Emory University philosophy professor George Yancy conducts an excellent interview with sociologist Joe Feagin, “a leading researcher of racism in the United States for more than 40 years” on the topic of “American Racism in the ‘White Frame’” on the pages of the New York Times Opinionator. This is a good read for Democrats who want to better understand and more effectively navigate complex race relations in the U.S. at this political moment. Some highlights:

G. Y.: In your book “The White Racial Frame,” you argue for a new paradigm that will help to explain the nature of racism. What is that new paradigm and what does it reveal about race in America?
J.F.: To understand well the realities of American racism, one must adopt an analytical perspective focused on the what, why and who of the systemic white racism that is central and foundational to this society. Most mainstream social scientists dealing with racism issues have relied heavily on inadequate analytical concepts like prejudice, bias, stereotyping and intolerance. Such concepts are often useful, but were long ago crafted by white social scientists focusing on individual racial and ethnic issues, not on society’s systemic racism. To fully understand racism in the United States, one has to go to the centuries-old counter-system tradition of African-American analysts and other analysts of color who have done the most sustained and penetrating analyses of institutional and systemic racism.
G.Y.: So, are you suggesting that racial prejudices are only half the story? Does the question of the systemic nature of racism make white people complicit regardless of racial prejudices?
J.F.: Prejudice is much less than half the story. Because prejudice is only one part of the larger white racial frame that is central to rationalizing and maintaining systemic racism, one can be less racially prejudiced and still operate out of many other aspects of that dominant frame. That white racial frame includes not only racist prejudices and stereotypes of conventional analyses, but also racist ideologies, narratives, images and emotions, as well as individual and group inclinations to discriminate shaped by the other features. Additionally, all whites, no matter what their racial prejudices and other racial framings entail, benefit from many racial privileges routinely granted by this country’s major institutions to whites.

Feagin has an interesting observation about blind spots many white Americans share about their own history:

G.Y.: I realize that this question would take more space than we have here, but what specific insights about race can you share after four decades of research?
J.F.: Let me mention just two. First, I have learned much about how this country’s racial oppression became well institutionalized and thoroughly systemic over many generations, including how it has been rationalized and maintained for centuries by the broad white racist framing just mentioned. Another key insight is about how long this country’s timeline of racial oppression actually is. Most whites, and many others, do not understand that about 80 percent of this country’s four centuries have involved extreme racialized slavery and extreme Jim Crow legal segregation.
As a result, major racial inequalities have been deeply institutionalized over about 20 generations. One key feature of systemic racism is how it has been socially reproduced by individuals, groups and institutions for generations. Most whites think racial inequalities reflect differences they see as real — superior work ethic, greater intelligence, or other meritorious abilities of whites. Social science research is clear that white-black inequalities today are substantially the result of a majority of whites socially inheriting unjust enrichments (money, land, home equities, social capital, etc.) from numerous previous white generations — the majority of whom benefited from the racialized slavery system and/or the de jure (Jim Crow) and de facto overt racial oppression that followed slavery for nearly a century, indeed until the late 1960s.

Feagin also illuminates the phenomenon of ‘white virtue framing,’ which is well-understood by many people of color:

G.Y.: What implications does the white racial frame have for blacks, Asians, Latinos and those from the Middle East in our contemporary moment?
J.F.: That white frame is made up of two key types of subframes: The most-noted and most-researched are those negatively targeting people of color. In addition, the most central subframe, often the hardest to “see,” especially by whites, is that reinforcing the idea of white virtuousness in myriad ways, including superior white values and institutions, the white work ethic, and white intelligence. This white-virtue framing is so strong that it affects the thinking not only of whites, but also of many people of color here and overseas. Good examples are the dominant American culture’s standard of “female beauty,” and the attempts of many people of color to look, speak, or act as “white” as they can so as to do better in our white-dominated institutions.

