Progressive Breakfast

Bill Scher — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 08:17:14 -0500

MORNING MESSAGE: Obama Has Political Capital

OurFuture.org's Richard Eskow: "So, let’s get this straight: A Republican President is re-elected in 2004 with 284 electoral votes and the pundits say he has the 'political capital' to push an extreme right-wing mandate. A Democratic President gets re-elected in 2012 with 303 electoral votes, and they’re telling us he needs to 'unite a divided country.' Nonsense. This election was a clear and unequivocal victory for the populist positions the President took on the campaign trail."

Biden, Boehner Begin Budget Dance

Biden asserts tax mandate. HuffPost quotes: "There was a clear, a clear sort of mandate about people coming much closer to our view about how to deal with tax policy."

Boehner's conciliatory tone does not necessarily mean a new GOP position on taxes. W. Post: "Boehner and Republicans have long promised to enact comprehensive tax reform that would curb tax exemptions as long as that reform lowered tax rates instead of raising them. He’s also long said he’s open to more revenue so long as it comes from a stronger economy rather than higher taxes. Again, nothing new there. That’s classic supply-side economics, and most Democrats and most economists doubt it applies to the current tax code. So there’s no deal if that’s what Boehner is proposing. But Boehner’s final sentence is interesting: 'Because the American people expect us to find common ground, we are willing to accept some additional revenues, via tax reform.' That sounds like he’s accepting some version of the Simpson-Bowles approach to tax increases, in which you close tax breaks and deductions and use some of the money to lower rates and some to reduce the deficit."

Democrats not taking Boehner's bait. TPM: "...their hopes rest on a vague suggestion that they’ll concede higher revenues in a future tax reform agreement with Obama, so long as he drops his demands for higher tax rates and agrees to cut entitlement spending. This sounds familiar because it’s broadly speaking the same deficit cutting deal Republicans spent most of this past Congress pursuing — one that raises little, if any revenue, let alone revenue from high earners. And early signs indicate that Democrats won’t bite."

Signers of Grover Norquist's anti-tax pledge fare poorly. ThinkProgress: "... at least 55 Republican House incumbents or candidates who signed the pledge — and 24 Republican Senators or hopefuls — lost on Tuesday. Linda McMahon (R-CT), Senator Scott Brown (R-MA), Treasurer Josh Mandel (R-OH), Secretary of State Charles Summers (R-ME), former Gov. Tommy Thompson (R-CA) all signed the pledge and were attacked by their Democrats opponents in face-to-face debates over the issue. All five were defeated in their Senate bids."

National People's Action launches 25-city grassroots push for a "Fair Deal": "Either Congress and the President will ensure that corporations and the richest 2% pay their fair share or the rest of us will pick up their tab and face devastating cuts ... We're taking this message to our senators and representatives: if you want to get our economy back on track we need to focus on additional investments in jobs and services that rebuild our economy."

Values Over Demographics

President Obama's pollster stresses election about "values" not "demographics" in NYT oped: "The president’s victory was a triumph of vision, not of demographics. He won because he articulated a set of values that define an America that the majority of us wish to live in ... 89 percent of those surveyed agreed that 'for my children to have the economic opportunities I’ve had, we need to make real investments in education, creating world-class schools and making college more affordable.' Mitt Romney’s negative drumbeat about the president’s record and his insistence that our economic agenda was failing were essentially tone-deaf, missing the mark with voters to such an extent that they undermined the central premise of his candidacy — his economic expertise."

Republicans ponder shifts on abortion and immigration to get in sync with modern America. Politico: "West Virginia Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, who’s considering a Senate bid in 2014, said Republicans had to confront the reality that they’re 'not diversified like the country ... It’s a broader issue than women just being concerned about abortion. There’s a concern that people in the Republican Party want to intervene in the choices women have,' ... Republican State Leadership Committee President Chris Jankowski, whose group supports GOP candidates in non-federal elections, put it this way: 'We ran into what I would describe as a buzz saw of Democrat-driven Hispanic turnout that was all about the top of the ticket but it caught us down ballot.' To get past that obstacle, Jankowski said Republicans need 'the immigration debate … to be addressed and settled in a way the Republican Party can live with.'"

