UP-FRONT POLLING NUGGET!!
Poll: New Phase and Shifting Balance from Democracy Corps
"This survey sees a collapse of the Republican brand at almost all levels. Negatives associated with the Republican Party have not been this high since right after they lost the country in 2008. ... These results may not simply be the result of a spot of good economic news and rough news cycles for Republican nominees, but the beginning of long-term structural changes that will characterize the 2012 election cycle. .... The Republican brand is in a state of collapse – over 50 percent of voters give the Republican Party a cool, negative rating. The presidential race and the congressional battles are interacting with each other to drive down their lead candidate, the party, and perceptions of the congressional Republicans."
Markos Moulitsas at Daily Kos comments on this poll HERE.
Is Iran Behind the Death of its Own Scientists? from Commentary Magazine
"As Potkin Azarmehr, a brilliant Iranian blogger and journalist based in the UK suggests, the hand behind the assassinations in Iran may just as likely be the regime’s. Potkin reviews the four hits and offers some useful insights on why the four individuals were unlikely to be targets for Israel but may have been likely targets for the regime:..."
While this analyst is too quick in my view to dismiss the possibility of Israel's role, I have LONG suspected that it was the Iranians themselves that were largely responsible for the offing of many of their "scientists". Interesting evidence for it here.
How History Lessons Could Deter Iranian Aggression (Fareed Zakaria) from the Washington Post
"We are hearing a new concept these days in discussions about Iran — the zone of immunity. The idea, often explained by Ehud Barak, Israel’s defense minister, is that soon Iran will have enough nuclear capability that Israel would not be able to inflict a crippling blow to its program. In fact, while the specifics are fresh, this is not a new strategic concept at all. Nations have often believed that they face a closing window to act, and almost always such thinking has led to disaster."
Where China Isn't Winning (David Lundquist) from the National Interest
"Beijing may be poised to overtake Washington economically, but the sorry state of Chinese universities will hold the country back."
Greek Exodus: Workers Flee to Canada and Australia (Barbie Latza Nadeau) from the Daily Beast
"Forget austerity. Thousands of Greeks, hung out to dry by the EU’s bailout requirements, are fleeing in record numbers—as far away as Canada and Australia. Barbie Latza Nadeau reports."
Jobless Claims Keep Falling; Inflation Pressure Still Low from CNBC
"New jobless claims took an unexpected dip last week, while producer prices presented a mixed but still relatively tame inflation picture, according to government data released Thursday."
Moochers Against Welfare (Paul Krugman) from the New York Times
"There is a strange redness to America’s safety net. Why do the regions that need the helping hand elect politicians who want to tear it down?"
House Democrats Walk Out Of One-Sided Hearing On Contraception, Calling It An 'Autocratic Regime' from the Huffington Post
"Three Democrats walked out of a House Oversight and Government Reform hearing on religious liberty and the birth control rule on Thursday to protest Chairman Darrell Issa's (R-Calif.) refusal to allow a progressive woman to testify in favor of the Obama administration's contraception rule. The morning panel at the hearing consisted exclusively of men from conservative religious organizations."
Is Contraceptive Debate GOP’s New ‘Terry Schiavo Moment’? (Michelle Goldberg) from the Daily Beast
"The GOP just can’t quit when it comes to women’s reproductive rights. But now polls are showing that the all-out assault may backfire come November."
What are Republicans Thinking? (Irwin Carmon) from Salon
"The continuing obsession with limiting contraceptive access shows how out of touch GOP politicians are."
The High Price of the Hard Right Turn (David Frum) from the Daily Beast
"Republican strategy over the past 2 years has been premised on the assumption that President Obama is so hopelessly weakened that the GOP needn't bother addressing centrist voters at all. That was never a very plausible assumption, and now Ron Brownstein has the data to suggest that beyond "implausible," the assumption is outright wrong. ... Whether it is the Ryan plan or the debt ceiling showdown or—now—contraception, Republicans have spent three years talking to themselves. It has been a narcissistic self-indulgence—and may soon prove a very costly one as well."
Brownstein's article is HERE.
OUR PUNDIT-OF-THE-DAY!!
The Electoral Wasteland (Timothy Egan) from the New York Times
Every line of this column is DEAD-ON in describing the GOP primaries and the voters who are showing up!!