The Yancy-Feagin interview is a good read for any American, especially for Democrats, as members of the racially-inclusive party who want to promote interracial solidarity in pursuit of progressive reforms. The challenge for Dems is to provide leadership to alleviate what Feagin terms “the centuries-old reality of this country’s white racism, especially…its systemic and foundational character and how it has been routinely reproduced over 20 generations.”

From “Latino turnout in congressional elections is low and falling” by Matthew Yglesias at Vox: “Overall turnout in 2014 was the lowest in a generation. Black turnout actually increased slightly over this period, but white turnout has fallen and Latino turnout has fallen a lot even as the Latino share of the population rose considerably…And this, to be clear, is turnout among eligible voters — i.e., US citizens over the age of 18. The overall Latino population in the United States is disproportionately likely to be too young to vote, so Hispanics are even more underweighted in actual congressional politics.”
At Daily Koz Leslie Salzillo flags a study by the CDC’s Violence Policy Center ranking the 50 states according to state firearm deaths in 2011. Guess which political party controls all of the top ten. As for the bottom ten states, where Americans are safest from firearm deaths, eight are solid blue states, with one (IA) purplish and one red (WI).
Washington Post syndicated columnist E. J. Dionne, Jr. explains why “Americans are polarized but ambivalent.” Dionne notes “…the Pew Research Center released findings that should alarm Republicans. Its survey found that only 32 percent of Americans had a favorable view of the Republican Party — down nine points since January — while 60 percent had an unfavorable view. For Democrats, the numbers were 48 percent favorable (up two points) and 47 percent unfavorable.” Dionne cites TDS and adds, “One key finding, from pollster Stan Greenberg: Such voters are “open to an expansive Democratic economic agenda” but “are only ready to listen when they think that Democrats understand their deeply held belief that politics has been corrupted and government has failed.” This calls for not only “populist measures to reduce the control of big money and corruption” but also, as Mark Schmitt of the New America Foundation argued, “high-profile efforts to show that government can be innovative, accessible and responsive.”
Zogby, NBC/Marist, Economist/YouGov and CNN/ORC polls show Trump still leads in GOP race.
Not to be outdone in awful taste by Trump, Huck tries a little grotesque bomb-throwing of his own, and draws this response: “Cavalier analogies to the Holocaust are unacceptable,” said Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee. “Mike Huckabee must apologize to the Jewish community and to the American people for this grossly irresponsible statement.”
Dartunorro Clark reports on a new app at the Albany Times Union, via Government Technology: “Electorate literally puts information on elected officials into the palm of your hands,” Krans said. “The biggest impact comes when we marry easily accessible voting information with the power of existing social networks…[It] allows registered voters…to find out information on local, state and federal elected representatives. Additionally, it allows users to verify and link their voting record with their Facebook account to display their full voting record and history, see upcoming elections and endorse candidates and also see who their Facebook friends have endorsed.”
Laura Lorek of siliconhillsnews.com reports more “High Tech and Low Tech Solutions to Low Voter Turnout,” and notes “To encourage people to be more civically engaged and to vote is one of the latest challenges the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation took on. On Wednesday morning, the foundation announced the winners of its Knight News Challenge on Elections. The foundation received more than 1,000 submissions and awarded $3.2 million to 22 winners. “Ten of the winners will receive investments ranging from $200,000 to $525,000 each, while 12 early stage ideas will receive $35,000 each through the Knight Prototype Fund,” according to the Knight Foundation.” Loren adds, “The largest grant for $525,000 went to a project titled “Inside the 990 Treasure Trove” by the Center for Responsive Politics and Guidestar. The project seeks to better inform the public about who is funding campaigns through a partnership with Guidestar to reveal the sources of so-called “dark money.”
The Berkeley News reports on a new study “Does the American Dream Matter for Members of Congress? Social-Class Backgrounds and Roll-Call Votes,” from the Political Research Quarterly. Among the findings: “Having a working-class background tends to make members of Congress (especially Democrats) more liberal,” explained Grumbach. “There are other factors that make legislators more liberal, too, such as coming from a district with liberal voters, or being nonwhite or female — but coming from a working-class background is especially impactful.”…Grumbach observed that “almost all members of Congress are upper-class and held elite occupations before being elected to seats in Washington, D.C…Few Republicans with working-class experiences get elected to public office, and upper-class Republicans in Congress do not back government support programs for the working class as often as Democrats even if they did grow up in families of modest financial circumstances.”
Betsy Woodruff’s “The Walker Slayers Dish: How They Beat Him” may come in handy.

