TDS Co-Editor Ruy Teixeira, and Hart Research analysts Guy Molyneux and John Whaley have a new 100-page report, “Better, Not Smaller,” (PDF here) that shatters one of the most treasured conservative myths — that shrinking the size of government is what most voters want. The report, based on a survey completed in May by Hart Research Associates for the Center for American Progress and its Doing What Works project, is one of the most thorough investigations of public attitudes and perceptions about the size and quality of government yet conducted.
The report is being released in conjunction with the ‘Doing What Works Conference’ now being streamed, live via webcast as we go to press, on the Center for American Progress Web pages. From the authors’ introduction to the report:

Public confidence in government is at an all-time low, according to a major new survey commissioned by the Center for American Progress. And yet clear majorities of Americans of all ages want and expect more federal involvement in priority areas such as energy, poverty, and education, the poll found.
The key lesson embedded in these seemingly paradoxical results: Americans want a federal government that is better, not smaller. CAP’s new research shows people would rather improve government performance than reduce its size. And they are extremely receptive to reform efforts that would eliminate inefficient government programs, implement performance-based policy decisions, and adopt modern management methods and information technologies.
The May survey of 2,523 adults conducted by Hart Research Associates found that public lack of confidence in government’s ability to solve problems is more closely related to perceptions of government performance than it is a function of partisan affiliation or political ideology. A majority of respondents indicated they would be more likely to support political candidates who embrace a reform agenda of improving government performance, effectiveness, and efficiency.

The survey noted “substantial support” among the younger respondents, as well as people of color, self-identified independents, political moderates and even some Republicans and Tea Party supporters, for reforms keyed to cutting inefficient programs, while redirecting support to cost-efficient programs, publishing evaluations of individual programs/agencies and modernizing management methods and information technologies. Further,

Americans have not significantly changed their opinion of government’s role. Indeed, clear majorities want more federal government involvement in priority areas, and they expect government’s role in improving people’s lives to grow rather than shrink in importance in the years ahead.
Rather than a rejection of big government, the survey reveals a rejection of incompetent government….

The authors caution, however:

The government receives mediocre to poor performance ratings from the public both in terms of how effective it is and how well it is managed. There is a widespread belief that government spends their tax dollars inefficiently, and the survey explores these perceptions of “wasteful spending” in significant depth. Improving these perceptions, we find, is a central challenge for reform efforts.
The message to politicians and policymakers is clear. Government will not regain the public trust unless it earns it. And earning it means spending taxpayer money more carefully–and doing what works.

Yet, overall, the study found “a surprisingly high level of confidence that government effectiveness can be improved” and “poor performance in the public sector is not inevitable.” The authors cite “a powerful commitment to realizing that potential for better government.” It appears that conservatives parroting the ‘big government’ as demon meme may be preaching to the choir. Democrats, on the other hand, just may be able to reach a more thoughtful constituency by talking about what it takes to create smart government.

If it’s Tuesday, there must be another primary election, and today’s is in Oklahoma, where both parties are holding gubernatorial primaries, and there are a couple of congressional contests of interest.
I’ve got a preview up at FiveThirtyEight for those who want a serious run-down. The bottom line is that Attorney General Drew Edmondson is favored to defeat Lt. Gov. Jari Askins for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, in what’s been a very civil contest; while Rep. Mary Fallin is almost certain to defeat Tea Party advocate Randy Brogdon for the GOP nod. Meanwhile, Blue Dog Dan Boren will turn back an underfunded progressive primary challenge, and Republicans will go to runoffs in his district and in Fallin’s.
Oklahoma’s one of those states with a pretty hardy Democratic tradition (registered Dems still outnumber registered Republicans) that’s been trending Red for some time. Hanging onto the governor’s office and a congressional seat, particularly in this kind of year, would be quite an accomplishment. Today’s primary will help determine whether that happens.

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In his WaPo op-ed, “Enough right-wing propaganda,”E. J. Dionne, Jr. does a good job of distilling one of the most salient points regarding the Sherrod smear into one sentence:

The traditional media are so petrified of being called “liberal” that they are prepared to allow the Breitbarts of the world to become their assignment editors.

