Tina Dupuy: False equivalency benefits the right. A pox on both your houses disengages people from the political process and that helps Republicans. As we’ve seen in the midterms: When fewer people vote, more Republicans get into office.
Repackaging the Message
By
Tom Degan: According to Repubicans they lost big during the campaign of 2012 – not because their ideas were beyond atrocious (perish the thought) – but because those ideas weren’t “packaged” properly.
Why Pollsters Missed the Latino Vote – 2012 Edition
By
Matt Barretto: Accurately polling the Latino electorate is important not just to get a correct portrait of Latino voters, but because they are such a large part of the overall electorate.
What Center?
By
Joseph Palermo: The political “center” of American politics is a moving target. And for the last thirty years it has moved in only one direction: Rightward.
A Pro-Democracy Movement in the USA
By
Lydia Howell: The Democratic and Republican parties’ political monopoly works just like Wal-Mart does in small towns across the country: competition is crushed and an already powerful, wealthy minority is furthered emboldened to act against the public interest; it faces neither accountability nor electoral opposition.
After the Midterms: Why Democrats Move to the Center, and Republicans Don’t
By
Robert Reich: Republicans are cynical about politics from the jump. Political cynicism fuels them. Democrats are idealistic about politics. When they become cynical they tend to drop out.
Republican Economics as Social Darwinism
By
Robert Reich: John Boehner, the Republican House leader who will become Speaker if Democrats lose control of the House in the upcoming midterms, recently offered his solution to the current economic crisis: “Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmer, liquidate real estate. It will purge the rottenness out of the system. People will work harder, lead a more moral life.”
The Defining Issue: Who Should Get the Tax Cut — The Rich or Everyone Else?
By
Robert Reich: Republicans are hell bent on demanding an extension of the Bush tax cut for their patrons at the top, or else they’ll pull the plug on tax cuts for the middle class. This is a gift for the Democrats.
The Crackpot Gap: Why It May Be A Boon To Democrats But A Danger To America
By
Robert Reich: We’re in the midst of an ongoing economic emergency that requires clear thinking, intense work, and practical ideas. It also requires that we join together rather than be pushed apart. The loonies who are taking over the GOP pose a real and present danger.
The Enthusiasm Gap and You
By
Robert Reich: Average Americans are hurting. But their pain isn’t coming from government. It’s coming from an economy whose benefits are concentrating ever more at the top, whose giant corporations are controlling ever more of our democratic process, and whose costs and risks are becoming ever more burdensome for the middle class and the poor
The Obama Plot for a Carbon Tax
By
Robert Reich: Tuesday night, President Obama did not call for a tax on carbon. He didn’t even ask the Senate to pass the cap-and-trade legislation that emerged from the House. Instead, he said there were lots of good ideas out there and he’s willing to consider any of them — which seemed more like a way of declaring cap-and-trade dead.
Could 2010 Be a Good Year for Democrats After All?
By
Paul Hogarth: With Congress having finally passed health care reform, pundits are saying President Obama has gotten his “second wind” – and the conventional wisdom is being revisited. Could it be the 2010 midterms will be a good election for Democrats, and Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts was just their low point?
From “Fired Up and Ready to Go” to “Tired Out and Staying Home”
By
Joseph Palermo: During the Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush years the center of American politics was pushed about a hundred degrees to the Right. Obama gets elected and tries to move it about a half degree leftward and all we hear are screams of “socialism!”
Evan Bayh and Partisan America
By
Robert Reich: The real problem isn’t partisanship. Bold views and strong positions are fine. Democratic debate and deliberation can be enhanced by them. The problem is the intransigence and belligerence that has taken over Congress and much of the rest of the public — a profound distrust of people “on the other side,” an unwillingness to compromise, a bitterness and anger disproportionate to issues being discussed.
What’s Ahead for the Economy and Politics in 2010
By
Robert Reich: Issue Number One — the overriding concern that will determine more than anything how many seats the Dems lose next fall — is jobs. If unemployment is 10 percent or more next November, the Dems are in danger of losing the House and will almost certainly be short of the 60 votes they need in the Senate.
The Future of Universal Health Care, as of Now
By
If you’re able and willing I’d urge you to descend on Washington the moment Congress returns from recess. There is nothing quite as persuasive to a member of Congress as real live constituent demanding real reform.
PCL offers monthly Open House Events on the 2nd Saturday at 2pm and 3rd Thursday at 6pm. Click here to learn more.
No Good News for Democrats Because There’s No Good News
Joseph Palermo: Yet it’s hard to believe that the American people this November are going to return the party to power that not too long ago lied the nation into war, doubled the national debt, and collapsed the economy.