An important TDS Strategy Memo by Ed Kilgore, James Vega and J.P. Green
In a recent Washington Monthly commentary titled “None Dare Call it Sabotage,” Steve Benen gave voice to a growing and profoundly disturbing concern among Democrats – that Republicans may actually plan to embrace policies designed to deny Obama not only political victories but also the maximum possible economic growth during his term in order weaken Democratic prospects in the 2012 elections.
The debate quickly devolved into an argument over the inflammatory word “sabotage” and the extent to which the clearly and passionately expressed Republican desire to see Obama “fail” will actually lead them to deliberately choose economic and other policies that are most conducive to achieving that result.
But, among Democrats themselves, this particular question is actually just one particular component of a much broader and deeper concern — a very real and authentic sense of alarm that there is something both genuinely unprecedented and also profoundly dangerous in the intense “take no prisoners” political extremism of the current Republican Party. There is a deep apprehension that fundamental American standards of proper political conduct and ethical political behavior are increasingly being violated.
The key feature that distinguishes the increasingly extremist perspective of today’s Republican Party from the standards of political behavior we have traditionally considered proper in America is the view that politics is — quite literally, and not metaphorically – a kind of warfare and political opponents are literally “enemies”
This “politics as warfare” perspective has historically been the hallmark of many extremist political parties of both the ideological left and ideological right – parties ranging from the American Communist Party to the French National Front.
Historically, these political parties display a series of common features – features that follow logically and inescapably from the basic premise of politics as warfare:
I. Strategy:

• In the politics as warfare perspective the political party’s objective is defined as the conquest and seizure of power and not sincere participation in democratic governance. The party is viewed as a combat organization whose goal is to defeat an enemy, not an organization whose job is to faithfully represent the people who voted for it.
• In the politics as warfare perspective extralegal measures, up to and including violence, are tacitly endorsed as a legitimate means to achieve a party’s political aims if democratic means are insufficient to obtain its objectives. To obscure the profoundly undemocratic nature of this view, the “enemy” government–even when it is freely elected — is described as actually being illegitimate and dictatorial, thus justifying the use of violence as a necessary response to “tyranny”.
• In the politics as warfare perspective all major social problems are caused by the deliberate, malevolent acts of powerful elites with nefarious motives. An evil “them” is the cause of all society’s ills.
• In the politics as warfare perspective the political party’s philosophy and basic strategy is inerrant – it cannot be wrong. The result is the creation of a closed system of ideologically controlled “news” that creates an alternative reality.

II. Tactics:

• In the politics as warfare perspective standard norms of honesty are irrelevant. Lying and the use of false propaganda are considered necessary and acceptable. The “truth” is what serves to advance the party’s objectives.
• In the politics as warfare perspective the political party accepts no responsibility for stability – engineering the fall of the existing government is absolutely paramount and any negative consequences that may occur in the process represent a kind of “collateral damage” that is inevitable in warfare
• In the politics as warfare perspective the creation of contrived “incidents” or deliberate provocations are acceptable. Because the adherent of this view “knows” that his or her opponents are fundamentally evil, even concocted or staged incidents are still morally and ethically “true.” The distinction between facts and distortions disappears.
• In the politics as warfare perspective compromise represents both betrayal and capitulation. Destruction of the enemy is the only acceptable objective. People who advocate compromise are themselves enemies.

These various components all form part of an integrated whole. Seen as a coherent package they make it clear that politics as warfare is simply not an acceptable philosophy for an American political party. It is profoundly and unambiguously wrong.
It is easy to see examples of the various politics as warfare– based views and tactics listed above directly reflected in the statements and actions of the extreme wing of Republican coalition – they range from Michelle Bachmann and Sharon Angle’s winking at violence with references to “second amendment remedies” to Andrew Breitbart’s deliberate editing of a video to smear Shirley Sherrod, Glen Beck’s suggesting that George Soros was a Nazi collaborator, Fox News’ tolerating attacks on Obama as equivalent to Hitler and airing repeated suggestions that the miniscule New Black Panthers present a real and genuine national threat of stolen elections and Grover Norquist’s endorsement of a government shutdown over extending the debt limit, despite the genuine dangers this poses to international financial stability.
The list can be continued with many other examples from Eric Erickson’s RedState, Rush Limbaugh’s radio show and organizations like Freedomworks. An entire book has been written containing nothing but examples of recognized right-wing spokesmen subtly and not so subtly endorsing and encouraging the use of violence against liberals and Democrats.
And this politics as warfare perspective is not confined to the “fringes” of the Republican Party.

