Tom Baxter, political reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has an eyebrow-lifter for those who see the south as irretrievably red. Baxter’s article compares fund-raising of presidential candidates’ of both parties, and reports:

Democratic presidential candidates collected about 62 percent of the $1.6 million raised from Georgians in the first three months of 2007.
Democrats also led presidential fund-raising in Georgia in the same quarter leading up to the 2000 presidential election — the last race without an incumbent. But back then, their hold on the dollars wasn’t nearly as tight: Democrats led Republicans by just $36,000.
Now Democrats are leading Republicans by $382,000 — a gap more than 10 times greater — according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis of first-quarter presidential contributions.

Baxter notes that Barack Obama topped all other candidates of both parties in Georgia, with Romney second and Edwards third. Baxter adds:

One striking facet of the Democrat’s first-quarter resurgence in the South: It isn’t based on just one candidate.
In North Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, Democrats held the overall advantage, and Edwards was the top fund-raiser. In Florida and Virginia, Democrats collected the most, with U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) as the overall leader. Democrats also took in more in Kentucky, with Obama in the lead.
Only four states in the region — South Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas and Texas — gave more money overall to Republican presidential candidates. And in South Carolina, Edwards was the leading individual candidate.

Natch, the Republican spin doctors quoted in the article pooh-pooh the Democratic Presidential candidates lead as a temporary phenomenon. Going by the numbers, however, it appears that southern Donkeys still have some kick.

Bill Scher of Liberal Oasis has an instructive riff on the Dodd-Gingrich debate on Sunday’s Meet the Press. On one level, it was an odd pairing — a ‘second-tier’ Democratic candidate who has one of the more impressive resumes in the field vs. an all-but announced Republican, who is arguably one of his party’s most creative strategists. First, thanks to Russert for giving the nation more of an in-depth, head-t-head look at somebody besides the front-runners. But Scher picked up on something important that concerns all Dems who are faced with debating Republicans:

Dodd didn’t say anything that was abhorrent. But he missed an opportunity to frontally challenge and decimate the neocon “World War III” foreign policy vision offered by Newt, and clearly contrast that fundamentally flawed vision with his own alternative.
…Dodd chose to blur distinctions by saying he agrees with Newt about “the war on terror.” In fact, he doesn’t…Dodd sees the difference between terrorists that must be opposed and isolated, and distasteful but rational state governments where the possibility of successful diplomacy not only exists, but can help advance democratic reform and weaken terrorist threats.
It’s a fundamental difference that should be clarified and brought into the open.
If Dodd squarely put his vision up against Newt’s, showing the moral and pragmatic superiority of his vision, that could have turned heads and helped him break out of the second-tier.
Instead, by blurring distinctions, Dodd made some decent points that will soon be forgotten.

Dodd’s longevity in the Senate indicates he is no slouch when it comes to winning elections and making needed distinctions, and generally he is one of the Democrats’ better debaters. But this presidential race is being run in the middle of an elective war that many believe is the worst foreign policy disaster in U.S. history. Now is not a good time to rely on subtle distinctions. Sher’s point is well-taken.

With the presidential election 17 months out, it may seem a little early to be paying a lot of attention to the horse race polls. But Super Tuesday is 8 and 1/2 months away, and that seems a good time to begin monitoring the Democratic polls. To put the polls in perspective, start with Chris Bowers’ post, “Inflated Clinton Poll Theory: Prudence Sets In” at MyDD. Bowers argues that averaging polls gives the best snapshot:

With so many polls, it just seems unlikely to me that one extreme Clinton-Obama margin or the other is absolutely correct, or that one methodology or the other is absolutely correct. When has there ever been a large, hidden vote out that that most pollsters were missing? Outside of the Iowa caucuses and post-Katrina New Orleans, the answer over the last thirty years has been “basically never.” These days, the worst-case scenario is for poll averages to be about six points off the final margin, which isn’t that bad and can be accounted for in margin of error and turnout programs.
…At this point, with so many different polls floating around, with so many different methodologies, with about half of the primary and caucus electorate not even paying “somewhat” close attention, and with an ever-changing and developing campaign, the simple fact is that widely varying results among polls is unavoidable…
Average the polls–all of the polls–and don’t dismiss any of them just because they seem odd or you don’t like the results for your candidate. Right now, that would indicate that Clinton is probably up by 10-12 points. And so she probably is. However, as the differences between the varying polls shows, there is still a lot of movement left in this electorate. It ain’t over until February 6th.

