Is the evangelical movement evolving into more of a bipartisan force? Frances Fitzgerald thinks so and presents a persuasive case for this viewpoint in her New York Review of Books article “The Evangelical Surprise.” This trend has been noted before, but Fitzgerald does a particularly good job of bringing it all together and up to date. Fitzgerald explains:

Statistically, the extreme conservatism of the traditionalists skews the picture of the community as a whole. In fact, “modernist” evangelicals—defined as those who go to church infrequently and don’t hold to a literal interpretation of the Bible—have more liberal views on all issues, including abortion and gay rights, than the American population as a whole, but there are relatively very few of them. “Centrists,” or those who fall somewhere in the theological middle and make up almost half of all evangelicals, are no more conservative than Americans generally except on abortion and gay rights, and even on these issues they are far more moderate than the traditionalists.[9] In other words, half of the evangelical population doesn’t see eye to eye with the other half. In the future the division may become more acute because while the Christian right leaders have become more ambitious and more aggressive as a result of their victories, centrist leaders have, for the first time, begun to assert themselves.

Fitzgerald discusses a number of surprisingly liberal initiatives launched by moderate evangelical leaders, including some that should make Republicans a little nervous about their base. One example:

In October 2004, the National Association of Evangelicals, an umbrella organization of denominations and churches that claims thirty million members, issued a position paper laying out ten principles for Christian political engagement. The document, “For the Health of the Nation,” called upon evangelicals to seek justice for the poor, to protect human rights, to seek peace, and to protect God’s creation—as well as to protect the sanctity of human life and nurture families. Carefully drawn up so as not to provoke right-wing opposition, the document gave official sanction to the efforts of the more progressive leaders to move, at a national level, beyond both the religious right agenda and the traditional evangelical approach to good works.

Fitzgerald quotes John Giles, president of Christian Action Alabama, in defining key wedge issues that can break the GOP’s leverage with evangelicals:

We can all unite around a few core issues, such as abortion, pornography and gambling,” he said. “But when you start talking about global warming, the minimum wage or the death penalty, the consensus breaks down.”…Dobson and Perkins have said much the same thing.

If Fitzgerald is right, the widening political fissures in the evangelical movement are an invitation to Democratic strategists looking to mine potential sources of new support.

Bill Maher has a Salon post on the Administration’s mediocrity/incompetence fetish that provides more belly laughs per column inch than anything you’re likely to find on the internet today. A sample (excerpted for brevity) from Maher’s riff on Monica Goodling’s educational qualifications for her post overseeing the job performance of 95 U.S. attorneys:

I’m not kidding, Pat Robertson, the man who said gay people at DisneyWorld would cause “earthquakes, tornadoes, and possibly a meteor,” has a law school. It’s called Regent…U.S. News and World Report, which does the definitive ranking of colleges, lists Regent as a tier-four school, which is the lowest score it gives. It’s not a hard school to get into. You have to renounce Satan and draw a pirate on a matchbook.

Maher’s larger point is that the GOP is forever blasting Democrats for being ‘elitists,’ while they staff high-level government posts with empty suits. “The problem here in America,” notes Maher “isn’t that the country is being run by elites. It’s that it’s being run by a bunch of hayseeds.” Not a bad one-liner retort for progressives, when slimed with the GOP’s “elitist” critique in political debates, although it might be better to substitute “dimwits” for hayseeds, since these numbskulls come from everywhere. More chuckles await readers at Maher’s post. Go there and grin.

Eyal Press has an article in The Nation, “The New Suburban Poverty,” noting a demographic milestone that should elicit the attention of Democratic campaign strategists:

For the first time ever, more poor Americans live in the suburbs than in all our cities combined.

The implications for political strategy in federal, state and local elections are substantial. In terms of policy, it means elected officials and political aspirants will have to rethink the delivery of needed social services to less dense areas. Funding those services adequately will be an increasing concern in the years ahead, especially for the growing number of middle class families who have fled the cities, expecting lower property taxes.
In terms of election strategy, Party leaders and candidates will have to rethink everthing from redistricting to GOTV logistics. It also requires some mental housecleaning regarding existing stereotypes of suburban life, as Press notes:

Stories of downward mobility in America’s suburbs have not exactly cluttered the headlines over the past decade. Gated communities of dream homes, mansions ringed by man-made lakes and glass-cube office parks: These are the images typically evoked by the posh, supersized subdivisions built during the 1990s technology boom. Low-wage jobs, houses under foreclosure, families unable to afford food and medical care are not. But venture beyond the city limits of any major metropolitan area today, and you will encounter these things, in forms less concentrated–and therefore less visible–than in the more blighted pockets of our cities perhaps, but with growing frequency all the same.

