In his Vox post, “Confessions of a Clinton reporter: The media’s 5 unspoken rules for covering Hillary,” Jonathan Allen rolls it out raw and ugly: “1) Everything, no matter how ludicrous-sounding, is worthy of a full investigation by federal agencies, Congress, the “vast right-wing conspiracy,” and mainstream media outlets; 2) Every allegation, no matter how ludicrous, is believable until it can be proven completely and utterly false. And even then, it keeps a life of its own in the conservative media world; 3) The media assumes that Clinton is acting in bad faith until there’s hard evidence otherwise; 4) Everything is newsworthy because the Clintons are the equivalent of America’s royal family; 5) Everything she does is fake and calculated for maximum political benefit.” Given all that, how large would Clinton’s lead be if the media covered her fairly?

At FiveThirtyEight.com Harry Enten has “13 Tips For Reading General Election Polls Like A Pro,” an excellent checklist for analyzing opinion surveys.

It’s just one poll, but boy, it’s a big one, “the largest sample ever undertaken by The Post.”  As Dan Balz and Scott Clement report at The Washington Post, “…The state-by-state numbers are based on responses from more than 74,000 registered voters during the period of Aug. 9 to Sept. 1. The individual state samples vary in size from about 550 to more than 5,000, allowing greater opportunities than typical surveys to look at different groups within the population and compare them from state to state.” The overall take: “With nine weeks until Election Day, Donald Trump is within striking distance in the Upper Midwest, but Hillary Clinton’s strength in many battlegrounds and some traditional Republican strongholds gives her a big electoral college advantage, according to a 50-state Washington Post-SurveyMonkey poll.” Also, Trump is way behind former GOP presidential nominees with white, college-educated voters, as well as women and voters in AZ, GA and TX.

As the post-Labor Day campaign begins, Ed Kilgore notes at New York Magazine “Polls-only forecasters unsurprisingly project Clinton as the favorite. FiveThirtyEight’s polls-only projection has Clinton’s win probability at 69%; The Upshot’s has it at an overwhelming 84%…If the elections were to wind up precisely as indicated by today’s state polling averages (giving Trump the tied state of NC), Clinton would win with 326 electoral votes to Trump’s 212…The difficulty of getting to 270 for Trump is illustrated by Daily Kos’ state-by-state projections, which award not only Iowa and North Carolina but also Florida, Nevada, and Ohio to the Republican. Clinton still wins 290/248.”

From Rowena Lindsay at The Monitor, why early voting ought to be a bigger concern for Dems: “..Early voting has favored the Democrats in some key states, and in 2008 35 percent of votes are cast before the election according to the Associated Press…In 2008, for example, Barack Obama won 58 percent of the pre-election day votes to Sen. John McCain’s 40 percent and managed to win Colorado, Florida, Iowa and North Carolina even though on election day more people in those states voted for Senator McCain – which speaks to the overall enthusiasm young and minority American Democrats felt for Obama.”

Some numbers to keep in mind when politicians blither about “family values”: “This election year has both parties still talking about families, but the family structure itself has changed dramatically over time. There are now more unmarried women of voting age than married women. The loving couple down the street may be unmarried (8.3 million such households existed in 2015, compared to 523,000 in 1970, according to the U.S. Census Bureau). They may not be heterosexual, either (nearly 450,000 U.S. households were same-sex couples in 2014, the bureau reports). Young adults may be living with parents as they pay off college loans, while middle-aged adults might have elderly, ailing parents living with them so they can provide round-the-clock care. And some may not be coupled or caring for children at all: a full 28 percent of American households are people living alone, up from 17 percent in 1970, Census says. As for the man of the house bringing home the bacon, that pattern has been upended. Women are now the sole or primary breadwinners in 40 percent of homes with children, up from less than 11 percent in 1960, the Pew Research Center reports.” – from Susan Milligan’s U.S. News report “Yearning for the Past Politicians aren’t addressing the needs of the new American family.”

Facebook may be fine for choir-preaching, but here’s a good clip and share NYT op-ed for your conservative uncle, from a former Bush Administration official, James K. Glasman: “Save the Republican Party: Vote for Clinton.”

Despite the protests of recent years, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which provides “template” state and local legislation to suppress voting (among many other anti-consumer and anti-worker bills) by people of color and other pro-Democratic constituencies, still bosts dozens of major corportions among it’s members. Some of the largest companies that are not only members, but are also active on ALEC’s corporate board include: AT&T; Diageo (brands include Crown Royal, Johnnie Walker, J&B, Bushmills, Smirnoff, Baileys, Captain Morgan, Jose Cuervo, Tanqueray, and Guinness); ExxonMobil; Koch Companies (brands include Angelsoft, Brawny, Quilted Northern, Sparkle, Dixie products), Pfizer; State Farm; United Parcel Service; and others. What would happen if millions of progressives took this list into consideration when they do their shopping?

