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- I like Jonathan Zasloff's analysis of why Democrats did not bring a middle-class tax-cut bill to the floor before the midterm elections. He argues that there wasn't a clear way to win on the issue given the procedural rules of the Senate and the House, and thus the best option was to simply wait until after the midterms. He also notes that liberal commentators could wind up birthing a "Democrats cave" meme which could do more damage than a lost vote because it would simply depress an already-depressed base.
- I'm not sure what this analysis of campaign donations from university professors is supposed to tell us. It gives us a list of the "top 10 universities and educational institutions whose employees have donated the most money to federal candidates, parties and committees this election cycle," dominated by Democratic donations. Then they offer a table of the top 10 schools that donate to Republicans. Does Calvin College, which went 99 percent Republican, suffer from conservative bias? Does the University of California system, which went 86 percent Democratic, have an 86 percent liberal bias? This is a perfect example of methodological incoherence yielding, unsurprisingly, incoherence.
- Jonah Goldberg links to a story and writes, "Some cool new dinosaurs were discovered, if you believe in that sort of thing," which is an illustrative example of how the conservative movement tolerates its fringe. Goldberg isn't a creationist, but knowing that his ideological coalition is made up of a significant number of creationists, feels compelled to acknowledge them in a brief aside. There simply isn't anything like this in the liberal coalition.
- Remainders: The bias of the generic ballot is complicated; the cult of Reagan is truly disturbing; I believe this makes it Chait 2, Gillespie 0; National Review believes Jimmy Carter attempted to impose "Eurosocialism" on America; and I'm just going to keep noting Peter Suderman's "Obamacare" obsession for no particular reason.
--Mori Dinauer