Read more…

One of the most interesting spectator sports of this election cycle is to watch Tea Party-oriented candidates rant and rave about government spending being a threat to liberty, and then change their tune entirely when asked about a specific, popular program like Social Security and Medicare. Here (via Dave Weigel) is Forbes‘ Shikha Dalmia, who wants to cut entitlement spending bad, complaining about Tea Party gutlessness:

[P]olls by the New York Times and Bloomberg have found that although a vast majority of Tea Party supporters favor smaller government, they don’t want cuts in their Medicare or Social Security, a contradiction perfectly captured in a sign at a Tea Party rally: “Keep the Guvmint out of my Medicare.” Indeed, the Bloomberg poll discovered that even though Tea Partiers dislike ObamaCare, they want Medicare to offer more drug benefits and the government to force insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions. The upshot is that while the rhetoric on entitlements has become bolder during this election, the discussion about reform has become tamer.
In fact, setting aside the lapsed witch of Delaware, Christie O’ Donnell, in the most visible Senate races where Tea Party or Tea Party-anointed candidates are running, only two have stuck to their crosses on entitlement reform. One is Joe Miller of Alaska, a man so unfamiliar with the First Amendment that he conducted a citizen’s arrest of a reporter for asking tough questions. The other is Sharron Angle of Nevada, a genuine bright spot in an otherwise bleak Tea Party landscape, who admirably admonished Harry Reid to “man up” and admit that Social Security had a problem.
Literally all of the others are equivocating if not completely backing off from their original plans to give at least partial ownership of Medicare and Social Security to individuals themselves.

Indeed, the Man Who Would Be Speaker, John Boehner, seems to be moving in a very different direction, according to David Frum:

On the Sean Hannity radio program this afternoon, Speaker-presumptive John Boehner was interestingly cautious about promising actually to do anything in the new Congress.
But there was one thing Boehner did specifically pledge: Republicans would call a vote on restoring President Obama’s cuts to Medicare.

Clearly, the impending collision between Republican rhetoric on budget deficits and their specific spending and tax cut commitments is going to be pretty massive, and this time, it’s not something that will go without notice.

This item is cross-posted from The New Republic.
California’s ballot-initiative system has a way of touching off culture wars that dwarf the buzz surrounding mere state and congressional elections. (Think of Proposition 8 or Proposition 187.) But even by California standards, this year’s Proposition 19 is becoming something of a legend. In case you haven’t heard, Proposition 19 would legalize the possession and cultivation of small quantities of marijuana, while enabling the state and/or local governments (in theory, at least) to license and tax larger commercial pot-growing enterprises. The initiative has been hailed not only by Californians with a taste for cannabis, but by economic boosters, who hope it would transform California by creating a massive new growth industry that solves the state’s chronic fiscal problems.
In fact, there’s so much interest in Proposition 19 that polls show nearly everyone in California already knows about the initiative–without advocacy groups spending more than a few dimes. As Firedoglake’s Jon Walker explains:

According to a Field Poll (PDF), as of mid-September, a remarkable 84 percent of likely voters in California know that prop 19 is on the ballot. Among that same group, just under 40 percent had heard about Prop 23 and Prop 25, two other important measures to be decided this November. For a historic comparison, look at the numbers for 2008′s Prop 8, California’s hotly contested anti-gay marriage initiative, from around roughly the same time in the election cycle. A Field poll (PDF) from mid-September 2008 found that only 70 percent of likely voters had heard that Proposition 8 was on the ballot.
Even more impressive than the generally high awareness of Prop 19 among voters is how nearly every likely voter under 30 has heard of Prop 19. Looking at the cross tabs (via the Sacramento Bee) from this Field Poll, we see 94.4 percent of likely voters under 30 have heard or read about Prop 19. (To give you an idea of how broad this awareness is, that 5.6 percent who is unaware is probably greater than the poll’s margin of error for that subgroup.) Almost no politician in the country has name recognition among young voters anywhere near 94.4 percent.

