosed on March 3 that it has “has a good-faith basis for concluding that the president and members of his Campaign engaged in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States.” Edsall notes, however, that Democrats still face enormous obstacles in their struggle to hold their House of Reps majority in the midterm elections, inlcuding the weight of historical experience. But internal divisions in the GOP offer some hope that Dems can reduce the damage.

Edsall adds, “Steve Rosenthal, a former political director of the AFL-CIO who now heads The Organizing Group, a political consulting firm, contended in an email that the Biden administration has done a poor job promoting its successes:

We’ve been canvassing white working-class voters in Southwestern PA and in the Lehigh Valley. They have no idea what the president and the Democrats in Congress have already done that directly impacts the issues they raise. When they hear about Biden sending $7 billion to PA for their roads, bridges and schools, they’re moved by it. This isn’t rocket science.

….Dean Baker, co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a liberal-leaning think tank, made a similar case in his emailed response to my inquiries:

On the economic front, President Biden and the Democrats really need to up their game in pushing their record and their agenda. We have had record job growth since Biden took office, and somehow the economy is supposed to be a liability for the Democrats? If the shoe were on the other foot, the Republicans would be plastering the job numbers across the sky. This is the best labor market in more than half a century. Workers can leave jobs they don’t like for better ones, that is a really great story.

….“It’s a volatile environment,” Rosenthal adds: “Covid, war in Ukraine, inflation — and a lot can happen between now and November. But I definitely like the hand the Democrats are playing better this week than last. For now, let’s take it one week at a time.”

Among the ‘wild cards’ flagged by Edsall: “There are still major uncertainties to be resolved before Election Day on Nov. 8. These include the possibility that Trump will be further embroiled in criminal charges and the chance that Trump himself will become an albatross around the neck of the Republican Party….Trump’s legal status, in turn, will be determined by prosecutors in Georgia, New York and possibly the United States Justice Department…..The biggest unknown on the political horizon is the repercussions of the sanctions imposed by the United States and its allies on Russia, which are certain to raise energy and food costs, exacerbating the administration’s continuing difficulties with rising prices….Finally, the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a wild card, giving rise, among other things, to mounting speculation about Trump’s judgment and his fitness for office.” In addition to Trump praising Putin’s “genius,” Edsall notes, “On March 5, speaking at a meeting of top Republican donors in New Orleans, Trump wandered further afield, suggesting, however insincerely, that the United States should paste Chinese flags on F-22s and “bomb the sh*t out of Russia.” Edsall notes “another explosive unknown, the possibility of the largest land war in Europe since 1945 metastasizing into a global conflict.” How is that going to play with suburban swing voters, if Trump is still the ‘leader’ of his party in November?

The following article by Ruy Teixeira, author of The Optimistic Leftist and other works of political analysis, is cross-posted from his blog:

The Economic Left and Politics

They get some important things right! If only they’d stick to those, we could actually get somewhere. John Halpin explains at The Liberal Patriot.

“If we are to build a new politics for America based on principles of liberal nationalism, it’s important to examine and incorporate good ideas from around the ideological spectrum that are helpful to the causes of individual freedom and national economic strength in all parts of the country.

Last week’s column examined some of the best concepts from conservatives, including notions of subsidiarity and localism, common sense and tradition, and concerns about unintended consequences in policy making. Today’s column will look at some of the best ideas emanating from the economic left—ideas that serve as good companions to those conservative ideas about markets and government by offering important corrections to private sector activities.

While conservatives remind us of the problems of big government and the benefits of local actions, the economic left reminds us about the problems of big business and the benefits of collective goods and universal social insurance protections.”

Read the rest at The Liberal Patriot!