Something Democrats should keep in mind in trying to understand the opposition as that while we look at the last few election cycles and see massive discontinuity between presidential and midterm elections, many Republicans think of 2012 as a pure aberration in an upward spiral of support for them that reassume its strength in 2014 and is still building steam. At the Washington Monthly I addressed some fresh evidence that’s an illusion:

A lot of Republicans came out of their 2014 landslide fully expecting to keep the party going right into the presidential cycle. There were a lot of reasons to doubt that optimism, from the change to a presidential cycle with less positive turnout patterns for the GOP, to the end of a six-year midterm dynamic that was sure to fade, to an improving economy. But whatever changed, the evidence is growing clearer that the 2014 party’s over. Here’s some relevant data from Pew just out today:

The Republican Party’s image has grown more negative over the first half of this year. Currently, 32% have a favorable impression of the Republican Party, while 60% have an unfavorable view. Favorable views of the GOP have fallen nine percentage points since January. The Democratic Party continues to have mixed ratings (48% favorable, 47% unfavorable).

Part of the problem is that Republicans themselves are less enthusiastic, which is a bit strange since they are being offered the largest presidential field in recent memory. Perhaps it is the inability to blame Congress’ fecklessness on Harry Reid any more.
Interestingly, despite or because of all the shrieking among Republicans about the world being this terrible place where no American is safe, the GOP advantage on foreign policy has vanished since the last Pew survey on the parties in February, and its advantage on “the terrorist threat at home” has been cut in half. But perhaps most significantly, views of the two parties on economic policy are pretty stable for now.
Any way you slice it, any thoughts by Republicans that the landscape is tilting in their direction in this cycle really come down to the fairly abstract notion of an electorate that thinks it’s time for a change after the Obama administration. If contrary to that notion this turns out to be a “two futures” election in which voters are simply comparing the two parties and their candidates, the landscape just isn’t tilting Right.

There are some “ifs” in that last sentence, but then again, the last really boffo Republican presidential election performance was all the way back in 1988.

Last month, the Supreme Court ruled that all of us–straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender–could marry the person they love. This decision brought our nation one step closer to equality. But this journey is not over. Even in an America where we are free to marry, other basic civil rights are lacking. Thirty-one states lack fully inclusive non-discrimination protections for LGBT people in critical matters of employment, housing, and access to public places. That means in many states, LGBT Americans are still at risk of being denied services, being fired for getting married and wearing their wedding ring to the office the next day, or simply for being who they are. This injustice has grown increasingly intolerable to an overwhelming majority of Americans.
Today, Democracy Corps, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research and the Human Rights Campaign release the results from a new survey of likely 2016 voters. This survey reinforces voters’ long-held commitment to non-discrimination, as four out five voters believe this is a basic civil right. This survey also demonstrates voters are willing to oppose candidates for public office who oppose these basic civil rights, including groups critical to the outcome of the 2016 election. These results are very consistent with a Human Rights Campaign survey of likely voters taken in January showing 43 percent are much less likely to support a candidate who opposes non-discrimination.
Moreover, the issue of “faith” does not change the politics of this issue. Voters do not accept religion as an excuse to discriminate.
This memorandum summarizes the results of a national telephone survey of 950 likely 2016 voters. In order to better reflect the changing habits and demography of the country, 60 percent of those interviewed for this survey responded using cell phones. The survey was conducted June 13-17, 2015 and carries a margin of error of +/- 4.38.
Key Findings