This phenomenon is making it extremely difficult for political analysts to gauge support for Proposition 19 via traditional means. For one, the marijuana-legalization initiative has not generated the kind of epic pro and con spending that usually has a major effect on voter attitudes. The most prominent opposition group, Public Safety First, had spent about a quarter-million dollars as of October 16, the California equivalent of pocket change–something all the more remarkable when you consider that virtually every major statewide candidate has gone on record opposing the initiative. The biggest spender on the pro side, a medical-marijuana dispensary which may be positioning itself to become a major commercial pot retailer in the future, has spent under a million dollars. Until yesterday, neither side had run TV ads. Meanwhile, about $120 million is being spent on other California initiatives, including around $37 million on Prop. 23 (pro: $9 million; anti: $28 million), which would suspend the state’s landmark carbon-emissions law; $25 million on the far less sexy Prop. 25 (pro: $8 million; con: $17 million), which would abolish the two-thirds requirement for passing a budget in the state legislature; and even $5 million on Prop. 22 (pro: $4 million; con: about $1 million), which involves an arcane system whereby the state “borrows” local transportation funds.
Three recent polls have shown support for the measure dropping into negative territory: Reuters/Ipsos (43 percent ‘yes’ / 53 percent ‘no’); PPIC (44 percent ‘yes’ / 49 percent ‘no’); and L.A. Times/USC (39 percent ‘yes’ / 51 percent ‘no’). SurveyUSA still has the initiative with majority support at 48 percent to 44 percent, but it also shows opinion trending negative. But because of the unusual nature of Proposition 19, many analysts are loath to take them at face value.
They are concerned that numbers might be skewed by something like a stoner Bradley Effect–Nate Silver has dubbed it the ‘Broadus Effect,’ after Snoop Dogg–in which marijuana-legalization supporters tell interviewers they don’t favor legalized pot when they actually do. (With the Bradley Effect, racially-motivated voters won’t admit to pollsters that race would affect their votes.) There’s some evidence that this is occurring, since the anonymous robo-poller SurveyUSA–which would be least likely to skew in this way–shows the strongest levels of support for the initiative.
But there are factors pushing the other direction too. One possible explanation for the polling trend is that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s apparent effort to undercut Proposition 19, by pushing through legislation that all but decriminalizes small-scale pot possession, has worked. This new law, which Schwarzenegger signed on September 30, makes possession of under one ounce of pot an “infraction” punishable by a $100 fine–significantly less than the average California speeding ticket. This may have deflated support for Proposition 19 among voters who are less motivated by the desire to fire up a doobie themselves as by concerns about the injustices caused, particularly against minorities, by criminal sanctions on the use of marijuana.
Another possibility is that voters were affected by the publicity surrounding U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s assurances that the feds will not let California license commercial marijuana operations. This statement makes the economic and fiscal arguments for Proposition 19 a great deal weaker.
And finally, it may be that softer support for Proposition 19 has been revealed by likely-voter screens–which pollsters usually introduce closer to Election Day, and which tend to focus on an electorate that is older and whiter than the registered-voter or “all adults” samples typically applied earlier in the electoral cycle.
Only on election night will we know the voters’ true intentions. No one should be that astonished if Proposition 19 passes, and it may well be that the pro-legalization youth vote can rescue a few notable Democrats in very close races. As it is, Jerry Brown appears to be pulling away from Meg Whitman in the governor’s race, despite or maybe even due to eMeg’s astonishing campaign spending; and Barbara Boxer is maintaining a small but steady lead over Carly Fiorina. Yet, by the same token, it would be a little foolish for Democrats to rest all their hopes on a last-minute, unpolled surge of pot-smoking youngsters at the polls: They’ve been burned that way before.

AP’s Phillip Elliot has a disturbing report in WaPo today:

Activists on Wednesday noted that “dozens of tea party-aligned groups have sought records and are planning to visit polling places on Election Day to enforce their own “voter protection” programs.
…And with anger at Washington at a fever pitch and an anti-incumbent sentiment growing, the loosely organized tea party’s efforts to challenge voters on Election Day could dissuade scores of voters from casting ballots, the activists said. Tea party groups from California to Florida have organized to go to polling locations to check registrations themselves.