In his previous post Bowers discussed some of the problems with the most recent polls, noting:

Could the difference be social pressure, where Democrats don’t tell live-interviewers that they are currently leaning against Clinton? Rasmussen’s numbers consistently back up that theory, but those produced by Harris do not. Could it be that traditional live-interview polls and newer polling methodologies sample different universes of voters, thus producing different results? Possibly, but even if that is the case, it is extremely difficult to say which group of polls is sampling a more representative universe right now, both because we don’t know who will vote in the 2008 primaries and because few polling firms release comprehensive crosstabs and methodologies. Could it simply be that when it comes to the 2008 Democratic nomination, live-interview polls are growing less useful due to the rising wireless-only population and social pressure, or that newer techniques are not yet able to achieve the same level of accuracy as traditional methods? Both are possible, but neither can be confirmed at this time.

The rapid increase in wireless only voters does present an interesting challenge to pollsters. Pollster.com’s Mark Blumenthal sheds some fresh light on the problem here.

Chris Kromm has an encouraging update on the effort to render the Electoral College irrelevant at Facing South. As Kromm reports on recent action by the North Carolina state senate:

This week, North Carolina became the latest state chamber to endorse a direct popular vote, as the Charlotte Observer reports:
“North Carolina would enter a compact that could eliminate the power of the Electoral College system to choose a president, according to a bill that passed the Senate Monday night. If agreed to by states representing a majority of the nation’s 538 electoral votes, the measure would require North Carolina to give its electoral votes to the candidate who wins the popular vote nationwide.”
Nationwide, 41 bills have been introduced. In Maryland, it’s been signed by the governor, and both of Hawaii’s legislative chambers have passed the hill. North Carolina is now one of five states where it’s passed at least one house, the others being Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois, and most recently California…And if states that represent a majority of the current 538 Electoral College votes form a compact to do away with the system, they can move the country to direct popular vote for President and Vice President.

North Carolina being a moderate to moderately-conservative state, the action of its state senate bodes well for the popular vote campaign nation-wide. Apparently, this movement has some legs.

There is a nice photo of Coretta Scott King standing behind Ronald Reagan as he grudgingly signs the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday bill in the Rose Garden back in 1983. The most appropriate caption for the photo would be “Checkmate!,” since Reagan did not want to sign the bill and was no fan of Dr. King, or the reforms his leadership secured.
Republican apologists for Reagan are quick to note his signing of the King holiday legislation as indicative of his commitment to equality. But Reagan’s dismal track record on issues of racial injustice is not likely to be recounted in much detail during the GOP convention in Summer ’08. For that, you can read Alec Dubro’s TomPaine.com article “Reagan White As Snow,” which lays out the former President’s sorry record of opposition to civil rights. Dubro quotes a nut graph from Sydney Blumenthal’s article in The Guardian.”

Reagan opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, opposed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (calling it “humiliating to the South”), and ran for governor of California in 1966 promising to wipe the Fair Housing Act off the books. “If an individual wants to discriminate against Negroes or others in selling or renting his house,” he said, “he has a right to do so.” After the Republican convention in 1980, Reagan traveled to the county fair in Neshoba, Mississippi, where, in 1964, three Freedom Riders had been slain by the Ku Klux Klan. Before an all-white crowd of tens of thousands, Reagan declared: “I believe in states’ rights.”

Dubro adds:

But it was in foreign affairs that he showed that he could rise above mere opportunism and flaunt his racism for all the world to see. He was the best friend that South Africa’s apartheid government had in the developed world.
Reagan consistently opposed taking any stand against the Pretoria regime, no matter what their sins. His administration created a policy called “constructive engagement,” which meant no sanctions.
When the pressure for sanctions grew too great, even within the Republican Party, Reagan refused to relent, claiming the sanctions would hurt black workers. In 1986, Reagan vetoed a congressional sanctions vote, this time claiming that it would help the communist ANC. Moreover, “the U.S., he added, ‘must stay and build, not cut and run’.” When Congress overrode the veto, Reagan made sure that the law was barely carried out.

All of this would be history, except for the GOP’s effort to use Reagan as their poster-boy for Republican philosophy and values, since the current Republican President’s approval ratings are abysmal. As Dubro notes:

…Reagan showed that he was an implacable foe of racial integration of any sort, domestic or foreign, and would use any tactic to block its implementation. If any of the Republican candidates for president are ignorant of Reagan’s wretched conduct, it’s because they refuse to look.