Latino turnout was up. LAT: "...Latinos represented a bigger share of the electorate this time. All told, Obama probably netted at least 1.4 million more Latino votes this year than in 2008, the exit poll data suggest. The increased vote provided his margin of victory in several states, including Colorado and Nevada, and also helped the Democrats win several close Senate contests. It gave Obama a similar margin in Florida, where he is leading but the result is still undecided. 'For the first time in United States history, the Latino can claim to be nationally decisive,' said Stanford University professor Gary Segura..."

Progressive Breakfast

Bill Scher — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 09:17:28 -0500

Each morning, Bill Scher and Terrance Heath serve up what progressives need to effect change on the kitchen-table issues families face: jobs, health care, green energy, financial reform, affordable education and retirement security.

MORNING MESSAGE: The Triumph of Middle Class Populism

OurFuture.org's Robert Borosage: "Middle class populism triumphed. The president swept key states in the Midwest because his campaign scoured Romney for his Bain record and produced for workers in the rescue of the auto industry. Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown, Tammy Baldwin won by standing clearly with working people against the money interests. Progressives also made gains in the House, but there clearly a flood of late big money helped Republicans stave off many strong challenges. We’ll provide detailed analysis when the results are finally in. Our election night poll results will be released on Friday. Stay tuned."

"Welcome to Liberal America"

"Welcome to Liberal America" writes BuzzFeed's Ben Smith: "The first post-baby boomer president was returned to the White House with the widest, clearest re-election win since Ronald Reagan won 49 states in 1984 ... Ballot measures that had failed for years — allowing the marriage of two men or two women in Maine and Maryland; legalizing marijuana in Washington State and Colorado — were voted into law. The nation’s leading champion of bank regulation Elizabeth Warren handily defeated moderate Sen. Scott Brown in Massachusetts, and the nation’s first lesbian senator, in Tammy Baldwin, was elected in Wisconsin."

President Obama beat conservatism. Mother Jones' David Corn: "In an archly ideological race that pitted a progressive case for government against a conservative assault on government, the president, burdened by a slow recovery but bolstered by a brilliant ground game based on hard-and-fast demographic realities, beat back Mitt Romney, who embraced the tea-partyization of the Republican Party and campaigned (often in an ugly fashion) for the chance to be CEO of the United States.

"A thrashing" says Daily Beast's Michael Tomasky: "Was it the ground game? Was it the 47 percent? Was it Sandy? Was it Chris Christie? It was a little bit of all those things. But mostly it was two big things, and this election was about big things. The first big thing is that a very clear majority of Americans saw the truth about the past four years. Exit polls showed that voters still blamed the economic problems on George Bush’s administration. They thought Obama tried hard and did a pretty good job ... more people thought—finally!—that the economy was headed in the right direction ..."

"The age of Reagan is officially over, and the Obama majority is the only majority we have," says NYT's Ross Douthat.

Democrats claim mandate. Politico: "...Democrats believe their sweeping wins of key Senate races and President Barack Obama’s historic reelection give them new ground to push a more ambitious agenda, ranging from tax reform to an immigration overhaul to energy legislation. Democrats contend they have a new mandate to raise taxes on the rich and drive Washington’s high-stakes fiscal debate over the next 60 days ... 'Given the numbers and given the economy, and given their super PACs – they would have to admit that the policy of obstruction was a political failure,' [said] New York Sen. Chuck Schumer..."

Women made the difference. HuffPost: "According to CNN's exit polls, 55 percent of women voted for Obama, while only 44 percent voted for Mitt Romney. Men preferred Romney by a margin of 52 to 45 percent, and women made up about 54 percent of the electorate. In total, the gender gap on Tuesday added up to 18 percent -- a significantly wider margin than the 12-point gender gap in the 2008 election."

As well as Latinos. ABC: " Obama won 71 percent of the Latino vote while Romney won 27 percent. That's an improvement over Obama's 2008 performance when Latinos backed him 67-31 percent over Republican John McCain and the largest Democratic margin since 1996 ... just eight years ago, George W. Bush won around 40 percent of the Latino vote."

