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- It's astonishing that the recession has crippled our ability to think clearly about dealing with the recession. Consider this: David Leonhardt writes a column making the obvious point that economic growth is a great way to deal with deficits. No one should have to make this point in late 2010. Yet here we are, "tightening our belts," debating about how much to cut unemployment insurance and Social Security, while deciding how much to arbitrarily cap government spending and how low top tax brackets should be. It's baffling.
- John Sides revisits the topic of political independents and reminds us that while strictly partisan voters (and leaning independents) are overwhelmingly going to rationalize voting for their team regardless of the state of the economy, pure independents are going prioritize the state of the economy over partisan preference. This is why independents are always "in play." Partisan voters are stable, economies are not, and thus the volatility of the truly "independent" vote.
- Eric Ostermeier crunches the numbers and discovers that 28 percent of Democrats in the incoming 112th Congress will hail from either New York or California, which is not terribly surprising. Figures like this drive "coastal elite," talk but let's keep this in perspective. The flip side is that ~72 percent of Democrats hail from "real America" instead of the urban hellholes of NYC and LA. I fail to see why any of this matters to anyone.
- Remainders: The Washington Independent signs off; it's little wonder Fox News sounds like transmissions from another universe given that Roger Ailes is utterly insane; you might think a presidential portrait is relatively meaningless politically, but you'd be wrong; and our glorious era of frivolous spending cuts has begun.
--Mori Dinauer