The throw-down in NC, where polls show stat-tie races for President, U.S. Senator and Governor is intensifying. For some inside skinny, check out Chris Kromm’s Facing South report, “Why North Carolina is the biggest battleground of 2016.” Kromm reports one troubling gap in the U.S. Senate race: “[Republican incumbent] Burr is sitting on a war chest of $8.7 million compared to Ross’ $3.9 million. That doesn’t include super PACs and outside groups like Karl Rove’s One Nation, which recently announced it was pulling money out of Ohio’s U.S. Senate race to focus on Missouri and North Carolina, where it will spend $1.5 million to help Burr, and the Senate Leadership Fund, which has reserved $8.1 million in ads for Burr. But Democratic groups haven’t responded in kind, a move which the progressive website DailyKos called “baffling.”

The Washington Post editorial “Republicans can’t pretend not to know what fuels the Trump campaign” offers some salient observations about Clinton’s speech to a community college in Reno, NV calling out the “alt-right,” especially: “In a major speech Thursday, Hillary Clinton linked Donald Trump to bigoted elements on the fringe of American politics. But she got it wrong when she said, “Trump is reinforcing harmful stereotypes and offering a dog whistle to his most hateful supporters.”…It’s not a “dog whistle” if everyone can hear the bigotry.” The only ‘pivot’ emerging in the Trump campaign is a stronger tilt toward neo-fascism.

Regarding the buzz about the pros and cons of  Clinton’s “alt-right” speech, my take is that it had to be done — at  least the part calling out the Trump campaign for advocating unprecedented bigotry for a major political party (the second video here defines ‘alt-right’). Once was OK for Clinton, but I think it’s a mistake keep on using the ‘alt-right’ term, which suggests something shiny and new, instead of the same old bullying racism, sexism, religious bigotry, homophobia that was more recently attributed to the tea party. What’s new is that they have taken over the GOP, and perhaps the escalated intensity with which they sneer at Republican conservatives who still believe in civility. Remember, the ‘tea party’ term got a long ride – a few years – before it was rendered counter-productive to their cause. This election is 9 weeks away. The media will continue to use ‘alt-right’ as their new rhetorical toy, but Dems need not help bigotry get all gussied up in fancy new clothes. Somewhere Frank Luntz is smiling, but George Lakoff is not.

At The Fix David Weigel explains, contrary to a recent New York Times article by Jennifer Steinhauer, that Democrats are in pretty good shape in terms of this year’s U.S. Senate races. Weigel notes, “Had the party failed at recruiting, it might be leaving races uncontested. It didn’t. There’s a credible Democratic candidate in every presidential swing state. The party is staring at a brutal 2018 midterm map, and it has no short-term solution to the gerrymandering-enabled wipeout of its suburban legislative bench. This year, remarkably, they’ve held off the crisis.” Check out all of the Democratic Senate candidates right here.

From Jessica Wehrman’s Dayton Daily News post “GOP worried Trump could bring down others on ballot: Since 1948, Ohio has split the president, Senate votes just three times“: “In 1984, for example, roughly half of the states holding U.S. Senate races chose a Senate candidate from one party and a president from another…But by 2012, only one in five states holding Senate races split tickets, said G. Terry Madonna, director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin and Marshall College…The last time Ohio voters backed a Senate candidate from one party and a presidential candidate from another was 1988, when Democrat Howard Metzenbaum won the Senate race while George H.W. Bush took Ohio on his romp to the presidency.” However, adds Wehrman, “As of June 30, the last reporting period, Portman had $13.2 million to Strickland’s $3.7 million. Portman has been airing ads since June, while Strickland began airing his first TV ad in August.” To help level the campaign finances playing field, check out Ted Strickland’s ActBlue contributions page.

Television still rules in terms of political ad revenues, but the picture looks a little different in terms of influence on voters. “Facebook, in the years leading up to this election, hasn’t just become nearly ubiquitous among American internet users; it has centralized online news consumption in an unprecedented way. According to the company, its site is used by more than 200 million people in the United States each month, out of a total population of 320 million. A 2016 Pew study found that 44 percent of Americans read or watch news on Facebook. These are approximate exterior dimensions and can tell us only so much. But we can know, based on these facts alone, that Facebook is hosting a huge portion of the political conversation in America.,” notes John Herrman’s New York Times Magazine article, “Inside Facebook’s(Totally Insane,Unintentionally Gigantic,Hyperpartisan) Political-Media Machine: How a strange new class of media outlet has arisen to take over our news feeds,”

Andy Schmookler, a former Democratic candidate for congress (VA-6) in 2012, has an interesting column, “Should Democrats use Trump as wedge or millstone against Republicans?” in the Augusta Free Press. Schmookler urges both, but with a strategic distinction: “Let the Democratic candidates for President and Vice-President use Trump as a wedge, differentiating Trump from the Republican Party whose face he’s become. And let other Democrats use him as a millstone, to sink the Republican Party in its current form. And perhaps together, these two approaches can loosen the stranglehold that today’s Republican Party has had over America’s ability to make progress as a nation.”

With respect to the Clinton campaign’s ‘wedge strategy,’ Rick Perlstein raises some perceptive concerns at The Washington Spectator about overdoing it, particularly if it throws Paul Ryan a life raft — instead of an anvil.

