Segregation in America has never been lower

Because, despite all the bad shit going on, there's always some good news if you look for it.

The New Blog

Hey everyone, got any space in your RSS readers? I know you do, because space on those things is unlimited. If you like my writing, you might want to add Library Grape to your feed. I just submitted my first post over there as a new front-pager, alongside the existing crew, which includes Gherald the thoughtful libertarian and Metavirus the occasionally irascible (but good-hearted) lefty. It looks like a good team of writers and I'm thrilled to be a part of a group blog, which should be good because there are bound to be plenty of interesting discussions and differences taking place between us. So if you want to follow me and the other folks, you should head on over there.

I don't think I'm going to shut down my Area completely, and I'm sure I'll be back from time to time with random things to amuse and befuddle. But the real action is going to be going down at the Grape, so by all means, join us!

Credit where it's due

My current opinion is that John McCain's soul is either sold or at least in the middle of a very long lease, but I have to give him some credit for putting his neck on the line for START. Of course, he is simultaneously trying to derail the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell to complete his evolution from voting against a constitutional ban on gay marriage to becoming Tony Perkins's best friend, which is just sad on so many levels, but on START he's doing the right thing.

Where I Am

I have a new policy: If I see TSA anywhere in the title or first paragraph of a blog post anymore, I just don't read it. I realize it's A Big Thing that is Worthy of Serious Discussion, but I rather feel that the topic is completely exhausted and has been for some time now, and it's just time for people to move on.

I'm nearly at the point of doing the same thing for Wikileaks. There are interesting things to be said about it, but only so many, and it seems like too many of the blogs I'm reading are turning into TSA-and-Wikileaks-only affairs. There's an awfully big world out there. I have no objection to commentary on those topics, but seriously.

Okay, this is really a content-free minirant. Enjoy the rest of your day.

A Triumph

Tell me this isn't a complete triumph for the forces of equality:

Nearly seven in ten U.S. troops said they served alongside someone in their unit who they believed to be gay or lesbian, and 92% of these servicemen and women said their unit's ability to work together was fine. What's more, 89% of Army combat units and 84% of Marine combat units saying they had good or neutral experiences working with gays and lesbians.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, after noting the non-existent risk to military readiness, "strongly" urged the Senate to pass the pending legislation "before the end of this year." He added that repeal "would not be the wrenching, traumatic change that many have feared and predicted."

Commenting on the Pentagon report, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, added, "We treat people with dignity and respect in the armed forces, or we don't last long in the armed forces: No special cases, no special treatment."

Message to the Senate: pass the damn DADT repeal and do it smartly by legislation, or let judges do it for you, and be responsible for any consequences. Quite adept. I wonder if this is going to finally budge those recalcitrant Republicans in the Senate.

Quote of the Day

"He's a silly, simple-minded man whose success leads a cynic to the conclusion that the world is run by similarly silly, simple-minded men." -- Alex Pareene on Tom Friedman.

Oh, that it weren't the case...

The Future of Climate Denialism

Think Progress has an interesting post on what a winning message on climate change might look like. It includes this figure that breaks down how two different groups--one with that believes in an essentially just world and one that doesn't--react to a climate argument that emphasize the importance of the problem and the ability of solving it, as well as a climate argument that makes it sound impossible to solve it. Here are the outcomes:

In essence, the tone of the message made little difference to people who don't think the world is or should be just, but it was hugely divergent to people who do. Maybe I'm feeling a bit cynical today, but this seems like the next step for climate deniers. I believe in climate change as I tend to trust science and scientists far more than politicians and spin. I go even further than that and support taking significant action to curb the effects of climate change, but as they say, admitting there is a problem is the first step. Republicans increasingly view climate change as a hoax, but this in the long run this stance isn't terribly tenable. For one thing, the epistemological implications of the "it's a hoax!" view are far more terrifying than actual global warming, since it would seem to make suspect literally every scientific fact we know, and possibly all the other ones as well. Additionally, the climate deniers tend to be much older than the average person, and part of an age cohort that is quite a bit less friendly with science in general terms, as this chart demonstrates:


There's a lot on the chart, but notice how much less likely older people are to vote for someone who believes in evolution. Among most people it's a pretty neutral factor--in fact, perhaps a positive one without seniors pulling it over. What I contend is that the current crop of senior citizens--one that does not yet include the Baby Boomers in significant numbers--is an incredibly conservative generation, one that missed the Depression and WWII for the most part, but rather came of age during Eisenhower and the conservatism of the 50's. Being conservative doesn't invariably imply climate denial, but the media of the right have indeed pushed this argument for some time now, and seniors are Fox News's bread and butter, demographically speaking. It's quite a confluence of message, media and audience that isn't replicated demographically anywhere else. Ultimately, climate denialism is a generational artifact for the most part, and eventually it will die off because it just can't be substantiated with the data, and the typical generational turnover will take care of some of it as well. But not all the deniers are going to die off, so the study that TP did seems to show the next step: instead of saying that climate change is a hoax, why not admit that it's happening but simply say it's too late to do anything about it and that we're all doomed? With that message, skepticism of climate change shoots through the roof among people who are natural targets to believe in taking action. Ironically, making the concession that the globe is warming seems to increase actual skepticism of this scientific phenomenon. It will be interesting to see how the debate plays out over the next decade or so.

By Republicans For Republicans: Who would referee the closed-circuit Republican debate?

The indispensable Steve Benen runs down the chatter among Republicans against any sort of engagement with non-partisan media:

The Daily Caller's report went on to note that Grover Norquist disapproves of "nitpicking from left-of-center journalists asking questions that will impress their fellow journalists." Far-right activist Brent Bozell was similarly displeased: "When, oh when will Republicans learn? Every four years the presidential debate season takes place. Republicans dutifully line up for debates moderated by liberal 'moderators' except there's nothing moderate about these moderators who mercilessly attack them."

Just at the surface, blasting NBC News and Politico as "liberal" seems pretty silly. MSNBC has some liberal hosts in primetime, but NBC News itself doesn't appear to have any political agenda to speak of. Politico, meanwhile, appears to me to lean pretty clearly in Republicans' favor.

Indeed, in 2007, there was an NBC/Politico event, and the moderators were practically deferential towards the candidates, asking one softball after another.

That said, I don't much care either way whether the event takes place, or whether anyone shows up. What's more interesting to me is the competing partisan standards. A year before the 2008 presidential election, you may recall, Fox News was scheduled to host a debate for Democratic presidential candidates. The highest-profile Dems quickly balked at participating in an event aired and organized by a Republican propaganda outlet, and the debate was scrapped.

But it was the reaction from the right that stood out. Bill O'Reilly compared Democratic presidential campaigns to Goebbels; Mort Kondracke and Fred Barnes said Dems were guilty of "Stalinism"; and Fox News president Roger Ailes argued in all seriousness, "The candidates that can't face Fox, can't face Al Qaeda."

And yet, here we are. Republicans are complaining about an NBC/Politico event, and at this point, aren't facing any pushback at all.

It's a shame and it would be a disgrace if there was that much left for Republicans to disgrace. But what interests me is who would form the panel to moderate such a debate. I very much doubt Rush Limbaugh would be asked, since polls like this one show him as politically toxic and having every Republican sucking up to him would be devastating to the party. It would, among other things, revive the meme that Limbaugh is the leader of the Republican Party and be worth a couple billion propaganda points for the Democrats. So it can't be Rush. It can't be Michael Savage, for reasons obvious to any follower to politics. Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck would probably be out--not for conflict of interest reasons due to moderating a debate with their FNC colleagues, since they don't really care about that stuff (see Beck's pimping of Goldbug for a prime example of this)--so much as because all of these guys insist on self-identifying as independents as a defense against the liberal attacks against them as party hacks. They are party hacks to varying degrees, but the justification behind Fox News is that applying a conservative lens to current events is somehow a corrective for the liberal lens that the mainstream media allegedly uses when presenting the news. Of course, even this frequent justification is misguided, since opposing biases don't just cancel each other out, presuming the bias even exists in the first place. But there is a difference between presenting yourself as just an independent trying to present the news as stripped of bias instead of a Republican trying to get out what the party wants you to get out. It turns out that there is no substantive difference when it comes to the outcomes produced by these two approaches, as Fox News is generally in sync with unapologetic partisan organs such as Weekly Standard, but it makes a difference in terms of perception among your viewers.