• Voters reject discrimination. By an impressive 78 percent to 16 percent, voters support protecting gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people from discrimination in employment. These results are very consistent with past surveys; in 2011, voters supported this proposal by a 79 to 18 percent margin.
• Support for non-discrimination unites the country. At a time when Democrats and Republicans rarely agree on anything, they agree on this. A 64 percent majority of Republicans support protecting LGBT people from workplace discrimination, as do 90 percent of Democrats. Similarly, this legislation draws impressive majorities among college (84 percent) and non-college voters (73 percent), younger (85 percent) and older (75 per-cent), as well as observant Christians (70 percent favor).
• Voters will also consider this issue when voting next year. A 59 percent majority of voters are less likely to support a candidate for president who opposes protecting gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in the work place. Just 27 percent are more likely and 9 percent say it would make no difference. This is not just a progressive base issue. A 61 percent majority of Independent voters say they are less likely to support a candidate who opposes these protections, as do 58 percent of Catholic voters, 54 percent of blue collar voters and 60 percent of married women.
• This could be key issue among white millennial voters. Arguably, the most interesting group in this debate is white millennial voters (defined here as voters born between 1980 and 1997). These younger white voters supported Obama in 2008, but voted Republican in 2010, 2012 and 2014, reflecting their frustration with the slow pace of change. However, they are committed to equality. A near-unanimous 86 percent majority support employment protections for LGBT people. Moreover, 65 percent are less likely to support a candidate who opposes this protection.



• Religion is not an excuse to discriminate. Politicians in Indiana, Arkansas and a number of other states have raised the issue of faith in efforts to stop the advance of non-discrimination. As we found out in Indiana voters are having none of it. In this survey, a 56 percent majority believe small business owners should not be allowed to refuse service to someone because they are gay or lesbian, even if it violates their religious beliefs. Nearly half (46 percent), strongly oppose giving small businesses the right to discriminate, including 55 percent of white millennials.1

Conclusion
This legislation is long overdue. Non-discrimination legislation was first introduced to Congress in 1974 and has been reintroduced many times since. As early as 1977, voters believed gay people should have “equal rights” in terms of job opportunities, according to Gallup. Nearly forty years later, this community is still waiting for federal legislation fully protecting their rights. This time, they carry the conviction of an impressive majority of American voters.
Read on Corps website.

“…You find broad agreement across almost every part of the American electorate that the system is essentially rigged, benefiting the rich and leaving everyone else behind. The share of Democrats who agree with that idea, 82 percent, is, not surprisingly, far higher than the share of Republicans, 51 percent, who said the same. But still, we are talking majorities in both parties here. That suggests that in a summer where the headlines have all but forced every presidential candidate to weigh in on all manner of social issues, for Democrats, in particular, the best way to engage and then animate a large portion of voters may be a pivot toward economic issues.” — from “Why in a summer full of social change you can expect to hear a lot more about pocketbook issues” by Janell Ross at The Fix.
Emily Flitter and Grant Smith of Reuters have an update on the battle for digital dominance between Dems and the GOP.
After documenting GOP presidential candidates previous praise for Donald Trump, E. J. Dionne, Jr. writes in his latest syndicated column “Sorry, but the real Donald Trump has been in full view for a long time, and Perry’s new glasses can’t explain his newfound clarity. I don’t credit Trump with much. But he deserves an award for exposing the double-standards of Republican politicians. They put their outrage in a blind trust as long as Trump was, in Perry’s words, “throwing invectives in this hyperbolic rhetoric out there” against Obama and the GOP’s other enemies.”
When Trumpmania subsides, the latest indications from a new PPP poll suggests Gov. Scott Walker (R-Koch Bros.) may become the GOP’s new lead dog, Jesse Byrnes reports at The Hill.
But Trump’s 3rd party trial balloon talk is likely freaking out GOP strategists.
In their NYT op-ed, “Socialism, American Style,” Gar Alperovitz and Thomas M. Hanna note a revealing paradox in Republican politician attitudes toward the debate over big government: “…One of the largest “socialist” enterprises in the nation is the Tennessee Valley Authority, a publicly owned company with $11 billion in sales revenue, nine million customers and 11,260 employees that produces electricity and helps manage the Tennessee River system. In 2013 President Obama proposed privatizing the T.V.A., but local Republican politicians, concerned with the prospect of higher prices for consumers and less money for their states, successfully opposed the idea.” Apparently, big government is bad for Republican leaders only when it benefits constituencies they don’t represent.
National Journal’s Josh Kraushaar i.d.s “The Four States That Will Make or Break Democrats’ Senate Hopes.” (FL; NC; NH; and PA).
S. Kumar explains at Huffpo “How Mobile Technology Could Revolutionize the U.S. Voting System.” Kumar recounts the impressive convenience and cost-savings potential and notes, “There are obviously risks in mobile voting such a lack of a paper audit trail and voting fraud. If a voter’s phone is hacked, his or her vote could be falsified, but that can be addressed with the right technology. As many other applications, such as mobile wallets, have evolved to become more secure, voting too can become a commonplace and safe activity.”
Gov. John Kasich, not a military veteran, wants boots on the ground vs. Isis. Opinion polls on military action vs. Isis suggest he may be on safe ground — primarilly with Republican voters.