And it’s not just the inner ‘burbs, as Press explains:

Last December the Brookings Institution published a report showing that from Las Vegas to Boise to Houston, suburban poverty has been growing over the past seven years, in some places slowly, in others by as much as 33 percent. “The enduring social and fiscal challenges for cities that stem from high poverty are increasingly shared by their suburbs,” the report concludes. It’s a problem some may assume is confined to the ragged fringes of so-called “inner ring” suburbs that directly border cities, places where the housing stock is older and from which many wealthier residents long ago departed. But this isn’t the case. “Overall…first suburbs did not bear the brunt of increasing suburban poverty in the early 2000s,” notes the Brookings report, which found that economic distress has spread to “second-tier suburbs and ‘exurbs'” as well.

Savvy demographic and polical analysts have seen this trend coming for a while. Still, the milestone should ring a few bells in the war rooms of Democratic political campaigns. We’ll resist the temptation to quote more of Press’s excelent article — a must-read for those who want a more realistic vision of America’s political geography.

Republicans hoping that their long slide into public disfavor had hit rock bottom have been sorely disappointed by a DCorps survey of LV’s conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner 3/20-25. The DCorps poll found that Dems now enjoy a 14 point advantage among LV’s asked to state their preference “if the election were held today” for a named Dem congressional candidate vs. a generic GOP opponent. This is the highest margin recorded since November and double the margin reported in 2006. And, in districts that switched parties in ’06, the margin favoring Dems was an astounding 35 percent.
The GOP’s image as the best party for “keeping people safe” is looking a little ragged as well. Asked which party “you associate more” with “security and keeping people safe,” respondents chose the GOP by a margin of 6 percent — down from 17 percent.
The DCorps survey, which was conducted between the House of Reps passage of the Iraq Supplemental Spending Bill and the Senate’s version, also found strong support for troop reductions. But respondents were “fairly divided” on the pace of withdrawall, with 49 percent concerned that Republicans will “wait too long” and 45 percent worried that “Democrats will leave Iraq too quickly.”

Jeffrey Feldman’s post “Frameshop: The Identity Voter” at his website frameshopisopen.com sheds light on an elusive group Democratic campaigns may need to consider in developing strategy. Feldman defines the identity voter thusly:

A person who chooses to support a political candidate primarily for the social and cultural aspects of the person (e.g., gender, race, geography, class, etc.), and only secondarily if at all for the policies of the politician.

It would be difficult to come up with a meaningful estimate of how many identity voters there are in the U.S., since many would not like to admit that issues and policy are not their top priorities. Yet we probably all know a few identity voters.
It’s not as simple as supporting candidates who have the voter’s background, as Feldman explains:

Being an identity voter does not mean, of course, voting for a candidate who is the same identity as oneself. Blacks vote for blacks, women for women, whites for whites–this would be more a form of mechanistic political tribalism than identity voting.
…There are, in other words, plenty of white identity voters, for example, who will support Barack Obama “because he is African-America” and plenty of male identity voters who will support Hillary Clinton “because she is a woman.”

Feldman could have added middle class liberals who support Edwards because they like his working class background, or WASPs who like Richards because they want to see more Hispanic leadership. Feldman sees both good and bad sides to identity voting — good that more Democratic voters are open to greater diversity of candidates, but bad that issues and policy are subordinate or worse, distant priorities.
Because of the diversity of the field of Democratic presidential candidates, Feldman believes that identity voters may play an unprecedented role in determining the ’08 outcome. If he’s right, the Democratic ticket will be challenged to craft an appeal to identity voters that doesn’t alienate those who vote for different reasons — not an easy task. (The first chapter of Feldman’s new book “Framing the Debate,” appears in today’s New York Times Sunday Book Review and a review of the book appears here.)
Meanwhile, Dems should vigorously deploy a grand strategy directed at all voters. In his book “Being Right Is Not Enough,” Democratic strategist Paul Waldman argues, for example, that Dem candidates must above all communicate character and values to voters, with policy and “framing” serving as tools to support this greater goal. Candidates who master this challenge will likely win the support of most identity voters, since good character and values are respected in all cultures.

