UP-FRONT PUNDIT-OF-THE-DAY!
Why Is Obama So Confident? (Jonathan Chait) from New York Magazine
"...the actual behavior of both campaigns suggests agreement on this point. Obama is running the same game plan he embarked on last year. Romney has changed things up, junking his original game plan ... The best explanation I can muster is that the polls are assuming a much different, and more
GOP-friendly, electorate than either party."
Court: GOP’s Texas Redistricting Plan Intentionally Discriminated Against Hispanics from Talking Points Memo
"A redistricting plan signed by Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) intentionally discriminated against Hispanic voters, a three-judge panel unanimously ruled Tuesday. The judges found that seats belonging to white incumbent members of Congress were protected under the plan while districts
belonging to incumbent minorities were targeted for changes."
Young Barry Wins: A Review of Barack Obama: The Story by David Maraniss (Darryl Pinckney) from the New York Review of Books
"Obama’s hold on the middle ground frustrates old liberals and engaged youth. But it remains one of his great assets that the Republicans can’t shove or provoke him from the middle ground. His entrenchment is perhaps why his opponents cannot make him lose his cool, his own understated black swagger."
Can the GOP Evolve? (David Frum) from the Democracy Journal
"Throughout the Obama years, Republicans built a powerful coalition of the rich and the old. The coalition was built on two principles: militant rejection of any and all new taxes, and unyielding defense of existing government benefits for those at or near retirement age."
The Millennials Grow Up (Andrew Baumann & Anna Greenberg) from the Democracy Journal
"...while these voters continue to evince some frustration with Democrats and Obama, their view of the Republican Party has soured dramatically since 2010 (going from 38 to 50 percent unfavorable) as the GOP’s radical anti-government, anti-gay, anti-contraception Tea Party agenda has come to the fore. Indeed, Pew’s excellent survey from late last year on the generation gap shows that millennials overwhelmingly view the GOP as extreme and unconcerned with people like them."
Among the Republicans (V.S. Naipaul) from the New York Review of Books
"... the message of convention week was that there was no contradiction, that American endeavor and success were contained within old American faith and pieties. Karl Marx and homosexuality were on the other side of these pieties and could be lumped together. The fundamentalism that the Republicans had embraced went beyond religion. It simplified the world in general; it rolled together many different kinds of anxieties—schools, drugs, race, buggery, Russia, to give just a few; and it offered the simplest, the vaguest solution: Americanism, the assertion of the American self."
No Enthusiasm Gap (Ed Kilgore) from Washington Monthly
"...we need to understand a fundamental truth that is often forgotten: “Enthusiasm” which exceeds the willingness to cast a ballot only matters if it is communicable to other voters. It’s beginning to become apparent that the exceptional passion of Obama-hatred among conservative “base” voters does not translate into some sort of thumb-on-the-scales on November 6."
Will Romney Discover His Inner Nixon? The Coming GOP Fight Between Realists and Neocons (Jacob Heilbrunn) from Foreign Policy Magazine
"Bereft of any real ideas about foreign policy, Romney, like George W. Bush, has become a vessel for some of the most retrograde ideas about foreign affairs that a Republican candidate has ever advanced."
Team Romney White-Vote Push: ‘This Is the Last Time Anyone Will Try to Do This’ (Jonathan Chait) from New York Magazine
"The Republican strategist told Brownstein, “This is the last time anyone will try to do this” — “this” being a near total reliance on white votes to win a presidential election."
Mad Murdoch Maligns Mousy Mitt: Why Rupert Hates Romney (Michael Wolff) from the New Republic
"Romney is “unprincipled”—one of Murdoch’s bad words—by which he usually means too camera-ready, too media-attuned, and too market-focused. And the larger point: He is just plain grumpy about the uninspired Republican nominee, with the implicit threat that, if unappeased, he is capable of throwing a wrench into the works."
Romney's Tasks in Tampa (John Cassidy) from the New Yorker
"The Mittster says he has been working hard on his speech. That’s a bad sign…"
Reporters: Why Are You in Tampa? (Jeff Jarvis) from the Huffington Post
"Take that $60,000,000 and divide it by a fully loaded labor cost of, say, $100,000 per head and it would pay for 600 reporters for a year. At $50,000 for a hyperlocal reporter, we'd get 1,200 towns covered -- more than Patch! What could they do versus what you will do in Tampa and Charlotte transcribing marketing messages and horrid memes?"
What I Saw On David Frum's Blog (Noah Kristula-Green) from the Daily Beast
"A colleague once compared working on Frum's blog to "monks preserving knowledge during the Dark Ages." If this is true, then what were we preserving? I've thought about this for several weeks, and I think the following are the most important lessons I've learned from my time on this project...."
ANCIENT INSECT NUGGET!!
Oldest Insects Preserved in Amber Found from United Press International
"Researchers say insects preserved in amber found in Italy are 100 million years older that any previously collected amber inclusions of arthropods."
TEACHING NUGGET!!
How to Kill Student Curiosity in 12 Easy Steps from Alternet
"Want to stamp out the curiosity in even the most eager of learners? Here's how."
OFFICIAL ANIMAL CHARITY NUGGET!!
As many of you know, Daylee News Nuggets promotes the work of the animal rescue organization, Hope-for-Paws in LA. Here's Eldad Hagar's latest video rescue of a dog that had been on the streets for TEN YEARS! Check it out!
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