But Dionne points out at some length that it’s not only the wimpy MSM that’s at issue here. He and many progressives rightfully feel that the Obama Administration caved awfully easy on this one:

The administration’s response to the doctored video pushed by right-wing hit man Andrew Breitbart was shameful. The obsession with “protecting” the president turned out to be the least protective approach of all.
The first reaction of the Obama team was not to question, let alone challenge, the video. Instead, it assumed that whatever narrative Fox News might create mattered more than anything else, including the possible innocence of a human being outside the president’s inner circle. She could be sacrificed without a thought.
Obama complained on ABC’s “Good Morning America” that Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack “jumped the gun, partly because we now live in this media culture where something goes up on YouTube or a blog and everybody scrambles.” But it’s his own apparatus that turned “this media culture” into a false god.

After giving the Administration a fair share of the blame for being so easily hustled by prevaricating conservatives, however, it’s hard to overlook the shameless laziness/dishonesty of the MSM’s complicity. The headline for the Post article didn’t really get it. Call it wishful thinking, but I liked Truthdig‘s headline for Dionne’s article better: “The End of the Fox News Era.” Hey, we can dream, can’t we?
Dionne goes on to cite other examples of MSM wimptitude, including the sliming of Al Gore for saying he invented the internet (never mind that he never said it), the GOP’s “death panels” fear-mongering getting huge play, and the trumped up coverage of the “New Black Panthers” voter intimidation case.
The coverage of the Sherrod smear has been so extensive, that whatever fair-minded, persuadable voters were mulling over whether Breitbart and the tea party crowd could be trusted are now leaning toward a healthy skepticism regarding them. Breitbart and his defenders have lost some ground on this one. In that sense, the Sherrod smear did some good in terms of unintended consequences.
Some of the better thinkers have pinpointed a more lofty opportunity in the Sherrod affair that merits consideration. Here’s Charles J. Ogletree Jr., executive director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice and Johanna Wald, the Institute’s director of strategic planning, also writing in The Washington Post:

…In some ways, Sherrod’s tale is a metaphor for this country’s aborted efforts to address race. In its entirety, her deeply moving story was about transformation and reconciliation between blacks and whites. It contained the seeds of progress and healing. She spoke of blacks and whites working together to save farms and to end poverty and suffering. But Sherrod, and those listening to her story, could get to her hopeful conclusion only by first wading through painful admissions of racial bias and struggle.
Racial inequality is perpetuated less by individuals than by structural racism and implicit bias….Implicit bias is a reality we must confront far more openly. A growing mass of compelling research reveals the unconscious racial stereotypes many of us harbor that affect our decisions. Such attitudes do not make us prejudiced; they make us human….
The good news is that structures can be dismantled and replaced and unconscious biases can be transformed, as happened to Shirley Sherrod and the family she helped, the Spooners. First, though, they must be acknowledged. We and others researching race and justice are committed to untangling the web of structures, conditions and policies that lead to unequal opportunities. Our nation has to stop denying the complexity of our racial attitudes, history and progress. Let’s tone down the rhetoric on all sides, slow down and commit to listening with less judgment and more compassion. If Americans did so, we might find that we share more common ground than we could have imagined.

Of course, politicians, as well as the media, can be excruciatingly slow learners. But the Sherrod smear ought to sound the knell for the age of MSM gullibility and general gutlessness. Surely, the time has come to put the childish things away and behave like grown-ups. As Dionne concludes

The Sherrod case should be the end of the line. If Obama hates the current media climate, he should stop overreacting to it. And the mainstream media should stop being afraid of insisting upon the difference between news and propaganda.

The one good thing about embarrassing lessons is that they are usually learned well. If it’s too much to ask of the MSM, it ought to be the only alternative for an Administration that hopes to win a second term.

Colorado is without question a key target for the GOP this year. It’s a traditionally “purple” state where Democrats captured the governorship and legislature in 2006, and then carried the state for Barack Obama in 2008. With incumbent Gov. Bill Ritter stepping down voluntarily, and with a competitive Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate between appointed Sen. Michael Bennet and former House speaker Andrew Romanoff, GOPers have definitely been seeing an opening. Polls have been showing close general election races for both the governorship and the Senate.
But somebody up there must not like Colorado Republicans, because they are in the midst of a plague-of-frogs series of misfortunes. As I noted here recently, the campaign of the front-running GOP gubernatorial candidate, Scott McInnis, imploded upon allegations that he plagiarized big chunks of a report he supposedly wrote to justify a very lucrative think-tank contract just a few years back.
As Colorado GOPers tried to figure out what to do, the wingiest nut of them all, former Rep. Tom Tancredo (last seen calling for the President’s impeachment on grounds that he is a “dedicated Marxist”) publicly demanded that the two Republicans officially in the race advance to drop out after the August 10 primary (enabling the party to name someone else), or he’d run for governor himself on the Constitution Party ticket. Presumably the answer didn’t come fast enough, and Tancredo duly announced his third-party candidacy, following that up with a public shouting match with the state Republican chairman.
But the weirdness has not been confined to the gubernatorial race. In the Senate primary, district attorney Ken Buck, a big Tea Party favorite who’s recently moved ahead of “establishment” candidate Jane Norton in the polls, got caught saying this into a live microphone:

[W]ill you tell those dumbasses at the Tea Party to stop asking questions about birth certificates while I’m on the camera?