At The Hill, Niall Stanage discusses another strategic dilemma facing the Clinton campaign: how much to emphasize Trump’s flip-flopping on immigration, vs. focusing more strongly on his lack of qualifications and gravitas. Stanage quotes Joe Trippi, who was the campaign manager of Howard Dean’s 2004 bid for the White House: “Sixty percent of the population thinks he is not fit to be president…I would reinforce that and not do anything to take people off it. If the race is about who is fit to be president, Donald Trump is not likely to win.” Stanage reinforces Trippi’s argument: “In a Bloomberg poll released earlier this month, only 38 percent of likely voters said that Trump was ready to lead the nation “on day one in office.” Clinton’s rating on the same question was almost 20 points better, at 56 percent…A Quinnipiac poll released Thursday found 66 percent of likely voters saying that, whether they planned to vote for her or not, Clinton was “qualified” to be president. Only 40 percent said the same about Trump.”

This should be the front-runner for “most unwanted endorsement of 2016.”

Here we have an excellent example of the self-defeating myopia of single-issue politics. If one of these GOP Senators wins, and his victory denies the Democrats a Senate majority, not only would President Clinton’s ability to enact significant gun safety legislation be destroyed, but her ability to get a strong gun safety advocate confirmed to the Supreme Court would also be badly compromised.

At Sabato’s Crystal Ball, Alan I. Abramowitz reports on the findings of the Generic Ballot Forecasting Model, including: “…In order for Democrats to gain the minimum of four seats they need to regain control of the Senate (if there is a Democratic vice president to break a 50-50 tie), they probably would need a lead of at least two or three points on the generic ballot and to gain the minimum of 30 seats they need to regain control of the House, they probably would need a lead of at least 13 points on the generic ballot…According to HuffPost Pollster, results of recent national polls give Democrats an average lead of five points on the generic ballot. If that lead were to hold up until the week after Labor Day, the traditional cutoff date for the generic ballot forecast, Democrats would be expected to gain about 16 seats in the House and about four seats in the Senate — not enough to flip control of the House but enough to flip control of the Senate if Clinton wins the presidential election.”

Crystal Ball also spotlights another model, which is more more favorable to Democrats, “The Seats-in-Trouble House and Senate Election Forecasts” by James E. Campbell, which finds that “Based on seven House Democratic seats being rated as only leaning to the Democrats, toss-ups, or tipped toward going to the Republicans, and 33 House Republican seats being rated as only leaning to the Republicans, toss-ups, or tipped toward going to the Democrats — a net of 26 more Republican than Democratic seats-in-trouble — the model predicts that Democrats will gain 32 House seats in November. This would bring the number of House Democrats up to 220 members, two seats more than required for a bare majority. The forecast was made on Aug. 18, 2016…Based on one Senate Democratic seat being rated as a toss-up or tipped toward the Republicans and eight Senate Republican seats being rated as toss-ups or tipped toward the Democrats — a net of seven more Republican than Democratic seats-in-trouble — the model predicts that Democrats will gain seven Senate seats. This would bring the number of Senate Democrats (including two Independents who caucus with Democrats) up to 53 seats, a majority. The forecast was made on Aug. 19, 2016.”

Too often tragedies like the mass poisoning of Flint, Michigan’s water supply fade from the headlines after a short burst of public outrage, with few corrective measures in place, thanks to obstruction by Republicans. The crisis in Flint is symptomatic of other disasters in waiting as result of decades of Republican infrastructure neglect all across America, and there is a disturbing pattern of law enforcement making examples of mid-level officials bureaucrats and letting it go at that, while the more culpable CEO’s and top administrators who threw public safety under the bus are let off. Chase Madar’s NYT op-ed, “The Real Crime Is What’s Not Done” explores the political ramifications of infrastructure neglect, noting “A well-enforced regulatory regime lacks the TV-movie narrative arc of a criminal trial. But none of these crimes could have been committed if the government had been doing its job properly.” What Democrats must do is make it clear that it is the Republicans who are putting public safety at risk with obstruction and neglect across the nation.

Steve Bousquet of the Miami Herald reports that “Republicans and their allies in the state Capitol are flexing muscle in at least three hotly contested Democratic primary races in a covert attempt to define the makeup of the Florida Senate for years to come…In Tampa Bay’s most hard-fought Senate primary where black Democrats could be decisive, a new mailer in support of Rep. Darryl Rouson, D-St. Petersburg, makes it appear he has the support of President Barack Obama (he doesn’t). The mailer was paid for a committee backed by Republican interests…In Palm Beach County, the same group, operating under the nebulous name Floridians for a Better Florida, is helping Rep. Irv Slosberg, D-Boca Raton, with mailers attacking his rival, Sen. Jeff Clemens, D-Lake Worth.” It would be good if there were more examples of Democrats successfully deploying such a strategy, as did Sen. Clarie McCaskill in her U.S. Senate re-election bid in 2012.