As James Vega noted in his last post, there’s renewed interest in the white working class vote this cycle–but you have to look at it from a number of angles to understand the dynamics of this vote. I discussed those different perspectives as TPMCafe today:

[I]n this presidential cycle, the fear that a nominee not named Barack Obama will fall short of his turnout and vote-share levels among the Obama Coalition has led to schemes of making up the votes elsewhere. And whereas Hillary Clinton has a plausible case she can boost the Democratic vote among women, other Democrats–especially supporters of Bernie Sanders–are looking wistfully at that old flame, the white working class vote.
Sanders represents the strongly-held belief of many progressives, especially in the labor movement, that a clear, loud and consistently articulated “economic populist” message can at least partially rebuild the New Deal coalition with its cross-racial, class-based sinews, particularly if “corporate Democrat” flirtations with Wall Street and professional elites are abandoned along with excessive “identity politics” cultural preoccupations that might alienate white workers. But muting points of identity with the Obama Coalition in order to pursue a purely class-based “colorblind” politics isn’t without its intra-progressive risks, as Bernie Sanders himself found out last weekend in Phoenix when he ran afoul of #blacklivesmatter protesters.
And while it is entirely unfair to accuse Sanders of white-working-class chauvinism, much less racism, he’s paying the price for being associated with an “economics first!” point of view that can fairly be seen as an obstacle for minority folk (and arguably feminists) who want a higher priority placed on challenging white male patriarchy in non-economic arenas. And so a candidate who hoped to draw white working class voters back into a coalition with minority voters has instead heightened doubts he understand the latter.
This is a test that Hillary Clinton, herself the object of some talk about a possible revival of white working class support (though largely based on her husband’s performance back in the 1990s and her own in Democratic primaries in 2008), may have to face herself at some point soon.
Beyond the candidates, there are some Democratic observers–notably a long-time expert on this demographic, Stan Greenberg–who believe the key to regaining a portion of the white working class is to identify with its hostility to government as corrupt and ineffective and offer a “populist” agenda that prominently includes political and government reform.
Despite their already strong standing among non-college-educated white voters, Republicans think there’s still political gold to mine in this demographic as well, in no small part because they are struggling to open up any really new avenues for growing their vote. Many are mesmerized by Sean Trende’s analysis after the 2012 elections suggesting there were millions of “missing white votes” in 2012 that helped doom Mitt Romney, mostly among “downscale northern rural” voters. This has led to a boom of “conservative populist” talk, some of it as superficial as non-college graduate Scott Walker’s endless paeans to Kohl’s shoppers, some a bit more focused on promoting the already-robust GOP anti-Washington themes, odd as they seem with Republicans controlling Congress.
One 2016 GOP presidential candidate, Mike Huckabee, signaled early on that he would identify with white working class voters who were sufficiently integrated into the GOP to vote in presidential primaries but had not internalized Republican elite economic positions. Building on the “populist” rhetoric of his 2008 campaign, Huckabee announced he would oppose both the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement and the “entitlement reform” proposals that are equally beloved of the GOP’s business wing. But Huck has so far run a desultory and poorly financed campaign mostly focused on hustling copies of his latest book, and tending to his conservative evangelical base by waxing hysterical on alleged threats to Christianity.
