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- How do Democrats close the enthusiasm gap, which is the only way to prevent a midterm catastrophe? According to Jon Taplin, they should use Barack Obama to re-create the excitement of 2008. And there's always Obama's vaunted election machine -- oh, wait: "The outfit that put upwards of 8 million volunteers on the street in 2008 -- known as Organizing for America -- is a ghost of its former self. Its staff has shrunk from 6,000 to 300, and its donors are depressed: receipts are a fraction of what they were in 2008. Virtually no one in politics believes it will turn many contests this fall."
- How does one greet the news that Politico will soon be featuring "ideologically balanced" opinion columnists Michael Kinsley and Joe Scarborough to "write from an ideological perspective?" Tom Scocca describes this journamalistic innovation: "Thirty-one years ago, Joe Scarborough was named 'Pat Buchanan' and this novel arrangement was called 'Crossfire.'" Indeed -- winning the Morning might even be easier now!
- I could care less whether Rahm Emanual wants to be mayor of Chicago, or whom Barack Obama would appoint to replace him, but the topic does allow me to bring up this weird, contrarian piece by Reihan Salam. Now, I know Salam isn't being serious when he writes "[Obama] should give serious thought to resigning from office and running for mayor of Chicago himself," so what is the point of his column? That Obama's "struggles on the national political scene" are the result of him being unfit for the presidency.
- Remainders: New frontiers in anti-Obama art; Democrats the Party Could do Without, a continuing series; it's sentiments like this that prevent me from having any respect for the business class; Paul Ryan and the GOP have a super-secret, awesome plan for when they take power, and they'll tell you what it is any day now; and everybody loves alternative tax-rate calculators!
-- Mori Dinauer