Democrats now know exactly which House seats the GOP is prioritizing to protect or flip, as a result of the GOP Super-PAC, The Congressional Leadership Fund’s (CLF) decision to allocate their $10 million investment, reports Ted Barrett at CNN Politics. “The Congressional Leadership Fund’s spending on TV and digital advertising — as well as get-out-the-vote efforts — is aimed at 12 of the most competitive seats this fall that could determine if Democrats can make up the 30-seat deficit they face now and reclaim the majority after six years out of power.” The targeted congressional seats are in south FL, CA, NB, IA, WI, NY and TX. The non-partisan Sunlight Foundation reported that CLF had a 58.05% return on investment in 2012. The CLF’s largest donor in 2012 was Sheldon Adelson, who gave $5 million. Other major donors included Chevron.

Ben Rosen notes at The Monitor, “Larry Grisolano, who oversaw paid advertising efforts for the 2008 and 2012 Obama campaigns, predicted in June 2015 that the presidential campaigns will devote nearly a quarter of their spending to digital media…But Nicco Mele, director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School, says online advertising is only effective in raising money or increasing voter turnout, not persuading voters to choose one candidate over another…“Television is the most powerful form of persuasion,” he tells the Monitor in a phone interview Wednesday. “The internet is not as effective in changing people’s minds.””

Can Hillary Clinton win a healthty share of the votes of blue collar youth? Rebeccca Nelson probes the possibilities in her TNR article, “The Forgotten Millennials” Nelson observes, “When Clinton talks about millennials, she tends to use the word interchangeably with “college students.” But millennials with university degrees don’t represent their entire generation—just those with the greatest economic and educational advantages. A full 40 percent of young people never made it past high school, according to a recent analysis by CIRCLE, a research center that specializes in youth issues…Politicians tend to ignore working-class millennials for a simple reason: They don’t show up on Election Day. Just 29 percent of blue-collar youth turned out to vote in 2012—about half the rate of those who’d attended college. But in market terms, that political disengagement represents an opportunity for Clinton: CIRCLE estimates there are more than 17 million eligible voters under 35 still waiting to be mobilized—the last big segment of American voters that is genuinely up for grabs….Working-class youth should be Clinton’s for the taking: Fifty-two percent lean Democratic; 34 percent tilt Republican. And because so many are politically disengaged, their leanings are considered “soft,” in campaign parlance: They could be swayed by any candidate with a message that resonates.”

Shameless Gov. Chris ‘Bridgegate’ Christie vetoes a NJ Motor Voter Bill, which “would automatically register voters who are renewing or applying for a driver’s license.” As the Star-Ledger’s editorial “Christie tries to rig the system by vetoing motor-voter bill,” notes “Of all the ways Republicans use voter suppression to influence elections – gerrymandering districts, voter ID laws, purging rolls, shorting voter periods, preventing ex-cons from voting – this is especially odious, because MVC already makes you jump through hoops to prove that you are who you say you are. The only fraud here is the governor’s brand of politics.”

Zach Carter, senior political economy reporter at HuffPo, has an interesting post about a promising new strategy being deployed by Zephyr Teachout, a progressive Democratic candidate for New York’s 19th congressional district in the Hudson Valley.

Teachout is “cutting out the middleman” with a new ad that targets “vulture fund” billionaire Paul Singer, who wrote a check for a cool half-million dollars to a super PAC supporting John Faso, her Republican opponent. Teachout points out that contributions to her campaign average about $15. Go to this link to see the ad.

Carter explains Teachout’s strategy:

…When Singer signed on in May, Faso had the firepower to challenge Teachout in the general election.

On Monday, Teachout decided to bypass Faso himself and go after his donor. In a video posted to her Facebook account, she criticized Singer and challenged him to a debate.

“This is very serious,” Teachout says in the ad. “Paul Singer, I challenge you to come here and have a debate with me … I think the people of the 19th District deserve to hear your actual voice when you’re putting so much money into trying to buy up representation.”

Teachout is an academic corruption expert who is building her campaign message around curbing the influence of large corporations and money in politics. So highlighting Singer isn’t just an attempt to dismiss Faso as a tool of big money interests ― it also draws attention to Teachout’s strongest issue.

It’s an interesting strategy. For too long, Republican PAC sugar-daddies have escaped scrutiny and paid no penalty for lavishing big money on their candidates. By calling a lot of extra attention to Singer’s outsize contribution, Teachout is forcing him to pay a price in his diminished image, making his candidate, John Faso, look like a hedge-fund puppet and, if she wins, providing an impressive example that can help other progressive candidates who are willing to go after those who try to buy elections with large donations.

Opinion polls show overwhelming public support for curbing the influence of big money on American politics. Teachout’s strategy may provide a powerful new way to check the corruption of our democracy by fat cat money.