Into Huck’s lost opportunity has moved another candidate who opposes trade agreements and entitlement reform, along with the business wing’s solicitude for sanity on immigration policy, packaged in the form of the ultimate celebrity businessman: Donald Trump.
Trump’s shocking surge into the lead in 2016 Republican polls, and his possible return to earth after giving his rivals and the RNC an excuse to bring the hammers of hell down on him by disrespecting John McCain’s war record, has obscured his sources of support. Efforts to typecast his supporters ideologically, or in terms of prefab party factions like the Tea Party, have largely run aground. But it’s difficult to identify a better fit for Sean Trende’s “missing white voters”–downscale and largely non-southern–than Donald Trump. And a new Washington Post/ABC News poll shows Trump at his peak attracting 33 percent of non-college educated white voters among Republicans and Republican-leaners, as opposed to 9 percent of college educated white GOpers and leaners. (Bernie Sanders, in contrast, runs better among college educated than non-college educated Democrats against Hillary Clinton and the rest of the Democratic field.) Even if Trump quickly falls to earth, he has to be taken semi-seriously as a potential independent candidate in 2016.
And here’s the real shocker in that WaPo/ABC poll: In a hypothetical three-way race with Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush, Trump pulls 31 percent of white non-college educated voters, dead even with HRC and just three points behind Jeb.
So who’s the white working class hero? Potentially it’s the Democratic nominee, if she or he takes Stan Greenberg’s advice. But let’s not discount Donald Trump, who’s a reminder that the white working class is now by the numbers predominantly an angry anti-elite constituency that doesn’t love GOP economic positions–but isn’t waiting to be invited back into the Democratic tent, either.

Greg Sargent today poses a seeming mystery today in his Washington Post blog:

The new Washington Post/ABC News poll starkly illustrates the challenge Democrats face. It turns out that an overwhelming majority of non-college whites believes the U.S. economic system is stacked in favor of the rich — but far more of those voters also think Republicans, not Democrats, have better ideas to address that problem.

Greg suggests this represents a paradox but the answer lies in the analysis of “team spirit” vs policy. As the poltical scientist Lilliana Mason noted in a recent WaPo commedntary:

My research suggests a key reason why this happens: our partisan identities motivate us far more powerfully than our views about issues. Although voters may insist in the importance of their values and ideologies, they actually care less about policy and more that their team wins.
This “team spirit” is increasingly powerful because our party identities line up with other powerful identities, such as religion and race. Over the last few decades, Republicans have generally grown increasingly white and churchgoing, while Democrats have become more non-white and secular. This sorting of identities makes us care even more about winning, and less about what our government actually gets done.
…When social and partisan identities align, we begin to detach our votes for candidates from our policy interests. The most important thing is to stick with the team. It doesn’t matter if the team you voted for opposes the very policy you voted to enact.

Unfortunate, but true.