So, if O'Reilly and Hannity were to moderate a debate amongst Republicans (I'm guessing Beck would not get an invitation, for even more obvious reasons), they would be inserting themselves into the political process in a way that would severely undermine their professions of "independence" to such an extent that even Fox News viewers might find it hard to justify. It might not matter that much, since Beck has been inserting himself into the political process quite baldly and has not lost support at Fox, but I think O'Reilly and Hannity see themselves very differently than Beck does. And if all those people are off the table, you're down to the second-string right-wing crew, with the likes of Bill Kristol, Laura Ingraham, Mark Levin and so forth. Considering the weakness of the GOP field so far, I wonder if such an event absent a marquee right-wing panel would really summon up all that much interest.

My Home State

Political Wire pointed me to a survey of what Californians believe. Lots of interesting stuff in here, though not too much of it is surprising. This should seem familiar to anyone following politics these days:

The party faces a critical collision between its own voters, a minority in California, and those it needs to attract to win. The most faithful Republicans this year — those who voted for both Meg Whitman for governor and Carly Fiorina for Senate — said by a 27-point margin that to be more successful, Republicans should nominate "true conservatives."

But among the majority of voters who spurned Whitman and Fiorina in November — and in whose good graces any future winning candidate would need to be — the results were reversed. Forty-three percent said that future Republican candidates needed to be more moderate. Only 20% said that Republicans should nominate "true conservatives."

As those figures help illustrate, the GOP's difficulties in California rest on two overlapping conflicts, ideological and demographic. The party's conservative primary voters determine nominees, even if their views are often opposite those of the far more moderate general election audience. And the party's white and conservative voter base is increasingly giving way to the state's non-white and nonpartisan population.

And then there's this, which is nothing if not an I-told-you-so moment:

Marjorie Smallwood, a Democrat from Palo Alto who was among the poll respondents, illustrates the difficulty that GOP candidates face in the state. The only Republican she's been tempted to vote for recently, she said, was Senate candidate Tom Campbell, who lost in the primary after a barrage of criticism that he was not conservative enough. "He's moderate, he's a thinking person," she said. "If they want independents and Democrats to vote for them…"

I wouldn't exactly call Tom Campbell a moderate, but he is reality-based and a decent guy who feels the weight of civic responsibility. Kind of a shame what happened to him.

In any event, the import of all this beyond California is debatable. California has a lot of things you don't see anywhere else in the country: a demographically significant Asian-American population that has tilted strongly in the Democrats' favor over the past two decades, a larger-than-average LGBT population thanks to San Francisco (and Los Angeles as well), and a voting population that's quite a bit younger than normal states, which translates into a lot of voters whose formative years were spent under Bush 43's rule and are rabidly anti-Republican as a result. In fact, California has the fourth-lowest median age of all states, though the overall list suggests less of a correlation to voting than one might expect. Still, this is an overwhelmingly young and Hispanic-heavy state, and one where both cohorts are deeply influenced by progressive values and ideas. Republicans often dismiss California as some sort of non-mainstream exception to their center-right nation claims. They better hope they're right.

Will they shut it down?

Grover Norquist is practically lusting over a potential Republican government shutdown. Chait points out an important difference between now and 1995-96:

If Republicans refuse to let the government continue running at current levels while they negotiate with Obama, then they are indeed the ones who are shutting down the government. But as a matter of political reality, it's true that the existence of Fox News and the power of other Republican organs gives the GOP a better chance to spin a shutdown as Obama's fault -- or, at least, to lose the battle for public opinion less decisively. Norquist is also right that Boehner is not acting like, and being treated as, a kind of prime minister, and that factor would also reduce the degree to which Republicans are held accountable for outcomes like the shutdown.