In his insightful post “Black Democrats Want To See Bigger, Earlier Voter Turnout Efforts,” Darren Sands notes at BuzzFeed News, “Many of the political committees and campaigns seem to be a standstill when it comes to planning and moving money into programs that will turnout base democratic voters,” Quentin James, a Democratic strategist said. “Coming out of the 2012 cycle, we saw African-American voters cast ballots at a higher rate than white voters for the first time. I’m not a rocket scientist, but it seems a smart strategy would be to double down on turning out that demographic.”…”People are tired of the last-minute money,” one well-connected Democrat said, alluding to a trend in recent years to put resources into black outreach beginning in the fall. “That is a huge concern and they don’t want that. They want see that early investment. It needs to happen on the ground and now.”
Catastrophoic visions and squirmage epidemic in GOP over Trump’s doubling down on Latino-bashing.
But Trump’s attack against Judge Curiel may be more about creating a distraction from his growing fear that the ‘Trump University’ scandal can get even uglier, as the press uncovers the outrageous details, notes Heather Digby Parton at salon.com.
“Top Republicans in the state legislature are seeking to block Mr. McAuliffe’s sweeping order, which re-enfranchised 206,000 Virginians who have completed sentences, probation or parole. Last week, the Supreme Court announced a special session to hear arguments in July — in time to rule before the November election…Still, race is a powerful subtext; African-Americans make up 19 percent of Virginia’s population, but 45 percent of those covered by the governor’s order. The Sentencing Project, a Washington research organization, says one in five African-Americans in Virginia cannot vote because of felony convictions…But what Mr. McAuliffe granted, the Virginia Supreme Court may now take away.” – from Sheryl Gay Stolberg’s NYT article, “Virginia at Center of Racially Charged Fight Over the Right of Felons to Vote.”
Significant pros and cons about this idea. But keeping Biden close makes a lot of sense.
Politifact says “For median income, we found that 95 of the 100 poorest counties were located in red states” and “For percentage of residents in poverty, we found that 93 of the 100 poorest counties were in red states.” In the spirit of false equivalence, Politifact adds stretchy yada yada about Republicans doing well in rural areas and these counties being poor way back when the states were Democratic, but the fact nonetheless remains that Republican dominated state government has utterly failed to reduce poverty in these areas.
At The Atlantic Michelle Cottle explains why “There’s No Escaping the Top of the Ballot,” and notes “The level of split-ticket voting between the presidential race and races in the House and Senate is down to about 5 percent at this point,” said Richard Pildes, a law professor at NYU who has written on the nationalization of U.S. elections. Getting that number up much higher, predicted Pildes, “will be like pushing a boulder up a hill.”
Well, this is encouraging: “Senate Democrats are doing everything they can to link candidates in swing states to Trump, launching their “Party of Trump” campaign in March aimed at vulnerable GOP incumbents. The DSCC has reserved about $50 million worth of television airtime in the fall to hammer that message home,” reports Alexander Bolton at The Hill.
Will violence at demonstrations against Trump help him? Jose A. DelReal and Sean Sulivan address the concern at the Washington Post.

If you have been wondering how much of the conflict between supporters of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders is Republican-inspired, you are not alone. There does seem to be a fair amount of internet jabber which appears to be designed to foment conflict between their followers. For example, Gideon Resnick reports in his post, “Trump Trolls Plot to Bait Bernie and Hillary Into Twitter Wars” at The Daily Beast:

“Let’s troll Bernie and Hillary supporters systematically,” the 4Chan thread on a recent weekend in May read.
The plan was simple: get a bunch of people to create pro-Bernie Sanders and pro-Hillary Clinton accounts and go to war on Twitter. The sham accounts would use hashtags to slander the opposite candidate and try to rile up die-hard fans into saying accusatory things to the supporters on the other side. The goal was to create more divisions and somehow use it to help Donald Trump gain more support.
“We need to take advantage of this,” the author of the original post wrote. “This is Trump’s gift. If we’re serious about a Trump presidency we need to start infiltrating their conversations in order to sow more divison. I’m talking systematic and long-term /mischief/, not just a hew [sic] minutes trolling dumbass SJW’s (social justice warriors).”

This particular scam didn’t end so well, since no new threads were launched by it, the stated goal of its proponent. There are other thinly-disguised Republican trolls foraging around on social media, as Resnick notes, quoting a Sanders supporter:

“Dear Admins (or whoever else wants to see what the other side is doing to troll us)… These idiots created a website on specific strategies to troll us,” Tam L. Cocar wrote, referring to the thread in the “Bernie Believers” Facebook group. “Unfortunately, a lot of it seems too familiar as of late. So if you have hours to waste to see how elaborate their trolling strategy has become (they seem deluded enough to fancy themselves as 007 types), please do. Why some moron would post this without the site being password protected I don’t understand.”

Very few Clinton or Sanders supporters take the bait. As Eric Varney, who runs a pro-Sanders Facebook page, explains of another troll ploy:

“An attempt like this would only work with people who are uneducated about the political system and do not know how to debate civilly,” Varney told The Daily Beast. “Neither the majority of Clinton or Sanders supporters are stupid. There are ignorant people on both sides who would fight the wind if it whistled wrong. But that’s the nature of social media.”

Those who are too time-challenged to noodle around on Twitter may notice suspicious posts on Facebook and other social media. Much of it reflects the civility of an unusually-immature jr. high school student. But Dems should probably assume that there are more sophisticated trolls out there trying to juice up divisions between the Sanders and Clinton campaigns.
“Let’s you and her fight” trolls are likely wasting their time, since most Sanders and Clinton supporters are well-aware that their common adversary – the Trump campaign – would like nothing better than to divide Democrats. They recognize that Trump represents a radical departure from progressive values and his defeat should be the top priority for all Democrats after the convention.
None of this is to deny that there that there are some strongly-felt differences on key issues, independent of trollage, that need to be resolved by the two Democratic campaigns. Few supporters of Secretary Clinton or Senator Sanders are going to be provoked by any of it, though both camps are wise to keep an eye out for GOP trolls who are trying to amp up the bickering between them.