Boy, what a quandry for Buck: he now has to eat a big plate of crow to avoid offending his own base, but in doing so he will appear intimidated by a Birther contingent that he obviously considers stupid. And he’s already in some hot water for earlier blurting out that he was a better candidate than Norton because “I don’t wear high heels.”
All in all, it would have been a good week for Colorado Republican officials–and their various candidates–to have taken a vacation.

This item by TDS contributor Robert Creamer, author of Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win, is cross-posted from The Huffington Post.
The first rule for Democratic success this November is the immutable iron law of politics: if you’re on the defense you’re losing. Who ever is on the offensive almost always wins elections.
That’s why Democratic victory requires that this election cannot simply be a referendum on the speed with which Democrats have been cleaning up the economic mess created by the Republicans and their allies on Wall Street. It must be a choice between Democrats who are charting a new path forward out of the economic ditch and the failed economic policies of the Republicans that drove us into that ditch in the first place. Democrats must make it clear that if the Republicans once again get their hands on the keys to the economy, those same, reckless failed policies will result in yet another economic catastrophe.
It’s fine, for instance, for Democratic office holders to explain the details of the Health Care bill. After all, the more that people know about it, the more they like it. But that explanation should not constitute the be all and end all of the Democratic health care message. We have to challenge the Republicans — who have been bought and paid for by the insurance companies — to justify their vote against preventing those companies from discriminating against people with pre-existing conditions. We have to challenge them to explain their proposals to eliminate Medicare and replace it with vouchers for private insurance.
The same goes in every arena. And it is doubly important because voters vote for people — not policy positions. Voters want leaders who are strong and self confident — not leaders who spend their days in a defensive crouch. They want leaders who stand up straight and defend their deeply held values — not leaders who bob and weave.
The thing we have to remember most is that Democratic positions on the issues – and the values that underlie them — are very popular. Voters generally respond very favorable to candidates who stand up for those values — for average Americans not the wealthy and special interests.
This all seems obvious to normal people who size up candidates. Unfortunately it is often less obvious to the sometimes risk averse consultant class that has so much to say about the way political campaigns are organized.
But all they need to do is take a careful look at the polling that makes the importance of staying on the offensive ever so clear.
Here for instance are some of the questions that have scored well in raising serious concerns about Republican swing district candidates in polling I’ve seen over the last month. The first two are particularly powerful among senior citizens that make up a big chunk of swing voters in many key districts.
* Candidate A took hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions from the insurance companies and now he supports abolishing Medicare and replacing it with vouchers for private insurance.
* Candidate D took tens of thousands from Wall Street Banks and now he supports privatizing Social Security and replacing a guaranteed benefit with investments in the stock market.
* Candidate E takes thousands of dollars in contributions from defense contractors and refuses to vote against wasteful and ineffective defense projects.
* Candidate F receives hundreds of thousands in donations from wealthy supporters. He is all in favor of spending hundreds of billions on tax cuts for the rich, but he refuses to support money for unemployment benefits to laid off workers or preventing states and local government from laying off teachers, firemen, and police.
* Candidate Y took $500,000 from the health insurance companies and then voted against banning discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions.
* Candidate J took $250,000 from the health insurance companies and then voted against stopping insurance companies from imposing lifetime or annual caps on coverage and dropping people when they get too expensive to insure.
* Candidate F took $50,000 from the health insurance companies and then voted against stopping insurance companies from charging women more than men and denying coverage to pregnant women because it was considered a pre-existing condition.
* Candidate U used every excuse to vote against requiring that Members of Congress like him are covered under the health care reform law just like everybody else.
* Candidate Z took $100,000 from the oil industry and refuses to support legislation that would break the stranglehold of foreign oil that leaves us more and more vulnerable to our enemies that control our oil supplies.
These are the kinds of questions that Democrats need to force onto the agenda this fall. They apply to almost every incumbent Republican, and most challengers. These statements symbolize the fundamental differences between Democrats and the Republican candidates who want to return to the failed economic policies of the Bush era that favored the interests of Wall Street, big Oil and the insurance industry — not the interests of everyday Americans.
If we take the offensive, Democrats may lose some seats this fall, but we definitely do not need to lose control of sizable majorities in either House of Congress. If we take the offensive, Conventional Wisdom will spend the evening of November 2 scratching his head and wondering how he could have been so wrong. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.