For more good links on Reagan-glorification as a GOP tactic, see our recent post, “Reagan Myth to Cast ’08 Shadow.” And do not miss Frank Rich’s recent column on Reagan’s legacy and the GOP.

Miriam Jordan’s WSJ article “Univision Gives Citizenship Drive An Unusual Lift” no doubt comes as unwelcome news in GOP circles.
Jordan reports that Univision Communications, Inc., America’s largest Spanish language broadcasting network, is sponsoring an energized nation-wide campaign to help millions of green card-holders become citizens. In the greater Los Angeles area alone, citizenship applications have more than doubled in the first three months of the campaign, which began in January, compared to the same period in ’06. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has extended the terms of 40 immigration adjudicators to process the upsurge in citizenship applications.
The campaign is rapidly spreading eastward, and is underway in Phoenix, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Miami. It usually takes six or seven months to complete the naturalization process. In 2008, the second stage of the campaign will focus on getting the new citizens registered to vote. The impact could be decisive, as Jordan explains:

Latinos have had a lower voter-participation rate than others — in 2004, 47% of those eligible voted, compared with 67% of whites and 60% of blacks, according to Pew Hispanic Center tabulations. However, Latino immigrants who become citizens report higher rates of political participation than native-born Latinos, according to Pew.
If the citizenship campaign culminates in two million to three million new Hispanic voters, “that could turn the tide in several states,” including Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada, says Sergio Bendixen, a pollster who specializes in ethnic markets. In 2004, Republicans won by a small margin in those states.”

An energetic naturalization campaign has long been needed to help resolve America’s immigration problems. Now that one has been launched, Democrats can reasonably expect a significant advantage with these new voters. A 60-40 break favoring Dems among the new voters would not be unreasonable, given recent voting trends. Naturalization applicants currently pay a $400 fee, which does not augur well for America’s commitment to equal opportunity. No surprise that Republicans want to raise the fee, and we can expect other obstructionist tactics leading up to the election.

Democrats now have an extraordinary opportunity to win the support of a large and rapidly-growing majority of Americans concerned about energy independence and global warming. Large majorities now favor strong action to address these crises, according to a strategy memo written by Al Quinlan, Stan Greenberg, and the Center for American Progress’s John Podesta.
The memo is based in part on a survey by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner for the Center for American Progress, conducted 3/19-22. Among the findings of the poll:

More than 3/4 of people believe the effects of global warming are already here.
Americans want immediate action on global warming – 60 percent believe that increasing pollution has set global warming into motion and “we must take action now or it will be too late to stop it.”
Unlike other issues before Congress and the President there is no strong partisan divide on stopping global warming.

Further, concern about energy and global warming “now rivals health care as the top domestic issue that requires immediate action.”
The strategy memo also drew from the findings of a GQR research report, noting that that 64 percent of Americans favored immediate action “to make our country less dependent on oil and move to cleaner, alternative energy sources” and 65 percent agreed that our energy policy “is seriously off on the wrong track.”
According to the strategy memo, the most compelling messages and themes to use when talking about these issues include:

Messaging must be inspirational and build off the strong belief that America can do anything once we make the commitment. Americans are ready for their leaders to summon the willpower to act now.
Freedom, independence and self sufficiency are the essence of what the public believes is our ultimate energy goal. When asked in focus groups, people cited independence and self sufficiency as the most important objectives in an energy plan.
We should take the offensive, not defensive, in the economic debate and advance a message that production of clean, alternative energy will help to restore America as a leader in the world economy, create future jobs, higher incomes and put us back in the forefront of world economic advancement.

Global warming, skyrocketing gas prices and the horrible mess in Iraq are all linked to our deepening addiction to oil. The American people clearly get it and want reforms to secure energy independence from imported oil in particular and to reduce our dependency on oil in general. Only one political party has the potential to provide the needed leadership — and the hour for action has now arrived.

In These Times Senior Editor David Moberg has an article for Democrats seeking a sharper perspective on free trade vs. fair trade policy choices. Moberg’s article “Making Trade Work for Everyone: Voters aren’t happy with the reality of free trade—and Democrats are starting to listen” makes the case that trade is shaping up as a major issue in upcomming elections:

The November elections—when 37 House and Senate seats changed from “free trade” to “fair trade”—created a Democratic majority that needed to stake out a new position on trade. Globalization and offshoring of jobs ranked among the electorate’s top issues, according to polls by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research and Public Agenda. Results in key races indicate that Democrats could have picked up even more seats with a stronger message on global economic issues, according to an analysis by Chris Slevin and Todd Tucker of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, an organization critical of corporate-backed free trade.