I know Ohio Governor John Kasich is considered a long-shot to win the GOP presidential nomination. But he does bring to the GOP field a more sober persona than any of his competitors at a time when Donald Trump is grabbing daily headlines with his bomb du jour. WaPo’s Dan Balz has some interesting observations about Kasich’s entry, including:

Ohio Gov. John Kasich joined the crowded 2016 GOP presidential race Tuesday, offering an optimistic message that blends fiscal conservatism with social welfare compassion that he hopes will shake up the Republican Party and vault him into contention for the nomination.
…He spoke of family and faith, of those left behind and those who wonder if the American dream is still alive. “If we’re not born to serve others, what were we born to do?” he said…Kasich begins the contest far back in the field. His advisers say they think he can become a credible threat to win the nomination by force of personality and record. His detractors question whether he has the discipline required for a long and grueling presidential race.

As for the dynamics of the GOP race, Balz notes that, “Collectively, the 2016 GOP field is more experienced and politically heftier than those who sought the nomination four years ago.” However, adds Balz,

At this point, two races are underway. One is a contest among some of the most conservative candidates for supremacy in Iowa. The other is a largely separate contest among those candidates considered less conservative who will need a strong finish in New Hampshire to stay alive…It is the New Hampshire contest that is most attractive to Kasich, who will spend several days there this week campaigning.

For now the media loves Trump, who provides them and late night comedians with endless material. But in a nation where TV still defines a candidate’s media persona, Kasich may have a longer-term edge in the GOP pack, provided he survives the next few months. I’ve noticed that WI Governor Scott Walker is pretty clever about projecting a much more moderate television persona than his extremist record indicates. Kasich, on the other hand, has good media skills, with less to hide. As Balz observes,

He ran for president in 2000 but was an early casualty. He spent a decade in business and television before winning the governorship in 2010 in a state that often helps decide presidential elections. He won reelection in a landslide last November…His supporters think he can connect more effectively than his rivals with his upbeat message and a personality that is direct, occasionally prickly and rarely reserved. Advisers hope that will brand him as authentic at a time of skepticism about canned or programmed politicians.
…In Ohio, he cut taxes and eliminated a sizable budget deficit. To the chagrin of conservatives, he engineered an expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. He called for spending more money on such things as treatment for drug and alcohol addiction. He cites his religious faith as motivating him to help those in need. He has said he is open to a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.

But no one should doubt that Kasich will tow the conservative line on major economic issues if elected. As Balz explains, “In his first term, he signed a bill to restrict collective-bargaining rights for public employee unions, along the lines of legislation that caused a partisan eruption in Wisconsin under Walker. When Ohio voters rejected the plan in a later ballot initiative, Kasich accepted defeat and has not clashed seriously with unions since over such issues, although he and organized labor have been at odds over spending and taxes.”
At The Washington Monthly, TDS managing editor Ed Kilgore notes that those who liken Kasich’s chances to those of GOP moderate Jon Huntsman have a point or two:

In theory, Kasich can fix his problem; the most efficient way would probably be to attack the godless liberal media whose adoration is helping crush him. But with just two weeks left before Fox News decides who makes the August 6 debate cut, and Kasich now definitely out of the top ten, it’s doubtful he can simultaneously elevate himself and change his ideological image that fast, particularly with the current fascination over Donald Trump soaking up so much attention.
And here’s the clincher: Kasich’s chief “strategist” is John Weaver; his ad man is Fred Davis; both were fixtures in the mighty Huntsman campaign.
So if you’re interested in Kasich-mania, watch closely. It probably won’t last.

Kasich does face a steep, uphill struggle in a party where an egomaniacal bomb-thrower leads the pack in current polls, and, as Kilgore notes, he is already in danger of not making the cut for the first televised debates. But the fact that he has done so well in a critical swing state makes him a little more of a threat to Dems than Utah’s Huntsman.
In the unlikely event that Kasich somehow gains enough momentum to survive the next few months and eventually get nominated, his ability to project a moderate image could give the Democratic nominee a fight. Win or lose, Kasich will provide an updated test of the GOP’s tolerance for even the appearance of moderation.