My view is that it's going to be pretty hard to blame Obama for a government shutdown when some of your most influential activists are already cheering one on so forcefully. And if, as Norquist suggests, Republicans try to shut down the government over the debt ceiling, he really is drinking his own Kool-Aid, er, tea, since Americans don't really care about the deficit but will not stomach grandma not being able to cash a Social Security check. Then again, you never know. Spin can only go so far, but this isn't 1995, and it's certainly something to keep an eye on.

I'm not sure this quite fits with the post, but it's Friday, so I think a little Talking Heads is perfectly warranted:

This issue doesn't seem to be on anyone's radar

But I think I'm with Ron Wyden on the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfits Act. Click to learn more.

The right in a nutshell

Have I mentioned my loathing of Eric Cantor recently? Here's a reason why I don't care much for him:

The plan would replace some corporate and income taxes with a 6.5% sales tax "as well as an excise tax on sugar drinks like soda." Proponents told the Journal the sales tax "was a good way to go rather than try to put more burden on an income tax," a concept which doesn't sound especially European on its face. In fact, it sounds a lot like the so-called "fair tax" national sales tax plan conservatives have been pitching for years.

Cantor sees it differently. The proposal sounds like a value added tax to him. And that's, well, you know.

Cantor, according to the Journal, said lawmakers "wouldn't support VAT-type tax because its ties to Europe might make it politically poisonous in Washington."

"I don't think any of us want us to go the direction of the social welfare states around the world," Cantor said.

Look, I don't care for the right's corporatism or its obsession with marginal tax rates, but what drives me crazy the most is when they make policy arguments on the basis of cultural signaling. Where this happens the most is on transportation policy (What, you want us to give up our SUVs and ride a train? What, are we going to concentration camps?) and with the VAT. The latter is literally the most stupid thing the right argues, since they're the ones who are always arguing that we should tax consumption. Virtually no liberals push this. And not only in America, but European conservatives have implemented VATs in order to make way for flatter taxes with lower rates. Without a VAT, sustainably lower personal income tax rates are not possible. But some European countries did it, so it's socialist, even though it's strongly related to what they actually want to do. You start to see the contortions and contradictions that being an American conservative entails, and one wonders how anyone with a thinking apparatus could possibly fall for it, but Fox News proves its worth by keep many of them thinking from their id at all times.

Personally, I'm not wild about a VAT. It's a regressive tax and a complicated one, which leads me to believe that loopholes would be abundant, though there is something to be said for an incentive structure which actually makes it a good idea to pay your taxes, so that you get more back. I'd prefer doing something like implementing a millionaire's tax bracket with higher marginal rates, but I'd be willing to consider a VAT as part of a serious long-term deficit reduction project. Not that this matters to Republicans like Cantor who don't really care about the deficit. I just wonder what the logical endpoint of his argument would be. Of course, America is more like Europe than unlike it, what with liberal democracy and a common cultural and intellectual heritage. But let's take Cantor's argument further: Should we oppose new nuclear plants just because France has a bunch of them? If France is doing it, it can't be good, right? And of course there's socialist Britain, passing austerity measures that would never be considered here in the States. Should we oppose those because they're too European? Should we protest the building of aqueducts because they're too much like the old Roman Empire? Cantor probably wouldn't say these things because they're silly, but they flow naturally from his precepts. Of course, "Europe" doesn't exist, and in reality Europe is a large group of different nations that disagree on many things, including politics. For every France, there's a Poland that balances things out. The reason so many countries over there have universal health care (though in many different models: from the fully socialized British to the fully market-oriented Dutch) and a transportation policy that makes sense is because the case for them is self-evident. When you don't feel the need to confront some sort of inferiority complex as Cantor seems to here, you can actually have a conversation. And when that happens, the European Cantor equivalents simply get ignored. If only we were so lucky.

Pelosi officially staying put as leader

Josh Marshall sees ominous signs in the final vote:

Two term Rep. Heath Shuler (D-NC), as anything other than a protest candidate against Nancy Pelosi, was a preposterous candidate to lead the smaller, more liberal House Democratic caucus. And it's not my understanding that he did anything to canvass for votes. So it's a bad sign for Nancy Pelosi that 43 members of the caucus voted for the guy. That's almost a quarter of the caucus. If a serious challenger had opposed her, it would have been a tough race.