The primary targets, as usual, would be Latino and African American voters:

“We are worried this year that we could see large-scale efforts to challenge voters at the polls,” said Wendy Weiser of the Brennan Center, a nonpartisan public policy and law institute based at New York University.
Gloria Montano Greene of the National Association of Latino Elected Officials also cautioned that the persistent anti-illegal immigrant fervor could drive down turnout or unfairly target those who appear to be immigrants.
“We know that we continue to face stark levels of voting discrimination around the country,” said Kristen Clarke, co-director of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund’s voter project.

In light of epidemic home foreclosures during the last year and a half, there is also concern about the use of foreclosure lists to cast doubt on voters’ residency and voting eligibility. This was tried by Republicans in Indiana in 2008. A local Republican Party official reportedly said that presence on a foreclosure list “would be a solid basis” to ask someone to cast a provisional ballot.” The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund took legal action and stopped it.
Of all the forms of voter suppression, ‘caging’ seems to be most on the upswing. In his recent report on the right’s voter ‘caging’ initiative in Wisconsin, Josh Dorner at Think Progress has a good one-graph summary of the mechanics and impact of caging:

“Voter caging” is a means of voter suppression and intimidation that involves sending mail to a list of voters, compiling a list of mail pieces returned as undeliverable, and then challenging those voters at the polls or otherwise attempting to remove them from the voter rolls. The mere process of challenging voters can intimidate from voting even if they are eligible, cause long lines to form at polling places that will then discourage others from voting, and may result in eligible voters casting provisional ballots which stand a high likelihood of not being counted in the final tally.

Dorner’s excellent report details the tea party’s role in the Wisconsin voter suppression campaign based on a recording of a tea party meeting, including bragging about voter intimidation involving “a 6’4″, 300-pound man to challenge voters at the polls.”
The thing to keep in mind is that effective caging often depends on using one of two kinds of intimidation at the polls: (A.) goons questioning voters, and/or (B.) using law enforcement and/or trained attorneys to badger voters. The use of legit law enforcement would probably only occur in GOP-friendly jurisdictions. But fake, uniformed “enforcement” personnel have been used effectively to intimidate voters in the past. There is still time for voting rights groups to submit radio and TV public service announcements informing voters that they don’t have to stop and talk to anyone at the polls who doesn’t present legitimate law enforcement credentials.
In his post at Talk Media News, Kyle LeFleur quotes Weiser, who notes that about 3 million people couldn’t vote in 2008 because of registration problems. Weiser worries about the scale of voter suppression operations underway: “This is not something that we have seen for years and it raises significant risk for voters.”
All of which adds up to ominous signs that the GOP and or tea party activists may be assembling a nation-wide voter suppression campaign of unprecedented dimensions. Democrats were caught unprepared by the GOP’s “Brooks Brothers Riot” in 2000, and by the time we got our act together, it was too late. It appears that a massive ‘caging’ initiative is likely underway and we may see tea party goon squads intimidating voters at many polls on election day. This time, let’s be ready.

If the campaigns of 2010 seem more intense than usual, one reason may be early voting. So note Carolyn Crist and Melissa Weinman in their article “Early Voting Is a Game-Changer: Campaigns react to 45-day stretch of casting ballots” in the Gainesville (GA) Times.
The authors cite a huge uptick in early voting in the Peach State:

In the 2008 general election, more than half of voters came in early, about 2 million of the 3.9 million total in Georgia. That showed a large jump from the 2004 election, in which early voting was only allowed for specific reasons. In that election 387,596 voted early of the 3.2 million voters, or about 9 percent.
…Heath Garrett, a Republican political strategist, said early voting has caused a “monumental shift” in the way political campaigns operate. Because the early voting period is so new, there is still a lot to learn.
“Most of the campaigns in Georgia are learning from the 2008 election. 2008 showed that most campaigns, other than the presidential campaigns were not prepared for the impact of early voting,” Garrett said.

As you might imagine, early voting has created a bit of an earthquake in political advertising, sort of a ‘twin peaks’ phenomenon, as Crist and Weinman explain:

Now that voters head to the polls early, campaigns have to catch them early as well. Garrett said campaigning has become more expensive as a result.
“It’s almost like you have to have the same resources you had in the last week to 10 days in a campaign before early voting, but then you have to add onto that the resources to allow you to advertise and engage the electorate in the weeks leading up to early voting,” Garrett said.
“With your paid advertising, you have to peak just before and right around the beginning of early voting, which is 45 days prior to Election Day. And then you have to sustain some kind of paid advertising now for that entire period of time. Then you have to repeak as you get into the week of what we call advance voting heading right into Election Day.”
Garrett said there is a big difference between what the gubernatorial and Senate campaigns can do and how the down-ticket races cope with the costs of early voting.
In a state with a population of 10 million, the cost of advertising and direct mail in Georgia is expensive…”Those campaigns don’t have the budget to do television or radio so they really have to rely on good, old-fashioned grass-roots campaigning,” Garrett said.