GOP Heads Towards Intra-Party Civil War

Republican leaders stay delusional. Politico: "'The American people want solutions — and tonight, they’ve responded by renewing our majority,' Boehner said. 'With this vote, the American people have also made clear that there is no mandate for raising tax rates.'"

GOP prepares for circular firing squad. NYT:“'There will be some kind of war,' predicted Mike Murphy, a longtime Republican Party consultant, suggesting it would pit 'mathematicians' like him, who argue that the party cannot keep surrendering the votes of Hispanics, blacks, younger voters and college-educated women, against the party purists, or 'priests,' as he puts it, who believe that basic conservative principles can ultimately triumph without much deviation."

Senate Turns Left

Dems keep Senate. LAT: "The balance of power was likely to shift by no more than a seat or two, if at all ... the decision by Republican leaders to stay out of the primary process ceded the field to tea party candidates who then struggled in key states. Voters rejected those conservative Republicans in Missouri and Indiana. Republicans also lost their marquee race in Massachusetts, where Sen. Scott Brown helped launch the 2010 tea party wave ... In Ohio, one of the most liberal Democrats, Sen. Sherrod Brown, won a second term, while in Florida, Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson was easily reelected. In Wisconsin, Democrat Tammy Baldwin, the congresswoman from Madison, prevailed over former Gov. Tommy Thompson to become the first openly gay senator ... In Maine, the independent former governor, Angus King, has declined to say which party he would caucus with, although he is expected to join Democrats."

The Senate will be more liberal. NYT's David Firestone: "Joe Donnelly of Indiana and Angus King of Maine (nominally an independent) replace Republicans. Tim Kaine of Virginia is more liberal than Jim Webb, the Democrat who retired, just as Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and Chris Murphy of Connecticut are more liberal than Herb Kohl and Joe Lieberman. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts will be one of the strongest voices in support of Mr. Obama’s policies, and may even push the president leftward."

Sen. Reid calls on GOP to end obstruction. TPM quotes: "The strategy of obstruction, gridlock and delay was soundly rejected by the American people. Now, they are looking to us for solutions."

Dems also make gains with state legislatures. Reuters: "Democrats wrested the Colorado House and New York Senate from Republicans and gained control of the Oregon House, which had been tied ... The president's party also took back both chambers of the Minnesota legislature that went to Republican control in 2010's midterm election. While the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee said the party won control of Maine's chambers, which Republicans also captured in the 2010 wave, the NCSL said it could not confirm the takeover. Meanwhile, Republicans took over the Wisconsin Senate, where Democrats held a short-lived majority..."

Progressive Breakfast

Terrance Heath — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 08:03:12 -0500

MORNING MESSAGE: A Vote Against Despair

OurFuture.Org's Richard Eskow: "Some people I respect are agonizing over their Presidential vote. Others are voting third-party, or not at all. Speaking only for myself, my choice wasn't made lightly: I'll be voting to re-elect a President whose Administration I've often criticized over the last four years. And yet, despite my concerns, I'll be casting that vote without despair. Why not? Most Americans agree on a broad range of issues, according to polls. Across party lines and "left/right" boundaries, clear majorities oppose cutting Social Security or Medicare to balance the budget. They want to raise taxes on millionaires and billionaires. They want government to invest in restoring our economy. And they want Wall Street held accountable. Neither candidate is fighting unequivocally for these majority positions. But like the old cliché says: Despair is not an option

Campaigning Ends, Voting Begins

State by State, Battle for Presidency Goes to Voters [NYT]: "The most expensive presidential race in American history now becomes the biggest show on television, a night with enough uncertainty that it could become a telethon lasting well into morning. For the third time in the last four presidential campaigns, the Democratic and Republican presidential nominees went into Election Day close in the national polls, with not one of the major opinion surveys giving President Obama or Mitt Romney a lead of statistical significance. But presidential races are decided in the states, and the nation will get an answer to the opposing cases for victory that each candidate has made for so many months. It will finally know, as one of Mr. Obama’s top aides has put it, 'which side is bluffing' and whether battleground-state polls, which have given Mr. Obama a slim but consistent edge where it matters most, accurately foretold the outcome. As the night unfolds, clues to the outcome will spill out well before the votes are counted."