I see two basic possibilities. The first is that Pelosi has just had her Anthony Meyer moment, and her leadership is nearing its end (Meyer gained notoriety by presenting a failed Tory leadership challenge to Margaret Thatcher, one that showed her political weakness and led to Thatcher being ousted a year later). The other basic possibility is that Democrats are pissed that the party lost a bunch of seats and are taking it out on Pelosi, and if the Dems do well in 2012 all will be forgiven.

The Pelosi puzzle is a complicated one. She's a talented legislative leader but a polarizing figure (intentionally so). My instinct is that loathing toward her is wide but not deep, that voters have a vague dislike of Pelosi due to what they know of her profile but that only hard-core partisans on both sides have deeply-held opinions on her. But I'm willing to listen to the argument that what might generally be a nominal effect might be quite a bit less nominal in places like Mississippi, where it could well have taken just enough votes away from, say, Gene Taylor. I wonder if running for minority leader was the smartest move at this point--maybe letting Hoyer (or better yet someone new) take the hits at the top for a few years in exchange for Nancy getting to be speaker when the Dems get the House back. But the Democrats' problems this cycle were at least 98% not Nancy's fault, and I'm personally happy she's sticking around.

New developments on New START

I must confess that the maelstrom of New START defeatism confuses me a bit. I never figured that Jon Kyl would come around and support ratification because Kyl is cynical and stupid and doesn't care about wreaking havoc. The politics of this whole episode are pretty dumb, too: screwing with national security is going to bring a price, and it looks like the Administration is actually going to try to make Kyl pay it. As well they should, since unlike Democrats calling for Iraq withdrawal in 2005, Kyl really is screwing up national security here. The thing is, though, Kyl was never going to be there for this treaty, and passing the treaty was always going to involve getting some Republicans to defect from their leadership's position, and it still doesn't seem impossible that the thing will pass: between avowed supporters, retiring senators and Senate moderates, you get about as many Republicans as you need to pass the thing. And there are some cases--like the Sotomayor confirmation, for example--where this has actually happened. So that's something, I guess.

The main takeaway from this should be that McConnell and Kyl simply can't be trusted to follow-through on their agreements, and that the Senate Democrats need to kill the filibuster ASAP to neutralize them. I don't actually expect this will happen, but I don't see any reason to hope that these guys will behave better in the future if they're going to compromise national security and foreign policy now.

One-term Obama Watch, ctd.: Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

They're coming:


This is joblessness plus part-timers looking for full-time work, just so that you know. Both are going down individually as well. I've found Gallup's measure a pretty good leading indicator that almost always tracks what the next Thursday jobless claims will look like--if Gallup's number goes down, there's usually fewer jobless claims. Here is Gallup's overall analysis:

Gallup's economic data suggest that the job market continued to improve during the first half of November. As noted previously, if current Gallup unemployment trends continue, the government's unemployment rate for November is likely to show a decline when reported in early December.

Because Gallup's U.S. unemployment rate and underemployment measure are not seasonally adjusted, some of the late October and November improvement is probably the result of retailers hiring for the Christmas holidays. This is particularly likely because Gallup's most recent spending estimates suggest at least a slightly better holiday sales season this year.

Although many economists and politicians continue to complain about the Federal Reserve's efforts to inject money into the economy, it may be that anticipation of this aggressive Fed policy has increased economic optimism among the nation's business leaders. In turn, this could be leading to more companies being willing to hire.

Regardless of the reason, this is good news for retailers and the overall economy as the holiday season gets fully underway.

I maintain that if unemployment is around 8% in November 2012 and moving in the right direction, I say Obama's second term is assured. And there's this poll out of Virginia by the great pollster PPP:

When matched up against Mitt Romney, Obama has a 48%-43% advantage. His lead is an identical five points against Mike Huckabee (49%-44%). Against both Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich, that lead grows to 11 points -- 51%-40% against Palin, 52%-41% against Gingrich.