The authors add:

[Republican] Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle’s campaign officials said volunteer efforts have been prolonged.
“With an increasing number of early voters casting their ballots before TV commercials air and mail arrives, it’s more important than ever to establish a grass-roots organization that can build support for a candidate prior to early voting,” said Ryan Cassin, Cagle’s campaign manager. “This is why the lieutenant governor has worked so hard to cultivate an aggressive grassroots network in all 159 counties, and grow his team of supporters on social media like Facebook.”…Cagle still plans traditional forms of outreach, such as TV and mail ads, during the latter stages of the campaign. But the grass-roots effort has played a large part of the early campaign, Cassin said.

There are concerns about how early voting affects the overall quality of campaigns, explain Weinman and Crist:

Douglas Young, a political science professor at Gainesville State College, isn’t so sure the 45-day time frame is a good idea…”On one hand, I respect the desire to try to help more people vote because things can always come up unexpectedly on Election Day with the weather or car trouble,” he said. “However, I’m troubled by the fact that Georgians can vote so early. If you look at American history, so often in the last six weeks of campaigning is when important debates occur. So many other events can take place after people have voted.”
This includes news media uncovering new information, candidates disclosing each other’s potential weaknesses and the release of financial information, he said…”A good survey might poll those who voted several weeks early before more information came out and how many regret having voted early,” Young said. “I think a week or two weeks is gracious time to get your act together and get to the polls. Six weeks out is long before relevant information may come out.”

Go negative early seems to be the new political mantra:

Garrett said the effect of such prolonged negative campaigning has yet to be seen…”If you’re in a competitive race, the negative attacks all start earlier,” Garrett said. “I think we’re going to learn a lot this year from that kind of impact.”

Early voting may also amplify the utility of ‘new media,’ especially at local levels, report Crist and Weinman:

Grassroots and social media campaigning is certainly helping Chad Cobb, a Democrat running for Georgia House District 26…”I’m not doing signs because I haven’t had financing as far as getting those, but I do hope to do a radio ad and newspaper ad the week before Election Day,” he said. “Facebook is a gold mine for campaigning. That’s what I started in June knowing I didn’t have a Democrat opponent for the primary. After that, I knew I could reach out and talk to the people in my district. It’s more of a grass-roots campaign.”
For Carol Porter, the Democrat lieutenant governor candidate, social media also is the answer…”Early voting has changed the way we think about campaigns, and the new dynamic is Facebook, Twitter and all the other ways you reach people where they are,” said Liz Flowers, Porter’s press secretary. “Websites are a more prominent campaign tool than in the past, and Carol gets up every morning to post something on Facebook and Twitter. It’s not something the staff does, which happens in other campaigns. She puts down what is on her mind so people can directly connect to her.”

Early voting has apparently added intensity to the traditional ‘boiler room’ GOTV effort, as well, report the authors:

The Democratic Party of Georgia has set up 15 field offices across the state – its most ambitious field program ever – and filled them with people to call registered voters and encourage them to vote early, party spokesman Eric Gray said.
So far, the offices have made more than 100,000 calls statewide. That effort frees up candidates, who are under more strain with the early-voting timetable than the traditional model of nearly everyone voting on the first Tuesday in November.
“This is still pretty new territory we’re trying to navigate,” Gray said. “The candidates have to be everywhere for six weeks before the election instead of one week.”

