News Nuggets 1105

DAYLEE PICTURE: The Kocatepe Mosque in Turkey.  From National Geographic.

UP-FRONT 2014 ELECTION NUGGET!!
GOP Senate in 2014 a Long Shot from Politico
"Twenty Senate Democrats will have to defend their seats that year, while just 13 Republicans will be up for reelection. At least six of the Democrats represent red states — places like Arkansas, Louisiana and South Dakota — and are seen as ripe GOP pickings. Retirements could expand the map for the party. Still, Republicans will need almost everything to break in their favor to pick up the half-dozen seats needed to take back the Senate."

Away from Euro Crisis, Africa Beckons from the New York Times
"Fleeing joblessness and austerity measures, Portuguese seek work in Mozambique’s growing economy."

The Vatican Hates Gays (Mary Elizabeth Williams) from Salon
"Its latest claim, that gay marriage causes polygamy, is as absurd as it is offensive. Where does it stop?"

The 2013 Campaign for Obama from New York Magazine
"For Obama, the political appeal of striking a grand bargain is easy to see, for it would make an ideal bookend to health-care reform—the latter a long-held liberal dream, the former a centrist fantasy so delicious it might bring Pete Peterson to climax. But it is also essential to the country’s economic health..."

The Secret to Barack Obama’s Survival (Greg Sargent) from the Washington Post
"... This year’s narrative turned on the sheer range and scale of obstacles Obama faced — the story of a leader who perseveres relentlessly in the face of extraordinary conditions to improve the future of the middle class. This storyline is key to Obama’s ability to defy the odds and survive, something that continues to flummox his opponents..."

Which Polls Fared Best (and Worst) in the 2012 Presidential Race (Nate Silver) from the New York Times
"Some telephone polls also performed well. But others, especially those that called only landlines or took other methodological shortcuts, performed poorly and showed a more Republican-leaning electorate than the one that actually turned out."

For Red America, What Happens Now? (Eli Saslow) from the New York Times 
"As the yard signs come down and the leftover campaign gear is packed away, Republicans deep in red states are at a loss, grieving for a country they believe has gone wildly off track."

The Party Next Time (Ryan Lizza) from the New Yorker
"As immigration turns red states blue, how can Republicans transform their platform?"

Obama Shouldn’t Back Down (E.J. Dionne) from the Washington Post
"Obama gracefully but firmly challenge Republicans on Friday to extend the Bush-era tax cuts for the middle class immediately and then begin negotiations on how to raise taxes on the well-to-do. He was asking them to give up their leverage because he knows they don’t have much leverage to begin with. Meet the newly empowered Obama."

Wielding Wedge Issues: What the GOP Once Used to Divide Now Unites Democrats (Doyle McManus) from the Los Angeles Times
"Wedge issues helped elect Ronald Reagan to the presidency and dozens of other Republicans to Congress. And now they aren't working anymore. Or, more precisely, they're not working for the GOP. They're helping the Democrats instead."

We Just Had a Class War. And One Side Won (Jonathan Chait) from New York Magazine
"Like every president, Obama won for myriad reasons, important and petty. But his reelection was hardly small and hardly devoid of ideas. Indeed, it was entirely about a single idea. The campaign, from beginning to end, was an extended argument about economic class."

Mythbusting the 2012 Elections: Why So Much Obama-Romney CW Was Absurdly Wrong (Steve Singiser) from Daily Kos
"This post-mortem comes from somewhere between anger and amusement. That's because the dominant theme is how much of the conventional wisdom about this election was ultimately, and profoundly, disproven by the judgment of the voters on Tuesday night."

The Demographic Excuse (Ross Douthat) from the New York Times
"Both shifts, demographic and economic, must be addressed if Republicans are to find a way back to the majority. But the temptation for the party’s elites will be to fasten on the demographic explanation, because playing identity politics seems far less painful than overhauling the Republican economic message."

The GOP's Media Cocoon (Jonathan Martin) from Politico
"A long-simmering generational battle in the conservative movement is boiling over after last week’s shellacking, with younger operatives and ideologues going public with calls that Republicans break free from a political-media cocoon that has become intellectually suffocating and self-defeating."

Media Fight on the Right Over GOP (Dylan Byers) from Politico
"“If you look at the Republican Party over the last couple of years, it is a tail-wag-the-dog story with the power and the influence of the conservative entertainment complex over elected leadership,” Schmidt, the senior campaign strategist on Sen. John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, told POLITICO. “Ronald Reagan would have been appalled by this uncivil tone. Conservatism with a smile has appeal. Conservatism with a snarl is a voter repellent.” Far from accepting this premise, the far right is retrenching."

The Oracle’s Debacle (Frank Bruni) from the New York Times
"Rove would have none of it, and no wonder. It didn’t just contradict the statements he’d been making for months as a gabby media pundit. It undercut the pose he’d been striking for more than a decade as a lofty political prophet. In his pout and his pique there were lessons."

The GOP’s Year of Magical Thinking (Theo Anderson) from In These Times 
"Now that the election charade is over, will the party accept reality?"

The Republicans’ Fallacy About Latino Voters and What Motivates Them (Peter Beinart) from the Daily Beast
"The GOP’s post-election tendency to reduce Latinos to people who are motivated by immigration and social issues rather than by economic concerns or merely want government handouts is wrong—and dangerous to the party, says Peter Beinart."

GOP Rank and File May Block Leaders’ Plans to Win Latinos With Reform (Laura Colarusso) from the Daily Beast
"After their election shellacking, conservative leaders are showing signs that they want to change the GOP’s hardline posture on immigration and reach out to Latinos, but it’s far from clear that they will have the votes to enact reform."

The GOP’s Hispanic Nightmare (Matthew Yglesias) from Slate
"Republicans’ minority outreach problems go way, way beyond immigration."

The Culture War and the Jobs Crisis (Thomas Edsall) from the New York Times
"Donovan and his fellow right-wingers can expect to be living in a Babylonian captivity for quite some time. The right has lost the culture war."

None of Your Business (Roger Cohen) from the New York Times
"If Republicans meddle with the freedom of choice and sexual orientations of Americans they will go on losing."

Hillary's Next Move (Gail Collins) from the New York Times
"Clinton gives many variations on the theme of don’t-think-so. (“Oh, I’ve ruled it out, but you know me. Everybody keeps asking me. So I keep ruling it out and being asked.”) Also a thousand different forms of beats-me. (“I have no idea what I’m going to do next.”) What she does not do is offer the kind of Shermanesque if-nominated-I-will-not-run language that would end the conversation."

Hillary in 2016! (Howard Kurtz) from Newsweek
"Campaign fatigue? Get over it. The jockeying for the next presidential run is already well underway."