Obama, Romney Tie in Dixville Notch [ABC News]: "The first votes are in! Ten of them, anyway. And it’s an Obama, Romney tie. The small hamlet of Dixville Notch in New Hampshire distinguishes itself every primary and general election by voting right at midnight. This year ten voters showed up and they split evenly – five votes apiece – for President Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney. Obama won the Dixville Notch vote in 2008. But in elections before that, the town had stuck to more conservative candidates, twice selecting a Republican instead of Bill Clinton. Dixville Notch and its 10 voters may be symbolic, but they’re not a bellwether for the state. Obama won in Dixville Notch in 2008, but that was the first time a majority of the town went for a Dem in 40 years."

Odds Favor Obama

Nate Silver: Late Poll Gains for Obama Leave Romney With Longer Odds: "But the most recent set of polls suggest another problem for Mr. Romney, whose momentum in the polls stalled out in mid-October. Instead, it is President Obama who is making gains. Among 12 national polls published on Monday, Mr. Obama led by an average of 1.6 percentage points. Perhaps more important is the trend in the surveys. On average, Mr. Obama gained 1.5 percentage points from the prior edition of the same polls, improving his standing in nine of the surveys while losing ground in just one. ...All of this leaves Mr. Romney drawing to an inside straight. I hope you’ll excuse the cliché, but it’s appropriate here: in poker, making an inside straight requires you to catch one of 4 cards out of 48 remaining in the deck, the chances of which are about 8 percent. Those are now about Mr. Romney’s chances of winning the Electoral College, according to the FiveThirtyEight forecast."

Gallup: Majority of Americans expect Obama to win re-election [The Grio]: "According to interviews conducted by Gallup‘s polling site, no matter how people plan on voting, Americans still believe that President Obama has a better chance for re-election. The polling was conducted from October 27-28, before Hurricane Sandy first hit the East Coast. Current polls show a tight race between Obama and Romney, but Americans views haven’t changed from what they were in May and August. Americans still think that Obama will beat Romney by a margin of 54 percent to 34 percent."

WaPo's Dylan Matthews says polls would have to be wrong by four points for Romney to win: "A four-point swing in the final days isn’t unthinkable. [Robert] Erikson and [Karl] Sigman note that a swing nearly that big happened in the national vote in 2000, with almost 4 percent of voters swinging toward Al Gore following the discovery of George W. Bush’s DUI arrest. The problem was that the swing bypassed battleground states, where the candidates had already spent more time campaigning, indicating that those voters’ opinions were more fixed in the last weeks than those of voters in safe states. So a four-point swing in battleground states is a little harder to imagine than a swing that large in the national vote. 'Unheard of' doesn’t mean 'impossible,' of course, but it does suggest that Romney has tough odds to overcome Tuesday."

The Lucky One?

Washington Whispers' Elizabeth Flock says Obama is still the luckiest politician alive: "Throughout Barack Obama's political career, a series of fortuitous events have led pundits, comedians and conservatives to dub him 'the luckiest politician alive.' One day out from Election Day, with images of heroic cleanup and rapid recovery after Superstorm Sandy splashed across TV screens, that moniker seems to still fit. A Pew poll out Monday shows Obama taking a three point lead over Romney, with 69 percent of all likely voters approving of the way the president is handling the storm. ...If Obama wins reelection Tuesday, of course, it can't be attributed just to luck. "You make your own luck and, to a large extent, Obama has done just that," the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza notes of the president. But few can deny that if Obama wins Tuesday, it will be with the appearance of good fortune on his side."

Matthew Yglesias says the next president will be lucky to preside over a recovery ... and take credit for it: "While anything’s possible, 2012 is shaping up to be the reverse kind of election: Whoever wins is poised to preside over a return to economic normalcy that’s bound to make any kind of basically competent governance look fantastic compared to the last decade of misery. Consider Mitt Romney’s assertion that his policies would lead to 12 million new jobs. This has gotten him in trouble with fact checkers for an unusual reason. Many people think it’s too likely to happen. Moody’s Analytics, for example, published an analysis of the economic outlook back in April that has 11.7 million jobs over the next four years as its baseline forecast. Macroeconomic Advisers has made a similar forecast, calling for 12.3 million jobs over the next four years."

