himwhynot

Robert Kuttner says austerity is perverse economics and self-defeating politics. The austerity argument defies economic logic. The economy is performing far below capacity. To break the vicious circle of high unemployment, depressed consumer demand, weak business investment, and damaged banks, government should be doing more, not less. State and local budget cuts, totaling $460 billion […]

Sam Petulla talks to Sheila Krumholz about the real effects of the Citizens United decision on the midterms. What about out-of-state donations influencing local elections? Is this having an effect, or is it just buzz-generating? Most of these organizations have a national focus, so they’re looking at all the seats most likely to get them […]

Tim Fernholz reports on Joe Sestak‘s hunt for votes in the Philadelphia suburbs. The residential communities of southeast Pennsylvania were for decades home to reliable, if moderate, Republican voters, but demographic shifts toward white-collar workers and minorities since 1988 as well as changes in the Republican Party have given Democrats an advantage. A concentrated effort […]

Gabriel Arana asks what’s so wrong with young people coming together to laugh at the Tea Partiers. Perhaps living in Washington, having a college degree, and being a member of the “liberal media” automatically disqualifies me from opining. But in an election season featuring a former sorceress campaigning against masturbation and a state initiative banning […]

John Frank says the Florida governor’s race is one of the most important in the nation — and a low-flying hard-core conservative is looking to win. If Rick Scott wins in the Sunshine State, it will be a clean sweep for Republicans, who are expected to win the Senate race and already control the state […]

Adam Doster says high unemployment, a gaping state deficit, and a weak slate of Democratic candidates have given the GOP the advantage in Obama’s home state. How did the electoral landscape in Obama’s home state shift so swiftly? The rickety economy has played the central role. “When the economy is bad,” Mooney says, “that trumps […]

Matthew Yglesias says the administration didn’t lose a game of political daring — it failed to pay attention to the economy. Heading into a likely series of midterm-election defeats, Democratic incumbents would do well to remember two points — large losses were likely inevitable, and insofar as they were avoidable, the party has only itself […]

Monica Potts says that with nearly 200 House seats in play this year, determining races is less about polling and more about national trends. A finger in the wind? A crystal ball? The short answer is that analysts rely on a lot of information: internal polls, financial data, long-term trends in the district, and the […]

Paul Waldman asks just how much the unprecedented amount of corporate money poured into ad buys this election will matter. What’s different this election season is the sheer volume of ads, driven higher than ever by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision issued earlier this year. In striking down the McCain–Feingold campaign-finance reform law (and […]

Sarah Garland asks whether it helps students succeed in the long term when charter schools hold them back, or if it just improves short-term test results. Although there are no national statistics tracking the percentage of students held back in charters, there is evidence that the number is large. Schools in charter hotspots like New […]