One of the more notable examples of the gulf in perceived reality between Left and Right these days is the very different perceptions of the power of Barack Obama. Most Democrats think the president has been hemmed in by the economic and fiscal conditions he inherited and by an opposition party with the will and the means to obstruct his every effort. Some Democrats also think he’s been hemmed in by his own timidity, and/or by the views and interests of his advisors, but nobody much thinks he’s kicking ass and taking names.
Meanwhile, on the Right, while the dominant attitude towards the president remains one of exultant mockery, in anticipation of a big 2010 Republican victory, it seems important to some pols and gabbers to maintain the impression that the president represents an ever-growing threat to American liberties.
This “Fear Factor” is especially present in the bizarre op-ed penned in the Washington Times by former congressman, and perhaps future candidate for Colorado governor, Tom Tancredo, calling for the president’s impeachment.
Now there’s nothing particularly newsworthy about Tancredo seizing the limelight with crazy talk, or even his contention that Obama’s violated his constitutional oath by refusing to immediately launch a nationwide manhunt to identify and deport illegal immigrants by the millions as the openly xenophobic Coloradan would do.
But it’s the paranoid fear of Obama’s totalitarian designs on the nation that stands out in the piece:

Barack Obama is one of the most powerful presidents this nation has seen in generations. He is powerful because he is supported by large majorities in Congress, but, more importantly, because he does not feel constrained by the rule of law….
Mr. Obama’s paramount goal, as he so memorably put it during his campaign in 2008, is to “fundamentally transform America.” He has not proposed improving America – he is intent on changing its most essential character. The words he has chosen to describe his goals are neither the words nor the motivation of just any liberal Democratic politician. This is the utopian, or rather dystopian, reverie of a dedicated Marxist – a dedicated Marxist who lives in the White House.

Aside from illustrating that Tom Tancredo knows absolutely nothing about Marxism, this passage makes you wonder why Tancredo thinks a future Republican Congress could get away with impeachment. Wouldn’t Obama simply suspend the Constitution, round up Republican Members, and then maybe ship them to one of those secret camps that FEMA–or is it AmeriCorps?–is supposedly building?
This is a perpetual problem for hard-core conservatives today, isn’t it? It’s hard to simultaneously maintain that Barack Obama is well on his way to becoming Benito Mussolini, and also that an aroused American people are on the brink of chasing him from office.
A similar contradiction seems to afflict the thinking of another conservative Republican who spoke out this week, Tennessee congressman and gubernatorial candidate Zach Wamp, as explained by Hotline‘s Dan Roem:

Rep. Zach Wamp (R-03) suggested TN and other states may have to consider seceding from the union if the federal government does not change its ways regarding mandates.
“I hope that the American people will go to the ballot box in 2010 and 2012 so that states are not forced to consider separation from this government,” said Wamp during an interview with Hotline OnCall.
He lauded Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX), who first floated the idea of secession in April ’09, for leading the push-back against health care reform, adding that he hopes the American people “will send people to Washington that will, in 2010 and 2012, strictly adhere” to the constitution’s defined role for the federal government.
“Patriots like Rick Perry have talked about these issues because the federal government is putting us in an untenable position at the state level,” said Wamp, who is competing with Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam (R) and LG Ron Ramsey (R) for the GOP nod in the race to replace TN Gov. Phil Bredesen (D).

In his case, Wamp is floating an extra-constitutional remedy for what he claims to be an extra-constitutional action by the Congress and the Executive Branch. This did not work out too well when Tennessee and other states tried it in 1861, you may recall. But more immediately, what, specifically, is Obama doing that has led Wamp to propose so radical a step? Is he threatening to bombard military facilities in Chattanooga? Is an alleged “unfunded mandate” on the states really equivalent to Kristallnacht or the March on Rome?
Rhetorical excess is one thing; extreme partisanship is still another; but projecting totalitarian powers onto Barack Obama while one is in the very process of seeking to drive him and his party from office is, well, just delusional.