From “Jeb Bush defends McCain, but supported Swift Boat attacks against Kerry” by Jeremy Diamond and Jake Tapper:

After Donald Trump questioned Republican Sen. John McCain’s status as a war hero, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who is not a veteran, quickly jumped to McCain’s defense.
“Enough with the slanderous attacks. @SenJohnMcCain and all our veterans – particularly POWs have earned our respect and admiration,” he tweeted on Saturday.
But that outrage was missing ten years ago, when a political group attacked another Vietnam veteran — then-Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic nominee who sought to unseat Bush’s brother, the incumbent president, during the 2004 election.
Instead, Bush praised Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the group that lobbed attacks questioning Kerry’s service record in Vietnam — attacks McCain unequivocally criticized in 2004 as “dishonest and dishonorable.”

Here’s an excerpt from Bush’s self-righteous letter to the swiftboaters, as reported by Tapper and Diamond:

As someone who truly understands the risk of standing up for something, I simply cannot express in words how much I value their willingness to stand up against John Kerry,” Bush wrote in a letter dated January 19, 2005.

The authors note of the swift boater attacks that “All of the charges were contradicted by official military records and almost all of the men who served with Kerry came out in defense of their former crewmate, praising his courage.”
And further, “Only one of the swift boat critics served with Kerry. Kerry received several medals for his service in Vietnam, including several Purple Heart medals for injuries he sustained in combat.”
Bush should answer for his highly politicized patriotism and explain how he feels about the swift boat attacks today. Whether or not he today has the mettle to apologize for disrespecting a highly-decorated veteran will reveal much about his character and integrity.

“Most Americans would support imposing a term limit on the nine U.S. Supreme Court justices, who now serve for life, a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll has found in the aftermath of major rulings by the court on Obamacare and gay marriage…Support for the 10-year term limit proposed by the poll was bipartisan, with 66 percent saying they favored such a change while 17 percent supported life tenure…The two big rulings in June were widely welcomed by liberals. Nevertheless, 66 percent of Democrats, 74 percent of Republicans and 68 percent of independents said they favored the 10-year term limit idea, according to the poll.”
Bush leads Rubio on home turf by double digits, according to a new poll by Bendixen & Amandi International — even among Cuban-Americans, reports Patricia Mazzei of the Miami Herald.
At fivethirtyeight.com Harry Enten explains why Gov. Chris “Bridgegate” Christie may not even qualify for the first televised GOP debate.
For some salient insights about progressive blogger takes on the 2016 campaign thus far, check out MSNBC’s “10 things to know from Netroots Nation 2015” by Nisha Chittal and Yasmin Aslam.
Lisa Neff reports at the Wisconsin Gazette that “The “land of the free and the brave” ranks No. 31 among 34 democratic countries in an analysis of voter turnout by the Pew Research Center.”
“…About two-thirds of the states allow in-person early voting, but the early voting periods range anywhere from four to 45 days. About two-thirds of states currently require voters to present identification of some kind at the polls, but they vary greatly in what kind of documents they require and what they do if a person doesn’t provide it…Three states — Colorado, Oregon and Washington — conduct all elections by mail, where a ballot is automatically mailed to every registered voter. At least 19 other states allowed some elections to be conducted by mail…Early voting periods range from four days to 45 days in length, and the average across the 33 states is 19 days, the National Conference of State Legislators said.” notes Meghann Evans of the Winston-Salem Journal.
Major squirmage for GOP expected when Pope Francis visits congress in September. Jennifer Steinhauer has the skinny at NYT.
OR Democratic Governor and self-described “people-person” Kate Brown pioneering a new, warmer style of retail politics, reports Kirk Johnson at The Times.
One Florida Republican state representative, Carlos Curbelo says Trump is part of a Democratic conspiracy to discredit the GOP. To which Paul Begala has jokingly responded, “I am a person of faith – and the Donald’s entry into this race can only be attributed to the fact that the good Lord is a Democrat with a sense of humor.” But the Republican’s Frankenstein needs a milieu in which to thrive, and Democrats should repeatedly point out that the GOP provides the perfect environment to nurture his brand of bellowing bigotry.