In the wake of tensions, both real and over-hyped, between the Clinton and Sanders campaigns, New York Times reporters Jonathan Mahler and Yamiche Alcindor ask and address an important question: “Bernie Sanders Makes a Campaign Mark. Now, Can He Make a Legacy?” The legacy Sanders wants is a come-from-behind upset win of the Democratic presidential nomination. But it would be a shame if his coalition evaporates in the event of a Clinton victory. Alcindor and Mahler cite three core issues of the Sanders campaign — universal health care, free college tuition and reducing the influence of wealthy donors in politics. There is a concern that these issues will fade into the background without his candidacy or election. The authors discuss some possibilities for future political involvement of Sanders supporters beyond 2016. Win or lose, Sanders can make a significant contribution by mobilizing his supporters to “adopt” the midterm elections and help candidates who support his three core causes.
At Salon.com Michael Bourne makes the case why “Hillary must pick Bernie for VP: She may even need him more than he needs her.”
Salon.com’s Heather Digby Parton discusses Stan Greenberg’s memo, “The GOP Crash and the Historic Moment for Progressives.” Parton comments on Greenberg’s calculation that about 10 percent of conservatives are willing to vote for Clinton over Trump, “The question is what it will take to get them to vote for Democrats in this election…Where Greenberg sees an opening is in national investment, bank regulation and corporate governance which dovetails nicely with the populist agenda coming from the left wing of the party as well…If Greenberg is right and the Democrats pay attention and all the stars align, we could come out of this with a big progressive win, setting the stage for a fertile time of renewal and progress.”
It appears that Hillary Clinton is on solid political ground in calling for stricter gun control. “A New York Times/CBS News poll in January found that 57 percent of respondents wanted stricter laws governing gun sales, and 88 percent favored background checks for all purchases,” reports Amy Chozick at The New York Times.
I disagree with most of the points conservative commentator Matt Lewis makes in his rambling Daily Beast rant, “How the GOP Went South.” But some of his comments on the affected vernacular of various presidential candidates are on target, specifically his observation that “his father, former President George H. W. Bush, had been mocked as a tax‑raiser and a preppy wimp. George W. Bush did everything possible to be the opposite of that. The adoption of the Texas persona helped, but the younger Bush overswaggered and overtwanged. But hey, he managed to win two elections, and winning is everything, right?” Despite his sheltered preppy background, W did somehow have an ear for ‘regular guy’ chatter, his malapropisms notwithstanding. Although Gore and Kerry both had more real world life experience than Bush II, it was frequently noted that they both seemed a little on the stiff side. Could it be that a more casual persona is worth some votes?
Here’s why now would be a good time for Alabama Democrats to get their shite together. Such opportunities often pop up suddenly, and Dems in red states simply must do a better job of identifying, preparing and funding new candidates to meet the challenge.
Interesting statistical nuggets on the relationship between presidential primary turnouts and winning presidential candidates from Rhodes Cook’s “High Primary Turnouts: Any Clues for the Fall?” at Larry J. Sabato’s Crystal Ball: “Only in the open election of 2008 was there a clear correlation between the primary turnout and the November outcome. That year, 16 million more votes were cast in the Democratic primaries than the Republican ones, which proved a precursor of Democratic success that fall…In 2016, the Republican edge in the primary vote is much smaller than the Democrats enjoyed in 2008. Coming out of the May 10 primaries in Nebraska and West Virginia, the GOP margin stands at 4 million votes and shrinking. Among the eight states left to hold their presidential primaries are deep blue California and New Jersey. And in 2008, more than 2 million more votes were cast on the Democratic than Republican side of the California ballot.”
Quoctrung Bui’s Upshot post “Where the Middle Class Is Shrinking” provides some data that might be useful for targeting political messages and political ad expenditures.
Some salient comments from Sean J. Miller’s post “Republican Consultants keeping faith with facebook” at Campaigns & Elections: “Donald Trump has more fans on Facebook than any other presidential candidate. And Fox News drives more interactions on its Facebook page than any other news outlet in the world,” says Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. GOP digital consultant Phillip Stutts adds “Facebook is the best targeting advertising platform available,” he said. “Older men and women vote and they are the largest segment joining Facebook right now. It would be political malpractice to our candidates to not use it.” Another GOP digital consultant Ian Patrick Hines echoes Facebook’s “data and ad targeting tools are unmatched.”

At The Washington Post Abby Phillip reports on Clinton campaign preparations in the Rust Belt battleground, “particularly in economically struggling states that have been hit hard by global free-trade agreements”: Phillip notes, “…Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton is preparing to dispatch resources to vote-rich industrial states that have been safely Democratic for a generation…Democrats say that Clinton will need to work assiduously to court Sanders’s supporters in these parts of the country — including younger millennials and working-class voters concerned about economic fairness but also frustrated with government.”