As a resident of Georgia, I’ve been somewhat awed by the ubiquity of former Democratic Governor Roy Barnes’ internet banner attack ads, lambasting his Republican opponent for Governor, Nathan Deal as “too corrupt, even for congress.” I do a good bit of political net-surfing, and I’ve seen his ads, which I assume are keyed to net-surfer’s zip codes, flickering on websites everywhere during the last month or so. Barnes is surging nicely in a major “red south’ race that pundits are rating in toss-up territory.
Deal has responded with a YouTube video, “…If you go early and get the voting out of the way, you can just fast-forward through all of those bad commercials that my opponent is running,” Deal says.
Game-changer that it is in individual campaigns, early voting hasn’t yet translated into a significant expansion in overall voter turnout. In their article, “Reducing the Costs of Participation: Are States Getting a Return on Early Voting?” in the Political Research Quarterly, Joseph D. Giammo and Brian J. Brox cite “the puzzle” of why governments have implemented early voting when it hasn’t had much enduring effect on turnout, and note further, in the article abstract:

…Early voting seems to produce a short-lived increase in turnout that disappears by the second presidential election in which it is available. They also address whether the additional costs to government are worth the negligible increase in participation. They conclude that these reforms merely offer additional convenience for those already likely to vote.

Makes sense. Folks well-organized enough to vote early would likely vote even if the early opportunity isn’t available. We might see some improvement as boomer generations mature. But I don’t think early voting is the “killer app” for overall turnout that internet/cell phone voting or automatic registration might be.
For the campaigns of 2010, however, expect those candidates who have planned well for early voting to have an edge.

As the political ad wars heat up for the Fall stretch of the midterm campaign, television is still regarded as the pivotal media, according to a recent Ad Week report (via Reuters) by Mike Shields. Conversely, spending for digital media has been disappointing this year, as Shields explains:

Following the recent digital-savvy campaigns led by Obama and Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, many expected a slew of imitators to emerge during the 2010 midterms, leading to a surge in online spending. But political ad insiders say that with the exception of a handful of digital-focused campaigns, few candidates are dumping dollars onto the Web, outside of social media and search. And with six weeks or so to go before Election Day, not many watchers are expecting a sudden surge.
According to Borrell & Associates, political spending on digital media should double this year vs. 2008, reaching $44.5 million. Despite that hefty growth rate, “that’s really not much,” said Kip Cassino, Borrell’s vp of research. Some estimates place digital spending at 1 percent of total political media dollars. “There’s more of it, but it’s still a fraction,” said Evan Tracey, president, campaign media analysis group, Kantar Media.
“Spending has just not developed this year,” said Ted Utz, managing director of the local rep firm Petry Digital. Utz said his company works with around 10 top political ad agencies. “They are staffed up and poised to place digital money, and it’s been really anemic…

Rightly or wrongly, it appears most political campaigns, or the ad agencies advising them, believe that television still provides the most powerful message machine, as Shields explains:

Perhaps the biggest factor holding back digital spending is political consultants’ love affair with TV, which, according to Cassino, gets two of every three dollars spent in this arena. TV has a long track record of getting people elected, particularly in local congressional races, where a candidate might be running “for the 10th or 11th term,” said Cassino. “So they hand digital planning to the kid who comes in as a volunteer.”

Shields notes that political consultants tend to be skeptical about banner ads, and that there is a dearth of studies assessing the impact of digital ads. Of the spending for digital advertising, most of the growth has been in search ads — Google search ads are up 800 percent over 2008, and there has also been an uptick in “locally targeted Facebook self serve ads,” along with some growing campaign interest in YouTube “promoted videos.”
Shield’s article did not break down the remaining 32 percent of political ad spending in terms of print, telephone, radio, billboards, direct mail and other media, all of which can be useful in “micro-targeting” specific constituencies. But it’s clear that political campaign budget managers and consultants still see television as the best way to reach everyone.
Shields quotes a ‘veteran online political ad operative,’ who says that candidates still treat digital media “as a stepchild. “Look at Meg Whitman in California,” he said of the former eBay CEO. “She’s putting all her money in TV.”
With respect to Democrats in particular, more spending on digital ads might nonetheless be a cost-effective investment, especially given concerns about turning out the progressive base. But it’s not hard to understand the lopsided investment in television in light of internet demographics. according to one demographic analysis, 38 percent of seniors age 65+, who turn out to vote in impressive numbers, are internet-active, vs. 93 percent of 18-29 year-olds, 81 percent of age 30-49 and 70 percent of those 50-64 years of age.