Fiscal cliff: Next president's first big problem to solve [CNN Money]: "No matter who wins the election on Tuesday, the next president will have to immediately stare down the country's largest, most pressing domestic problem: the fiscal cliff. That cliff -- which starts to take effect in January -- includes $7 trillion worth of tax increases and spending cuts over a decade. Among the policies at issue are reductions in both defense and non-defense spending, the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, the end of a payroll tax holiday and extended unemployment benefits, and the onset of reimbursement cuts to Medicare doctors. Lawmakers must choose whether to leave in place some or all of them, replace them, postpone them or cancel them entirely. The decision will affect the economy, the country's credit rating and the U.S. debt burden."

The Day After

Swampland's Massimo Calabresi ponders what happens on November 7th, when voting goes bad: "Nine swing states hold the keys to victory in the race for the White House, and most polls have them within the margin of error, albeit with a distinct Obama edge. Many have mandatory recounts if the difference between the candidates is within a few percentage points (in most cases that amounts to several thousand votes). Come Wednesday morning there is currently an 8% chance, according to the New York Times’ Nate Silver, that one of these states will hold up the determination of a winner in the presidential contest. If that happens, things will get ugly. All clean presidential elections are alike—whoever gets 270 electoral college votes becomes president. But each contested election is a misery all its own. In addition to the classic problems from past elections, like crowding, difficulty counting ballots and complaints of limited voter access, this year the expansion in early voting holds a new set of concerns.

Is Ohio voting software vulnerable to fraud? Court to hear Election Day case [CS Monitor]: "A federal lawsuit filed Monday in Columbus, Ohio, charges the secretary of state's office with illegally installing untested software on voting systems in dozens of counties – a step that creates a digital 'back door,' which someone wishing to alter vote totals might be able to exploit. With Ohio seen as perhaps the most pivotal state in the presidential election, it is being closely watched for the slightest sign of irregularities. The suit seeks a temporary injunction to prevent the state from using the software in Tuesday's election. A hearing is scheduled for 10 a.m. in the US District Court for the southern district of Ohio, eastern division. If granted, an injunction could prevent Ohio votes from being formatted by the new software and sent to the office of Secretary of State Jon Husted (R) after polls close."

Obama, Romney campaigns brace for battle after Tuesday’s vote [Washington Post]: "Even before Tuesday’s voting began, the two sides were already skirmishing over how the balloting was being administered. ...The fight over those ballots has now increased the possibility that — if Tuesday’s election comes down to the Buckeye State, it won’t end on Tuesday night at all. Instead, it might be weeks before Ohio has a final result. Voting rights advocates contend that a new directive issued Friday evening by Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted improperly places the burden on voters — rather than poll workers — for accurately recording the form of identification on provisional ballots."

Voter Suppression Tactics Likely to Affect U.S. Election [IPS]: "Voter suppression has reached new heights in the United States, analysts and experts say, as elected state officials have increasingly resorted to a new and growing generation of voter suppression tactics. Whether these tactics will tip the outcome of the presidential race is uncertain, but they are likely to affect races at least at state and local levels during elections on Nov. 6. Although no U.S. citizen can technically be deprived of his or her right to vote due to race, ethnicity or socioeconomic status, the majority of these tactics, driven in part by groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council, appear to be directed at black and low-income communities, as they have a disproportionate negative impact on voters in those communities."

The Status Quo Congress

What will happen if Congress remains status quo? [CS Monitor]: "No matter who wins the presidency — President Barack Obama or Republican Mitt Romney — the nation's chief executive will be dealing with a Congress no closer to bridging the ideological chasm and showing no inclination to end the months of dysfunction. Tea party numbers are certain to tick up in the Senate with Republican Ted Cruz heavily favored in Texas and Deb Fischer looking to grab the Nebraska seat. In the House, the movement that propelled the GOP to the majority in 2010 will be even more emboldened even if a few of the big-name tea partiers lose."

