The asymmetry in the ways Democrats and Republicans use power can be seen in their responses to Electoral College disadvantages. When Democrats are faced with an Electoral College gap such that their Presidential candidate can win the popular vote and lose the election, they do pretty much nothing. Joe Lieberman even remarked in an exit [...]

Here’s a sad postscript that shows once again the power of dark money in off-the-radar races. The silver lining amidst the clouds of the recall election in Wisconsin was that Democrats at least “took over” the state Senate. “Took over” was a bit of a strong word, because they won a majority in the chamber [...]

The Wall Street Journal reports today on the biggest non-Washington policy fight of the next few years, the bid to get states to accept the expansion of Medicaid. The Supreme Court ruling on Obamacare gave states an opt-out for the Medicaid expansion, designed to provide 1/2 of the total coverage expansion in the law. So [...]

Periodically, I take notice of the impact of the foreclosure crisis on elections. When your former voters get forced out of their homes and scatter, it becomes that much harder to find them and motivate them to vote. Furthermore, the cost of sending out canvassers in high-foreclosure areas to walk precincts filled with vacant homes [...]

Don’t expect yesterday’s Dane County court ruling overturning sections of Wisconsin’s anti-union law to remain operative for long. The ruling by Judge Juan Colas voids the law for city, county and school workers on the grounds that it violated the workers’ constitutional right to free speech, free assembly and equal representation. It singles out public [...]

In a briefing in Charlotte today, Jim Messina expanded on a theme I’ve seen quite a bit of recently, that the Democratic ground game will provide the edge in the 2012 election. “On the ground we continue to see just incredible enthusiasm,” Obama campaign manager Jim Messina said at the ABC News/Yahoo News Newsmaker forum [...]

Here’s an ingenious example of using a system to your advantage. You may remember David Prosser. He’s the Wisconsin Supreme Court justice who won a re-election campaign when a clerk in Waukesha County “found” a bag of ballots at the last minute. He also made headlines for grabbing his fellow state Supreme Court justice by [...]

The nation witnessed another incident of right-wing domestic terrorism yesterday, when a suspected white supremacist killed 7 people at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. This is only the latest in the suffering of the Sikh-American community in the United States, which has endured discrimination for over 10 years since 9-11. Sikhs are continuously [...]

That Brennan Center report on the difficulties eligible voters may have securing voter ID based its statistics on the 10 states with voter ID laws on the books. But not all of them may get to use them in 2012. South Carolina and Texas have had their laws blocked by the Justice Department under Voting [...]

One of the ways that supporters of California’s Prop 32, the Trojan horse initiative to silence union activity in elections while facilitating corporate campaign spending, will probably press their case publicly is by claiming that unions spend ungodly amounts of money on politics. And unions in California do represent a counter-balancing of corporate cash. But [...]

I’ve noticed that many of you have become rather careless with the English language, and frankly, it’s just confusing the children.  Recognizing the threat to the next generation’s ability to understand the news on Fox, America’s Family Man, Mitt Romney, bravely came forward today to clarify when a tax that isn’t a tax is really [...]