One of the ironies of this campaign year is the number of free-spending rich Republican candidates who are pouring the golden parachutes they earned when exiting (often nonvoluntarily) the private sector to rant against public spending.
We’re seeing a particularly rich example of this dichotomy in Calfornia, where Meg Whitman, who is promising to squeeze public expenditures and lay off many thousands of state workers, is showing just how lavish a campaign apparatus you can buy with around $150 million.
Here’s is Calbuzz’s summary of a chart of Team Whitman helpfully offered by Jerry Brown’s campaign:

Counting people up, across and over (which sometimes puts people in more than one sector of the Invasion of Normandy graphic) we find eight people in scheduling and advance, 10 staff and consultants in policy, 16 in coalitions, 16 in field operations, 27 in fund-raising and finance and 24 in communications, including eight in the research group.
“In the green box marked ‘Miscellaneous Campaign Staff,’ there are an additional four staffers who have made more than $100,000 from Whitman, and we have no idea what they’re doing,” Brown’s research director told Calbuzz.
Brown campaign manager Steve Glazer likens Whitman’s campaign to a massive aircraft carrier that is stalled in the middle of the ocean, floating listlessly, unable to gain momentum despite spending millions and millions and millions on TV and radio advertising, internet communications, mail, telephone banks, fundraising, event planning and execution – you name it, USS eMeg has paid for it.
Whether that’s an accurate portrayal of a campaign operation with no equal in the history of California is still uncertain. This we know: No governor’s office we’re aware of ever had such a massive org chart, unless you count all the agencies and departments that are part of an administration and the CHP protective detail.
Also, no one in a governor’s office ever made this kind of money: strategist Mike Murphy’s Bonaparte Productions, $861,474; adviser Henry Gomez, $769,216; campaign manager Jilian Hasner, $667,552; adviser Jeff Randle, $572,949; security director John Endert, $261,682; communications director Tucker Bounds, $293,349; press secretary Sarah Pompei, $154,872; yadayadayada. That’s not even all the big-tick items and it’s only up to the most recent financial reporting period.

The grand irony is that anti-government campaigns like Whitman’s are like big dinner bells for the political class, offering lots of jobs at unusually high pay in the pursuit, we are told, of tight-fisted austerity. Even if eMeg loses, Republican political operatives will remember her campaign fondly for many years as a wonderful interval when no political attack was too unconscionable and no expense too high.
If she wins, California public employees could have a hard time. But it’s more than a psychic flash to guess that Whitman’s political operations, whether it’s on the public payroll or supported by what’s left of her vast fortune, won’t suffer from lack of financial support.

CNN Senior Political Editor Mark Preston has a post up at CNN.com’s ‘Political Ticker,’ reporting on the Republicans’ campaign to sink Democratic midterm candidates by linking them to ‘Obamacare.” Preston notes that Democratic candidates are treating the GOP effort as a distraction, trying to refocus voters on economic issues, which the Republicans generally ignore, lacking any alternatives, other than offering tax and spending cuts as a panacea. Preston highlights the spending behind the GOP propaganda campaign:

A new analysis by Campaign Media Analysis Group for CNN shows that federal and state political candidates have spent $24 million on anti-health care reform television commercials since Congress passed the bill in late March. Over the past 30 days alone, more than $6 million has been spent on TV ads attacking the law, and there is no sign these commercials are going away…Of the $24 million spent so far criticizing the health care law, Republicans have run $11.3 million worth of commercials where the term “Obamacare” is used – a not so subtle attempt to link Democratic candidates to a president who suffers from a disapproval rating of 51 percent.
“Based on the advertising and messaging, this is clearly being used by Republicans as a wedge issue,” said Evan Tracey, president of CMAG and CNN’s consultant on political TV ad spending. “The GOP is using the passage of the bill against Democrats in a growing proportion at both the state and federal level.”
In contrast, the CMAG analysis shows that $6.3 million has been spent on pro-health care reform TV ads since Congress approved the legislation.

The Republicans may be wasting their money. Recent Polls indicate that the health care issue now ranks well behind the economy among voters priorities. And, as TDS Co-Editor Ruy Teixeira recently noted in his ‘Public Opinion Snapshot’ post,

On the health care reform law, the most recent Kaiser Health tracking poll now has 50 percent voicing a favorable reaction to the new law, versus just 35 percent unfavorable. This reverses a 44-41 unfavorable verdict from two months ago.