It’s certainly old news that anti-government sentiments are on the rise these days, and that anti-government rhetoric is at the heart of the Republican Party’s hopes for regaining control of government in November and in 2012.
But as Ron Brownstein explains painstakingly in his latest column, it’s important to unravel these sentiments into their component parts. Trust in government has been fragile even if the best of recent times, and mistrust of government sometimes has to do with perceptions of incompetence, and sometimes with perceptions of its unworthy beneficiaries:

Polls suggest that an energized core of voters — possibly around 40 percent — has ideologically recoiled from Obama’s direction. That threatens Democrats, but their greater problem is that voters open to an activist government in principle are not convinced that it’s producing enough benefits in practice.
Partly, that verdict rests on concerns about effectiveness. Many economists may agree that Washington’s economic initiatives prevented a deeper downturn. But with the economy still sluggish, surveys show that most Americans believe that the medicine simply didn’t work well enough. That judgment compounds doubts about federal competence fed by failures stretching back from the Gulf oil spill to the New Orleans flood. One senior Democrat calls this the “echo of Katrina” problem.
The second worry revolves around government’s priorities. Most voters think that the principal beneficiaries of everything government has done to fix the economy since 2009 have been the same interests that broke it: big banks, Wall Street, the wealthy.

In other words, anti-government sentiments are an amalgam of feelings that can’t be simply attributed to a Tea Party-ish fear of government trampling liberties. More common is the feeling that “big government” might be acceptable if it did a good job, or if it worked on behalf of the interests of a majority of Americans.
The first problem shows that the 1990s-era progressive emphasis on “reinventing government” to focus on tangible results needs to be revived. And the second problem shows that Bill Clinton’s identification with “the forgotten middle class” is another golden oldie we should listen to again.

Here’s hoping the heirs of the late, great Link Wray will allow some YouTube mash-up wizard to use a little piece of Wray’s way-back hit instrumental “Run Chicken, Run” to accompany this video clip of Sharron Angle fleeing reporters:

As Andy Barr of Politico reported:

Sharron Angle walked out of an event to which her campaign invited reporters as soon as they were given the opportunity to ask questions of Nevada’s GOP nominee for Senate.
After giving a three-minute speech on Wednesday on her desire to repeal the estate tax, Angle was asked to make herself available to answer questions from the assembled reporters. Angle turned around without saying a word and left the event, as a video provided by the Nevada Democratic Party shows.

Barr was a little too kind in describing Angle’s exit: She didn’t just walk; Positioned for the quick getaway, she turned tail and hauled ass, as if she didn’t have even two minutes to answer questions. Barr puts Angle’s departure in context.

Angle was followed out of the event by several camera crews and reporters. Without speaking to the media, Angle got into a white Jeep Cherokee with a campaign aide and left the event.
According to the Las Vegas Sun, Wednesday’s event was the first to which the press had been invited since she won the June 9 Republican primary.

I particularly enjoyed the inadvertent high comedy of the smarmy m.c. of the press “conference” telling the media “I know Sharron’s got a very tight schedule. But Peter and I and (unintelligible) will make ourselves available for individual questions,” as the bewildered hard-hat guys watch Angle’s sprint, chased by reporters who weren’t into being spoon-fed b.s. by campaign aides. As a stagey political event gone wrong, it couldn’t have been scripted better by Robert Altman.
All of which may help explain why Angle is tanking in the polls. Kudos to NV Dems for capturing Angle in flight. May KY Dems, who also have a media-dodging wingnut to expose, follow suit. It’s not just Angle’s and Rand Paul’s indefensible policy positions; it’s also the fact that both of these candidates for the United States Senate are letting their handlers hide them from open scrutiny by the media. If they refuse to be videotaped answering questions like any candidate with a modicum of personal integrity, then let them be depicted as cowards in flight, which also makes for entertaining television.
Republicans, not just Paul and Angle, but also a slew of tea party House candidates with half-baked policies, have a lot to hide in this election. It will be a sadly-missed opportunity if Dems passively depend on the mainstream media to make them account for it.