WaPo’s Anne Gearan and Dan Balz explore the ramifications of Hillary Clinton’s personal “weaknesses” as a candidate, including “poor showings with young women, untrustworthiness, unlikability and a lackluster style on the stump. Supporters also worry that she is a conventional candidate in an unconventional election in which voters clearly favor renegades.” They quote Democratic pollster Peter Hart, who says “I bring it down to one thing and one thing only, and that is likability…To counter these challenges, Clinton is relying primarily on the prospect that her likely Republican opponent’s weaknesses are even greater. But advisers also are working to soften her stiff public image by highlighting her compassion and to combat perceptions about trustworthiness and authenticity by playing up her problem-solving abilities.” I would add that part of the problem is that Trump is hogging media coverage with his outrage du jour, which denies Clinton opportunities to showcase her likeable qualities. That won’t change. Therefore, the debates will be critical in showing which candidate is more likeable. Also, her campaign should make more extensive use of social media opportunities to show her in a favorable light.

NYT’s Michael Barbaro and Megan Twohey roll out “Crossing the Line: How Donald Trump Behaved With Women in Private,” which won’t shock the reading public, but is a pretty devastating portrait nonetheless.

Meanwhile, the Trump campaign is reportedly preparing a new round of personal attacks designed to lower the level of political discourse even further. But it will most likely backfire. As Patrick Healy reports at the Times, quoting Melanne Verveer, a longtime friend and former chief of staff to Mrs. Clinton: “She is so prepared to be president, but holding her head high and staying dignified during the campaign is probably what will help her the most…Trump is yet another way she will be tested personally — one of her greatest tests yet.” Dignity could indeed be the key here, since Trump has long ago forfeited any semblance of it on the gamble that a majority of American voters are going to be able to forget his mud-wrestling by election day. Not likely in the era of facebook and YouTube.

It’s a smallish sample and all of the usual caveats apply, but the Fayetteville Observer reports some good news from the Tarheel state for Democrats: “The Civitas Institute, a Raleigh think tank that bills itself as “North Carolina’s Conservative Voice,” released a poll in late April of key statewide races…The biggest takeaway was Republican Gov. Pat McCrory trailing his Democratic challenger, Attorney General Roy Cooper, by 10 percentage points…According to the Real Clear Politics website, Cooper is leading McCrory by an average of 4 points. The average was taken from four recent polls – three in April and one in February.” Also, “In another statewide race surveyed by Civitas poll, U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, a two-term Republican, is leading Democratic challenger Deborah Ross, 37 percent to 35 percent,” well within the m.o.e.

In his New York Times op-ed, “Why Are the Highly Educated So Liberal?,” Neil Gross probes the politics of resentment, specifically attitudes of and toward post-grad educated voters. Gross warns, “It is probably right that something like a culture of critical discourse can be found in the workplaces and households and in the publications read by Americans who have attended graduate or professional school. The challenge for the Democrats moving forward will be to develop appeals to voters that resonate not just with this important constituency, but also with other crucial groups in the Democratic coalition. Some of the draw of Donald Trump for white working-class male voters, for example, is that he does not speak in a culture of critical discourse. Indeed, he mocks that culture, tapping into class resentments…Democrats may find they need to give up a little of their wonkiness if they want resounding victories. It’s not in their long-term interest to be too much what Pat Buchanan once referred to as “the party of the Ph.D.s.”

Yes, Republicans, do this. Make chaos your friend — because it worked so well for the Whigs 180 years ago.

At The Daily Beast Betsy Woodruff has a nicely-tailored summary of one of the Trump/Priebus campaign’s worst weeks yet: “Priebus’s walk of Sunday shame came in the wake of a brutal few days for Trump. The Washington Post produced audio of Trump allegedly pretending to be his own PR flack, the New York Times released a scorching report about Trump’s creepy and predatory treatment of pageant contestants and female employees. On top of that, Trump spent the week arguing that he doesn’t have a responsibility to release his tax returns and that nobody wants to look at them anyway…The tax returns–which Trump has said he will probably release at some point–are a uniquely thorny issue. When Face the Nation host John Dickerson asked Priebus whether Trump should release his tax returns, the chairman replied that voters don’t really care either way.”

Far be it from TDS to pile on and savor the pain and suffering of Republicans forced to defend the character of their nominee-apparent. And yet we must flag Paul Waldman’s chuckle-rich American Prospect post, “Spare a Thought For Those Condemned to Defend Donald Trump: It’s a soul-crushing job, but someone has to do it.” A sample: “…What is Reince Priebus supposed to do? I suppose he could say, “You’re right, we really screwed the pooch by nominating this train wreck of a candidate. This is a living nightmare”…So Republicans have to pretend that they oppose Hillary Clinton not just because she’s a liberal and they’re conservatives–which ought to be more than reason enough–but also because she’s some kind of cartoonish psychopath who would strangle your children’s puppy if she had the chance.”

