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- David Plouffe believes that the "prospect of a Republican takeover" will help Democrats with "turnout and some of this enthusiasm gap." Maybe he's right, but looking at new Pew data, what Democrats really need is to boost turnout relative to Republican enthusiasm. Democratic enthusiasm at this time in 2006 was only four points higher than it is now. But Republican enthusiasm is 26 points higher today. In other words, Democrats need unprecedented turnout to counter unprecedented Republican turnout.
- This gets a bit far into the weeds, but it's worth appreciating that not all political science is an exercise in statistics and poll numbers and that there is a place for qualitative research. But as Andrew Gelman notes, when it comes to presidential approval ratings, there isn't much of a story to tease out when economic conditions convincingly explain the numbers.
- Matt Cockerill writes in The American Conservative that "many highly opinionated journalists make great reporters" and then suggests that exposing the Journolist archives would "expose liberal media bias and cast a healthy skepticism upon supposedly objective reporting." This is one reason why "liberal media bias" is such a poor way of criticizing news reporting: It's presented as this pervasive force that taints all reporting except that, actually, it doesn't.
- Remainders: Debunking the myth of unemployment benefits discouraging people from finding (nonexistent) jobs; I don't see why Rand Paul would dismiss an underground electric border fence when there is a clear and present danger from the NAFTA Superhighway; this isn't a bad idea from Bob Shrum, but I don't think it will translate into votes for Democrats; and where are the hack liberal economists?
--Mori Dinauer