In addition, other polls indicate that many who disapprove of the Affordable Health Care Act wanted the coverage to be broader, with a greater investment and role for the federal government, and they are not likely to be receptive to the Republicans effort to gut the legislation entirely.
Sure, it’s possible that the GOP could do some damage with their ads. But it may not be a cost-effective investment, or to use an Econ 101 analysis, the opportunity cost of not investing the dough in promoting their competitive candidates could be substantial.
Democrats ought not invest too much of their midterm financial resources, nor media face time, in defending the health care Act. But it would be a perfectly legitimate investment for the federal government, particularly HHS, to produce and distribute public service ads and interviews with experts on the legislation for television, radio, print media and the internet debunking the distortions being promulgated about the Act and explaining why is a good law. This is not pending legislation; it’s the law of the land, and the federal government not only has the right to explain the Health Care Reform Act to the public; it has a duty to do so. This law can save countless lives and help millions of people with their health care struggles, and the government has an obligation to help citizens understand it better. And, as Teixeira explains, concerning the findings of another Kaiser Health tracking poll back in the Spring,

…As the poll shows, the public does not currently believe they have enough information about the new law to clearly understand how it will affect them personally. Just 43 percent say they now have enough information to make this judgment, compared to 56 percent who say they don’t. Thus, more information could presumably make a difference to current feelings about the Affordable Health Care Act.

Yes the GOP would whine and howl about using government resources for what they believe to be a partisan cause. Tough. And yes, Republican-friendly media probably wouldn’t take the Affordable Health Care Act PSA’s or interviews, but many stations would, as might PBS and NPR. It would be a shame, bordering on political negligence, if the Administration failed to seize this opportunity. This is one of those times when it might be useful to ask WWFDRD — “What would FDR do?”

This item is cross-posted from The New Republic.
The Republican Party is campaigning with a stiff wind at its back this year, thanks to a terrible economy, ripe targets created by two straight heavily Democratic cycles, favorable midterm turnout demographics, and the famous “enthusiasm gap.”
But, in Colorado, it seems as if the Republicans are conducting a meteorological experiment to test the strength of that wind, as they stumble disarrayed into today’s primary. The race for the Republican Senate nomination is ugly: Candidates Jane Norton and Ken Buck are locked in a klutzy and tasteless competition to see who will screw up least. And the gubernatorial race … well, it’s never a good sign when both of your primary candidates are facing widespread demands to resign from politics altogether. What’s more, the candidate who fails to lose that primary will face not only popular Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, the Democratic candidate, but also indignant third-party spoiler Tom Tancredo (who is in an unusually wrathful mood these days, even for him).
What the heck happened? How did the party end up looking so hapless in an election year that began with enormous optimism for a GOP sweep in Colorado?
Originally, former congressman Scott McInnis was cruising toward the gubernatorial nomination, while former Lieutenant Governor Jane Norton was the odds-on favorite for the Senate nod. Both were looking good in the occasional general election trial heat. Yes, McInnnis’s November battle with Hickenlooper would’ve been difficult, but he had no particular reason to worry about obscure self-styled Tea Party opponent Don Maes. And Norton, who is very mobbed-up in national GOP circles (her brother-in-law is uber-lobbyist and longtime campaign strategist Charlie Black), held a solid lead over district attorney Ken Buck, another Tea Partier, in Senate primary polls for many months.
Then, things started to unravel for the frontrunners.
By May, Buck, famous for spearheading a crackdown on employers of illegal immigrants, developed enough steam among Tea Party loyalists and other conservatives that Norton decided to skip the ritual of seeking ballot access via the Republican State Assembly. Essentially a state party convention, the assembly was an activist stronghold, and Norton’s decision threw the endorsement to Buck by default. Then came a far more painful blow: On the night of that gathering, Sarah Palin cruised into Denver for a big speech and failed to deliver an expected endorsement of Norton (according to some reports, she was warned off by purists in Colorado and elsewhere). Norton’s poll ratings began sliding steadily downward, and Buck picked up national support from Jim DeMint’s Senate Conservatives Fund and RedState’s Erick Erickson. By late June, he was in the lead.
There was another surprise at the State Assembly. The lightly regarded Maes edged out McInnis for the convention’s endorsement. Yet Maes lost this advantage almost immediately, when he was charged with embarrassing campaign-finance violations, backed up by fines that wiped out most of his very limited funds.
That’s when the real weirdness broke out.

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