Also, Jim Webb is leading Macaca for another term. Let's just keep in mind that this is how things stand now, before next month's job numbers, before the Republican freak show in the House gets going next year, before Obama starts ramping up attacks on an unpopular do-nothing Congress, headed by an unpopular party which has several key vulnerabilities that a leader like Romney would only intensify.

Yeah he is

John Thune is the Republican John Edwards.

One-term Obama Watch, Part Two: How to read Schoen/Caddell

I find it interesting that Doug Schoen and Pat Caddell wrote a (perhaps) serious article about Obama stepping down after Larry Sabato's post last week effectively mocked every one of their premises. Lots of good takes on this (Weigel's is good, but you can't beat this one). I suppose my reaction to this is my reaction to about 99% of D.C. discourse, which is that it's pointless. This is sanctimonious and perhaps a truism, but I mean it sincerely: don't these guys have anything better to do? Isn't there something more productive they could spend their time on? I don't read the big op-eds very often, but when I do I keep picking up on this at times frantic unease, a distaste for having to play the role of an "independent" and ostensibly liberal pundit under a Democrat, which seems to involve hilarious nitpicking as to why a pundit can't just support health care reform, or calls for some new third party that they can support so that they don't have to say they support the Democrats. This is all evidently more stressful than when they're playing the same role under a Republican, when you can issue limp dissents on everything and nothing really happens, their status is protected, and the party invitations keep rolling in. This is the sort of culture that could produce an article saying that Obama should not run for re-election despite the fact that he's the most popular politician in America, bad economy and all. It's a way of showing the "independence" that all pundits apparently need.

Incidentally, the presidential approval rating today is 48%.

Good choice

TPM:

"In a sign that Democrats hope to do a better job claiming credit for their accomplishments, and emphasizing the differences between themselves and the GOP, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has merged the Senate Dems' policy and communications shops, and tasked Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) with chairing the new office as a member of party leadership.

Schumer has developed a reputation among his colleagues, and across Washington, as a shrewd political strategist and a master of message control."

Schumer suffers from a decent amount of smugness, and he's notoriously camera-seeking. But he's also one of the few Democrats I know of who doesn't mind throwing an elbow when it's required and can actually land it. The ingredient to political success that Democrats lack the most is tenacity, which is something Schumer has quite a bit of, so this seems quite smart to me.

The job nobody wants...but should!

Senator Mike Bennet has become the most recent Democrat to turn down the job of running the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, i.e. the committee designed to elect Democrats to the U.S. Senate. Evidently quite a few other Democratic Senators--including Chuck Schumer and Al Franken--have also turned down the gig, ostensibly because the Democrats will have over twice as many seats to defend as Republicans will in this election cycle. It certainly seems like the sort of thankless job that nobody wants, but I wonder why it's so difficult to find someone when one considers the following factors:

1. Since everybody expects the Democrats to lose seats, the bar for success will be low.
2. Since nobody wants the job, the person who takes it will earn some serious points from the party for being a good sport.
3. The 2012 electorate will not be the same as the 2010 electorate, and there are a number of signs that the economy, including the employment numbers, are starting to improve. It will be a much more favorable environment to run a campaign than 2010 was for Democrats, which should make recruiting easier.
4. Obama's 2012 re-election effort will undoubtedly feature an extremely robust GOTV effort that would help Democrats running for lower offices.
   

And looking at the 2012 Senate battlefield, it seems far from likely that a second bloodbath is even plausible. The Democrats will be defending a very large number of seats, but many of those are among the safest the Democrats have. There's just no way the Republicans are going to knock off someone like Daniel Akaka. The Republicans had an outside chance of beating Boxer this year (that they helpfully squandered, thankfully) but they have no chance of unseating the less-polarizing Dianne Feinstein, or her most obvious replacement if she retires. Ditto someone like Tom Carper or Ben Cardin. In fact, by my count, there are only seven Democratic Senators that ought to be in significant trouble, all red- or purple-state Democrats who could be vulnerable with the right challenger:

• Bill Nelson of Florida
• Claire McCaskill of Missouri
• Jon Tester of Montana
• Ben Nelson of Nebraska
• Kent Conrad of North Dakota
• Sherrod Brown of Ohio
• Jim Webb of Virginia