Knew that headline would get your attention. We speak here of Florida Governor Charlie Crist, who last Thursday approved a measure to restore voting rights to an estimated 950,000 Floridian ex-felons, about 9 percent of the voting-age population of the Sunshine State. Crist’s initiative has political observers scratching their heads. How much of a political impact could it have? Salon‘s Farhad Manjoo puts it this way:

The ex-cons belong to traditionally Democratic demographics — many are African-American, and many are poor. If they’re allowed to vote, they’ll likely go to the polls at lower rates than everyone else; Uggen and Manza’s work suggests felons turn out to vote at about the half the general turnout rate in any given election. But in a state as closely divided politically as Florida, that could still make all the difference. In the past several decades, say Uggen and Manza, at least two Senate races in Florida would have gone to Democrats instead of Republicans had felons had the right to vote. Buddy McKay would have beaten Connie Mack in 1988, and Betty Castor would have beaten Mel Martinez in 2004. And, of course, the 2000 presidential election would have gone to Al Gore. Uggen and Manza’s research suggests Gore might have picked up 60,000 votes from felons……if the state’s ex-cons had been allowed to vote in 2000, George W. Bush would now be the commissioner of baseball.

Also check out Nancy Scola’s take on the topic at MyDD, “Felon Enfranchisement: Florida Vs. Rhode Island,” which puts the movement to restore voting rights to America’s ex felons in perspective.

Horse-race polls will get more interesting in September when voters pay increased attention. In evaluating the Party’s preparedness for a full-scale campaign, the Dems overall political image looks very good. Pollster.com’s Mark Blumenthal reports, for example, that a new Diageo-Hotline survey shows a generic Dem candidate leads a generic GOP candidate 47%-29% in a white house ’08 matchup.
Blumenthal’s link-rich article also provides some instructive insights about how generic candidate polls work, along with this thoughtful appraisal of their limitations:

…This far out, I believe that a generic vote question tells us mostly about the way voters perceive the national political parties. While those images apparently give the Democrats a huge early advantage – a finding that is certainly informative about the voters’ current attitudes – the ultimate nominees of each party and their campaign messages will likely reshape those images. So, for my money, the generic vote remains something of questionable value in tracking where the race will be in 18 months.

Very true about the limited predictive value, and same goes for candidate horse-race polls this far out. But any poll that gives Dems an 18 percent advantage with voters is welcome news in assessing the Party’s image, which needs to be strong if Dems want an ’08 sweep. Now it would be interesting to see polls showing which themes are resonating with those who prefer a generic Democrat and which motivate those favoring Republicans.

The first hump-day in April yields a trio of blogosphere articles of interest to political strategy-watchers. Start with the buzz about DLC Chair Harold Ford’s pitch for Democratic consensus on a half-dozen key issues at TPM Cafe, and the broad range of friendly and hostile reactions to his overture. (New Donkey Ed Kilgore fleshes out Ford’s proposal, and a progressives have at it.) The tone of discussion around Ford’s proposals gets a little strident on both sides, but, hey, that’s what Dems do.
Over at Slate, Joshua Glen has a provocative review article on Stephen Duncombe’s book ‘Dream.’ Glen’s review, entitled “Grand Theft Politics: Should Democrats look to video games for inspiration?” has this to say about the state of progressive activism:

In a new book, Dream, NYU media professor and political activist Stephen Duncombe laments that progressives have become … well, tedious. The people who built the New Deal and led the civil rights struggle are now engaging in old-fashioned, top-down political practices. These days, whether you attend a rally, sign a petition, or forward a MoveOn e-mail, it can be a disempowering experience. Duncombe is not contemptuous of the traditional anti-war demonstrations against Iraq, but, he argues, obscured within these and other well-intended political actions is “a philosophy of passive political spectatorship: they organize, we come; they talk, we listen.”

It does sometimes seem as if the day when big progressive demos were influential has come and gone, and the GOP is nowadays more imaginative with their political “spectacles.” On the other hand, there is probably more creative grassroots activism going on now than ever before through netroots projects, which have proven to be quite effective, judging by the ’06 elections.
Rob Richie and Ryan O’Donnell report on an innovative effort at electoral reform in their TomPaine.com article, “Making the Popular Vote a Winner.” The authors explain how the new initiative works:

Today most states give their electoral votes to the winner of the statewide popular vote, but they could just as easily award them to the national vote winner in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. If a group of states representing a majority of the Electoral College entered into a binding agreement to do so, then the nationwide popular vote winner would achieve an Electoral College victory every time.
…The National Popular Vote compact will go into effect only if in July of a presidential election year the number of participating states collectively have a majority of at least 270 electoral votes. At that point, the compact is triggered, with states accepting a blackout period during which they cannot withdraw from the agreement until the new president takes office. That new president is guaranteed to be the candidate who won the most votes from Americans in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
National Popular Vote has had remarkable success since going public in February 2006. California ‘s Assembly and Senate in California passed the plan in 2006, as did the Colorado Senate, Hawaii Senate and Arkansas House this year. Nationally nearly 300 state legislators representing nearly every state have sponsored the plan or pledged to do so.
…While it’s unlikely that enough states will be on board by next July to affect the 2008 election, we think it will be the last state-by-state election for president in our history. It couldn’t come any sooner. In today’s climate of partisan polarization, the current system shuts out most of the country from meaningful participation by turning naturally “purple” states into simple “red” and “blue.”