"It's stunning how little the current Republican primary electorate resembles the rest of the United States."
Obama Continues to Box In His Opposition (Bob Burns) from Salon
"Nothing could more obvious – and to a progressive, encouraging. Barack Obama has managed, particularly since the disaster of the 2010 midterm elections, to box in the GOP into narrower and narrower confines. And in doing so he has opened up a 15 point lead in some polls over his likely challenger, the erstwhile “severely conservative” Mitt Romney. Obama, by luck or design, is beginning to stand out as the only sane guy in the room."
Obama Up Big in Michigan from Public Policy Polling
"Michigan is looking more and more like it won't be in the swing state column this fall. PPP's newest poll there finds Barack Obama leading the entire Republican field by double digits."
The Long Slog: Projecting the Republican Race Through June (Larry J. Sabato, Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley) from the University of Virginia Center for Politics
"Electorally, therefore, Santorum appears to have two things in his favor as he tries to build on his stunning rise over the past week and a half. First, religious conservatives, a key demographic in many forthcoming state contests, love him. Second, he is not Mitt Romney and has become the leading “not-Romney” candidate, an odd title that has determined a large chunk of the nominating battle so far. There are 15 states, mainly Southern, where more than 30% of the population is part of the
“Evangelical/Protestant Tradition,”"
The GOP’s Chaotic Primary Calendar Makes Early Nomination Clinch Tough (John Avlon) from the Daily Beast
"The party’s primary schedule makes it unlikely that a candidate will amass the 1,144 delegates needed to win the nomination before late May or even June, ensuring a bloody primary battle—and even raising the possibility of a brokered convention."
Poor, White and Republican (George Packer) from the New Yorker
"Perhaps the biggest political puzzle of our time is why, as the lives of working-class whites have descended from the stability and comfort of “All in the Family” to the chaos and despair of “Gran Torino” and “Winter’s Bone,” these same Americans have voted more and more reliably Republican. ... Gulbranson’s moment of hesitation contains a certain explanatory power. He doesn’t want to say that he can’t live without government."
Romney Struggling to Attract White Working Class (Alan Fram) from the Associated Press
"Republican Mitt Romney is faltering with white working-class voters crucial to his party's drive to capture the White House, even as he tries to fend off a rising GOP challenger, Rick Santorum, who wields strong blue-collar appeal."
Rick Santorum’s Lucky Culture War Over Contraception (Kristen Powers) form the Daily Beast
"With pivotal primaries coming up, Santorum is riding high on a wave of conservative protests against Obama’s contraception mandate—an issue that’s kryptonite for Romney. Plus, Caitlin Dickson on the GOP's push to overturn Obama’s contraception compromise."
Conservative Pundits Find Romney Disengaged, and Say That’s Puzzling from the New York Times
"From the television studios of Fox News to the pages of The Weekly Standard, the refrain of the conservative opinion machine is virtually the same: Mitt Romney doesn’t talk to us, doesn’t get us. “There’s actually a cultural disconnect between a lot of conservative thought leaders and Mitt Romney,” said Joe Scarborough, co-host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”"
"Thought leaders"? Am I wrong or is that a term used exclusively by right-wingers? I never hear anyone else use that term to describe specific branches of the punditocracy, left, right or center. It has always struck me as a term that Chairman Mao would have used when he strategized about how to manipulate "the masses." or which next group of intellectuals he was going to send to the gulag.
How Mitt’s Emotion Deficit is Doing Him In Among Republicans (Michael Tomasky) from the Daily Beast
"Romney isn’t sinking because of the flip-flops. He’s sinking because of his robotic reasonableness. Michael Tomasky on how Mitt became the Al Gore of the GOP."
Can I Get on the Mormon “Do Not Baptize” List? (Forrest Wickman) from Slate
"How to avoid being baptized after you’re dead"
TRAGIC JOURNALISM NEWS!!
At Work in Syria, Times Reporter Dies from the New York Times
"Anthony Shadid, center, a Pulitzer Prize-winning correspondent who covered nearly two decades of Middle East conflict, died, apparently of an asthma attack."
Terrible news! Shadid was an awesome reporter on all things relating to conflicts in the Middle East. His obituary is HERE.
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