There are others that are more of a stretch--Bob Casey in Pennsylvania, for example, is an extremely good fit for a socially conservative/fiscally moderate-to-liberal state and should be safe, but you never know--however, these are the obvious takeover ideas for Republicans. I would have figured Nelson would be in trouble over health care reform but evidently his polling against two established commodities--outgoing Senator George LeMieux and Jeb Bush--looks pretty good. McCaskill's approval looks tepid, but the Republicans are looking to field two-time loser Jim Talent against her, which could help her get another term. The other Nelson's problems are obvious, but he's got a pretty longstanding relationship with his state's voters that could help him stick around. Conrad might squeak by because the ND GOP doesn't seem to have another giant-killer around like they did in 2010 with against eleventy-term Senator Byron Dorgan, and Sherrod Brown is quite progressive but a deft populist who won big last time. Webb might or might not get another term, but there's always Tim Kaine if he doesn't. I'm not saying that all these folks are going to win even if the economy improves greatly, but none of them are sure losers if they run again, and in most of their cases the boost of a national campaign along with some points in their favor should prevent really any of them from being doomed. If a bunch of them retire, of course, things get a lot tougher.

On the other hand, Lieberman's seat seems all but assured to fall to an actual Democrat, Scott Brown isn't likely to stick around when Obama wins 60% of the vote in Massachusetts, and John Ensign is a sure loser in Nevada, especially since he's running again and appears to have substantial Republican support. That should be a gimme in the general election. Throw in Olympia Snowe's inevitable primary loss (another probable Democratic pickup), and maybe one or two other outside possibilities (Janet Napolitano stepping down from the Cabinet to challenge Jon Kyl?), and there's a good chance the Democrats can keep the Senate in 2012. The real challenge will be keeping it in 2014, when you have some real tough ones like Alaska and Louisiana coming up in the traditional "six-year itch" elections. If I were a young Democratic Senator trying to make my name, I'd step up to the DSCC in 2012 and stay the hell away in 2014.

Obama knows what he's doing today

Two examples:

1. Middle-East diplomacy: Like most everyone, I've grown not to expect too much from the current round of peace talks. But they're not dead, and this can only be seen as promising. During Bush's last year, he tried to accomplish Middle-East peace with the Annapolis process and suffered a high-profile failure, as his White House hyped the effort and increased expectations. Obama's team seems not to have pushed back on a lot of the defeatist rhetoric but kept things going, so any progress actually made will be a much bigger deal. I'm not going to get too optimistic, but as a J Street supporter I remain hopeful for a two-state solution. And if it were to happen, it would be huge.
   
   
2. Obama takes the blame: I can only imagine what Krugman and the Kossacks are saying about this:
   

   “I neglected some things that matter a lot to people, and rightly so: maintaining a bipartisan tone in Washington,” he told reporters in a brief question-and-answer session aboard Air Force One as he returned from a 10-day trip to Asia. “I’m going to redouble my efforts to go back to some of those first principles,” he promised.

   Democratic partisans must be livid over this sort of stuff, but I think there are basically two ways Obama could have responded to this most recent election. He could have continued with the fierce (and usually correct) attacks on the Republicans that he lobbed around during the 2010 campaign, or he could have offered the Beltway opinionmakers a bit of a bone. Most of what I read suggests the Administration has about as dim a view of the news media as the partisans do, but one cannot get around the fact that these idiots do have a lot of power. Throwing down a marker at this point would probably not have gained Obama anything, but statements like this make sense if Obama wants to set the tone for the next two years, with himself as the reasonable adult in the room and the GOP as hyperpartisan crazies. And it's not like he's giving up anything of substance yet. Meanwhile, after having used the drawn-out process of passing health-care reform to hurt the favorability of Obama and the Democratic Congress and witnessed the damage done firsthand, their evident response is to get themselves some of that too. Time will tell how serious they are, since repeal right now would mean bringing back recissions, benefit caps, the "donut hole" and so forth, and the government shutdown card would be quite a radical one to play.