Sounds like a plan which could prevent a replay of the 2000 debacle, and that’s a good thing.

Presidential candidates, including Democrats, have historically been a little gun-shy when it comes to supporting liberalization of archaic drug laws. That may soon change, thanks to Governor Bill Richardson, who just signed into law a bill making New Mexico the 12th state to protect patients using medical marijuana from arrest. The other states are Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.
Asked by the Associated Press about the political risk involved, Richardson replied “So what if it’s risky? It’s the right thing to do…This is for medicinal purpose, for … people that are suffering. My God, let’s be reasonable.”
It’s not likely that Richardson’s presidential campaign will suffer as a result. Opinion polls taken in the 21st century indicate that between 70 and 80 percent of the public supports protecting medical marijuana users from arrest. Indeed, the interesting question is whether Richardson may win votes as a result. Federal government statistics indicate that 80 million Americans admit they have smoked marijuana, 20 million during the last year.
Yet more than 5 million Americans have been arrested for marijuana offenses during the last decade, 90 percent for simple possession. About 700,000 Americans were arrested for marijuana-related offenses during the last year. As former President Jimmy Carter has said “Penalties against drug use should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself. Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against the possession of marijuana in private for personal use.” In singing the legislation, Richardson may have enhanced his image as a practical problem-solver. Democratic Presidential candidates John Edwards and Dennis Kucinich have said they oppose arresting and jailing patients who use medical marijuana, as did former Democratic Presidential nominee John Kerry. Kucinich supports decriminalization of marijuana smoking. Senators Obama and Clinton have no information about their positions on medical marijuana on their web pages. Former President Clinton came out in favor of decriminalization of marijuana possession in 2000, softening his previous hard line position against medical marijuana.

Democratic communications consultant John Neffinger has an interesting piece at the HuffPo on the power of communications skills to trump positions on the issues, especially with swing voters. Riffing on a recent post by Slate’s chief political correspondent John Dickerson pooh poohing the candidacy of former Senator Fred Thompson, Neffinger makes a convincing argument that Dems who think issues positions are more important than communication skills for winning elections are courting defeat. Neffinger cites three studies to back his argument and says:

…Swing voters by definition are not strongly committed to the policy views of one side or the other. For many of them, compelling language and policy positions are as important for how they shape their feelings about the candidate as they are for their own virtues. (Just to be clear, no one is disputing that sound ideas are critical to governing well. We’re just talking about getting elected.)
Is this scary? Sure. Unwelcome? Clearly. Contrary to everything we ever learned about democracy, from kindergarten through the Federalist Papers? Absolutely. And even though it can work in our favor too (e.g., Bill Clinton), it is profoundly dispiriting, to say the least, to realize how unhinged the process is from the issues that ultimately matter in governing.
But better to face that reality now, while we can still do something about it, than to place our faith in the fairy-tale version of democracy and be left grasping for excuses after we lose.

Neffinger notes the irony that the ‘party of science’ ignores studies that show how voters make their choices, while the ‘party of faith’ takes it very much into their political calculations:

Democrats feel wronged when swing voters let emotion cloud their view of reality, but our side often doesn’t grasp the reality of how swing voters make up their minds because we can’t get past our own emotional attachment to the power of ideas. We accuse swing voters of voting capriciously, irrationally, but if we were only rational ourselves, we could easily see why they do.
In fact, unlike blinkered Democrats, in some ways swing voters are acting perfectly rationally by voting with their gut (yet another irony, if you’re still counting). For voters who don’t pay close attention to issues, it’s not easy to figure out which positions are best (not least because conservative think tanks and media do an excellent job at muddying the waters of debates democrats would otherwise win). So what can a casual voter do? Go with what they know. Every day they make judgments about people they interact with, size ’em up, trust their instincts. So they use the same method to pick a candidate.

Most Democrats old enough to remember Reagan’s first campaigns will recall how he was dismissed by many Dems who said “Oh come on. He’s an actor,” or something similar. Large groups of voters screwed by Reagan again and again still voted to re-elect him, beyond all reason. Let’s not make the same mistaken assumptions about Thompson.