Moberg offers some numbers to back his claim:

In a March Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, Americans agreed, by a margin of 46 percent to 28 percent, that trade deals have harmed the United States. And late last year, a Pew Research Center poll found that nearly 44 percent of the people surveyed thought free trade had lowered wages, compared to 11 percent who thought it had raised wages.

Moberg addresses a range of current trade-related concerns and reform proposals, including: making worker rights in nations we trade with a priority; job training; broader health care coverage; pension reform; unemployment insurance; currency revaluation; and a “strategic pause” in negotiating new trade agrements. For Dems wanting to get up to speed on trade issues, Moberg’s article is a keeper.

One tactic Republicans never tire of deploying is impugning the patriotism of Democrats who want to end/de-fund U.S. military occupation of Iraq. As Bush recently said in just one version of a frequently-uttered GOP meme:

…Members of the House and the Senate passed a bill that substitutes the opinions of politicians for the judgment of our military commanders.

One of the more effective responses for Dems is to call the roll of military brass who also believe Bush’s Iraq misadventure is a disaster. It is a lengthening list, and The Nation‘s John Nichols has a round-up of the latest quotes of America’s more thoughtful military leaders here. A couple of samples from Nichols’ post:

The President vetoed our troops and the American people,” says retired Maj. Gen. John Batiste. “His stubborn commitment to a failed strategy in Iraq is incomprehensible. He committed our great military to a failed strategy in violation of basic principles of war. His failure to mobilize the nation to defeat world wide Islamic extremism is tragic. We deserve more from our commander-in-chief and his administration.

Or this, from another former Major General, Paul Eaton:

This administration and the previously Republican-controlled legislature have been the most caustic agents against America’s Armed Forces in memory. Less than a year ago, the Republicans imposed great hardship on the Army and Marine Corps by their failure to pass a necessary funding language. This time, the President of the United States is holding our Soldiers hostage to his ego.

There’s more from our military leaders in Nichols’ article. Nichols sums it up:

Add the public statements of the retired generals together with the behind-the-scenes expressions of frustration from current commanders and they form the most powerful tool that Congressional Democrats have in what will ultimately be a negotiation not with Bush but with the American people–a negotiation that, the president well understands, is about the question of which side is playing politics and which side is listening to military commanders and supporting the troops.

Democrats would do well to keep a file on the growing list of military leaders and former leaders who have the integrity to tell the truth about Bush’s Iraq policy, and Dems should be ready to cite their names and message points. Republicans will be less quick to impugn their patriotism.

The first presidential primary debates of both parties made it clear that only one party embraces a commitment to government policies to help people living in poverty. Fortunately for Dems, an increasing percentage of Americans are embracing this commitment as well, according to analysis of recent polls conducted by Ruy Teixeira. As Teixeira reports in his Center for American Progress post “Public Opinion Snapshot: Americans Extend Helping Hand to the Poor“:

Politicians tend to avoid the subject of poverty on the theory that voters aren’t very interested in helping the poor. Yet public opinion data consistently shows that the public is very willing to extend a helping hand to the least fortunate in society.
…A survey conducted by the Pew Research Center in January of this year, for example, shows that 69 percent agree that “the government should guarantee every citizen enough to eat and a place to sleep” and an identical 69 percent agree that “it is the responsibility of the government to take care of people who can’t take care of themselves.” These figures are up 10 and 12 points respectively relative to their recent low point in 1994.
Americans are also willing to consider a wide range of options for helping the poor…an NPR/Kaiser Family Foundation/Harvard poll from 2001…shows, four proposals garnered 80 percent support or higher: expanding subsidized day care, increasing the minimum wage, spending more for medical care for poor people, and increasing the tax credit for low-income workers. Yet every option offered, even increasing cash assistance for families, received majority support.

Teixeira’s post includes a set of graphics showing strong support for a host of anti-poverty measures, and includes a link to the Center for American Progress Task Force on Poverty policy report “From Poverty to Prosperity: A National Strategy to Cut Poverty in Half” — highly recommended for Democrats interested in anti-poverty reforms.