At The New York Times Opinion Pages ‘Room for Debate’ forum, the topic is “Do College Students’ Votes Really Matter in an Election?” Some observations from the forum participants:
GOP message guru Frank Luntz opines,

…Young voters respond, above all else, to authenticity. They know a fraud when they see it, and they flock in droves to those politicians who say what they mean, and mean what they say.
And while the rallies in 2016 are not quite as large as 2008, even more young people are participating in the political discourse via social media. Snapchat and Twitter have replaced the convention of a coffee shop and the “water cooler” conservation as the place where youth gather to talk politics. Even old journalists and pundits (like me) have learned we need to go there if we want to be heard. We have learned from people less than half our age. They set the trends now.
True, youth engagement and support (alone) still cannot win an election, but it can deliver the credibility needed to drive the public discussion.

Quentin Kidd, director of the Judy Ford Wason Center for Public Policy at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Va., observes:

…a large portion of students don’t get to the voting booth or take the time to fill out an absentee ballot…The problem is that political parties mobilize voters around their physical residential address: We vote in-person based on our place of residence. While big data has allowed parties to know increasingly more about us, without a consistent residential address the ability to use that data to ultimately get a person to become a voter is very difficult.
College students are the poster children of this problem. Many live in dorms that are increasingly secured, inaccessible to the party’s volunteer doorknockers or leaflet droppers.
Additionally, many students don’t or can’t vote where they go to school anyway. Students live on campus for eight or nine months of the year, and whether they can vote where they go to school depends on the registration laws of the state…As students, they are a largely unreliable voting block.

It may be that the best response to the student residence and voter eligibility issues cited by Kidd is automatic registration and court challenges to Republican-driven measures to suppress the student vote, such as North Carolina’s voter i.d. measure.
Columbia University sophomore and NPR contributor Bianca Brooks, cites a dearth of open political discourse, leaving students who are not already firmly comitted to a particular candidate feeling ostracized and uninvolved. “Students who can’t “pick a side” are left feeling isolated and politically apathetic,” says Brooks. “If the university does not reclaim and reform political discourse, students will be unable to find the middle ground necessary not just to be sensible voters, but effective political leaders of the future.”
But Wesleyan University sophomore and military veteran Bryan Stascavage sees impressive student activism and social media participation, which he believes can have an impact, despite low youth voter turnout. In addition to a growing presence on Reddit, “Young voters …start trends on Twitter, create content for Facebook, and push stories to go viral. They are the new grassroots, using new media to spread information about their candidates to the general public….The youth vote is a valuable constituency. They have the time, energy, will and ability to impact politics in America, even though they may not show up on Election Day.”
Young voters played a critical, perhaps pivotal role in the 2008 presidential election, and student support of Obama’s campaign may have helped win votes from non-student youth via peer influence. Young people with at least some college experience vote at approximately twice the rate as non-college youth.
But most of student energy in 2016 seems to be concentrated in support of the Sanders campaign. So there is growing concern about attrition of student activism and voter participation if Sanders does not win the Democratic nomination.
Perhaps even more important in the longer range, students and young voters in general have a poor turnout rate in midterm elections, which helps Republicans severely restrict the President’s ability to secure progressive legislation. In 2010 for example, the first midterm following all of the excitement of the 2008 Obama victory, voters age 18-29 had a turnout rate of just 24 percent, according to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, compared with 54.5 percent of 18 to 29 year-old voters in 2008.
Democrats must find a way to maximize youth turnout in 2016, but a more creative and muscular effort to mobilize young voters in the midterms is long-overdue. This could include more funding for Democratic partty activities on campus, voter registration rallies, on-line teach-ins, concerts and other cultural events to educate and motivate young voters and build their interest. In terms of issues, Democratic candidates must dramatize their commitment to making higher education more affordable and providing entry-level jobs in stark contrast to the Republicans’ lack of credible reforms.
If Democrats can raise student turnout and increase their share of the vote by just a few percentage points, it could prove to be a cost-effective investment in a more stable Democratic majority.

This is a good start, from the DSCC:

This week, the DSCC launched the “Party of Trump” campaign, a sustained campaign that will feature spending across platforms including television, radio, online, Twitter and Facebook, as well as up to the minute “Party of Trump” news alerts, highlighting Republicans’ continued support of Donald Trump as the nominee. With another big round of victories on Tuesday, Trump is even closer to becoming the Republicans’ nominee. Republican Senate incumbents and candidates are to blame for the rise of this toxic, divisive element that has overtaken their party, and they’ve all pledged to support Trump as the nominee. The DSCC’s “Party of Trump” campaign will remind voters that Republican Senate candidates are running in lockstep with Trump and his toxic rhetoric.

And here’s an opening ad to help the kick-off:

Not bad for openers. It appears that the DSCC is putting more brain-power and video muscle and into the effort to take back the Senate, which is long-overdue. There is enough material to make many such ads anchoring GOP senators and senate candidates to Trump and policies that are even worse than some of his positions.
With respect to Trump, there are gobs of clever amateur videos already up on Youtube, and the DSCC should be mining them on a daily basis. Now that Facebook has become the town square for ever-increasing numbers of Americans, the party that masters its potential will likely be well-rewarded in November.