This item by TDS Co-Editor William Galston is cross-posted from The New Republic.
A recent Politico poll has opened up “D.C. elites” to yet another round of criticism. They’re so unlike normal Americans, you see. Forty-nine percent of them think the country is heading in the right direction (versus 27 percent of the general population), and 44 percent think the economy is heading in the right direction (versus 24 percent of the overall public). Only 6 percent of the elites think the downturn has affected them more than most Americans–unsurprisingly, considering that 45 percent of them enjoy household incomes of $150,000 or more (versus 3 percent of the public). Nor is it surprising that 68 percent of elites think the Tea Party is an evanescent fad (versus 26 percent of the general population) or that only 23 percent think that “family values” are a very important issue (versus 62 percent), or that elites say they care less about immigration, taxes, Social Security, and ethics in government than does the public.
But the survey doesn’t tell such a simple story–its more surprising findings have attracted less attention, probably because they don’t fit into the conventional narrative of-out-of-touch, inside-the-Beltway elites whose views are wholly out of sync with those of “real Americans.” But consider the following:
· 52 percent of elites think the economy/jobs is the most important issue facing the country (general public–48 percent)
· 49 percent think the war in Afghanistan will not succeed (general public–48 percent)
· 64 percent think the political system in Washington is broken (general public–72 percent)
· 51 percent are “somewhat” or “very” dissatisfied with President Obama’s response to the oil spill (general public–61 percent)
Or take an issue–who will end up footing the bill for cleaning up the oil spill?–where one would expect a big split between hot populist suspicions and cool elite assessments. 69 percent of the public thinks that the taxpayers will get stuck holding the bag. But so do 59 percent of D.C. elites, despite repeated assurances from the president on down that BP is fully responsible! Similarly, 52 percent of the American people believe that despite the recent catastrophe, offshore drilling should continue. But so do 49 percent of D.C. elites. Or what about climate change, often regarded as a distinctively upscale concern? Only 31 percent of the people think that climate change is a very important issue. The corresponding figure for D.C. elites is … 33 percent.
George Bernard Shaw once said, “Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.” Based on the evidence in the Politico survey, he was on to something. If the American people throw stones at their government, most of the projectiles will hit a mirror.

In terms of historical trends, there is not much of an upside for Dems, who currently control 27 state legislatures, compared to the GOP’s control of 14 (8 split), in Tim Storey’s “Legislature Lowdown” at Larry J. Sabato’s Crystal Ball:

…Since 1900, there have been 27 elections held in the presidential mid-term year. In all but two of those mid-term elections, the party in the White House lost seats in state legislatures. The only exceptions were in 1934 and 2002. In 1934 during one of the lowest points of the great depression, Democrats campaigned on Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and gained over 1100 legislative seats nationwide in FDR’s first mid-term election. In 2002, Republicans rode a groundswell of support for President George W. Bush in the wake of the September 11th attacks to pick up 177 seats. However, in the other 25 mid-term elections, the party of the president lost an average 495 legislative seats. Mid-term losses have been mitigated in recent decades since modern redistricting took hold, but the trend is still very consistent. This trend is not good news for Democratic legislative candidates running for the first time since 2000 with a Democrat in the White House.

Storey identifies 27 “battleground” legislative chambers, where a pick-up of just 3 seats would lead to a switch of party in the majority. Dems have 14 to defend, compared to 11 for the GOP, with AK Senate and MT House tied. The big prizes, in terms of the more populous states, are the NY Senate (32 D – 29 R – 1 vacant), the OH House (53 D – 46 R), and the PA House (104 D – 98 R – 1 vacant). Close behind would be the TX House (73D – 77 R),
As Storey points out, in 44 states redistricting by state legislatures is a critical issue of concern with respect to national politics (6 states that have special commission-like structures for that purpose). Further,

The 2011 redistricting could be the first time since the era of modern redistricting began in the 1980s, following the 1960s landmark Supreme Court decisions on redistricting and the evolution of the process in the 1970s, that Republicans have the redistricting edge in the states, and it could be substantial. If November 2nd is a big Republican wave election, it could give the GOP sole redistricting authority in the drawing of more than 160 U.S. House districts–nearly six times more than their Democratic counterparts. Under this scenario, the bulk of the seats redrawn in the 2011 redistricting, about 200, will be in states with divided partisan control. The stakes for this November’s legislative elections could not be higher. It’s shaping up to be a year of historic volatility in state legislative elections.

In addition to redistricting concerns, adds Storey, “Legislatures enact over 20,000 new laws every year” and spend “about $1.5 trillion” in taxpayer money annually.”
Looking at the big picture, it’s possible Dems could lose some state legislatures, but still have control in a plurality of states. What may be more important in terms of congressional seats and the electoral college is what happens in the aforementioned larger states, especially TX, which is expected to gain as many as 3 or 4 U.S. House of Reps. seats. Perhaps Democratic contributors would do well to send a little love to the state Democratic Party organizations in NY, PA, OH and TX.