Next Congress expected to look very much like this one [USA Today]: "Wednesday could bring about a frustrating reality to the 69% of Americans who disapprove of Congress, which ranks among the lowest pre-election measurements recorded by Gallup, and the gridlock that has defined the institution for the past two years. There will be new faces in Congress next year, but the number of Republicans and Democrats isn't going to change much. According to data compiled by the non-partisan Cook Political Report, there are 62 U.S. House seats with no incumbent on the ballot — a record since 1992 — but not enough seats are forecast to change partisan hands to upset the current balance of power. House Republicans are heading in to Election Day with a 242-seat majority, and Cook projects the likeliest outcome for a zero- to five-seat gain for Democrats."

Ezra Klein notes that moderate Republicans endorsing Romney always assume a Democratic Senate: "Moderate Republicans endorsing Romney have been doing something similar. They all work off of a similar premise. 'Let's assume we have a Democratic Senate,' they begin. ...All of these endorsements are dealing with the same problem: They want to endorse Mitt Romney, the moderate governor of Massachusetts. But over the past few years, we’ve mainly seen Mitt Romney, the “severely conservative” champion of the Tea Party. The only way to ensure we don’t get that guy is to give Democrats the Senate. But that’s not actually something that can be assured. Democrats might lose the Senate tomorrow. If they don’t, they might lose it in 2014. ...It’s a strange kind of endorsement that only works as long as the presidential candidate being endorsed isn’t able to govern alongside members of his own party. More to the point, it’s a self-nullifying kind of endorsement."

The GOP's Self-Sabotage

The GOP's chances of taking the Senate have been done in by the candidates [NYT]: "For Republicans intent on unraveling President Obama’s accomplishments, electing Mitt Romney has been only one part of the equation. Almost as important was installing a Republican majority in the United States Senate, where 50 votes (plus the vice president) would be necessary to repeal much of health care reform, roll back tax increases on the rich and gut social welfare programs. The party’s hopes, however, have been severely damaged in recent weeks. Republican candidates who are crucial to regaining a majority in the Senate have tumbled, according to a variety of polls, and Democrats are now considered likely to retain control. The reason for this is clear: Primary voters chose several unappealing or ideologically driven candidates who repelled general-election voters once they began speaking their minds."

The Guardian's Michael Cohen writes that the real story behind the 2012 election is how the GOP sabotaged itself: "The single most defining element of American politics over the last four years is that the Republican party has fallen out of the crazy tree and hit every branch on the way down. It is no longer even appropriate to say the Republican party is dominated by its conservative wing; but rather, that the GOP is controlled by its extreme, radical wing. The shift of the Republican to the far, far right is not a recent development. Instead, it is reflective of a four-decade shift in ideological orientation in the GOP: from a party once torn between distinct conservative and moderate wings, to one in which moderates have gone the way of dinosaurs and VCRs. ...For years, the national Republican party emboldened this wing of the GOP and made it the vanguard of its efforts to maintain national power. That group now holds ideological sway in the Republican party. In the naked pursuit of short-term partisan gain, the Republican party has unleashed forces that it can no longer fully control."

Progressive Breakfast

Bill Scher — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 08:10:00 -0500

MORNING MESSAGE: Middle-Class Zeros Could Get Zeroed Out Tuesday

OurFuture.org's Isaiah Poole: "At least eight toss-up races in the House that will be decided Tuesday feature strong progressive challengers trying to unseat Republican incumbents who received zeros in this year's TheMiddleClass.org Voter Guide. Victories by progressives in these races will help dispel the notion that strong progressive populist campaigns can't work in swing districts. They will also help undermine any effort to assert a mandate for continuing in the direction of cutting programs that provide economic support for middle-class and low-income families while continuing tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans."

Last Pitch To Undecideds

Both candidates make bipartisan appeals in final days. LAT: "It's a tonal shift for Romney, who described himself as 'severely conservative' in the primary and has been sharply critical of Obama's 'liberal agenda' all year. He sounded very much like candidate Obama of 2008 as he campaigned Sunday ... Obama had the benefit of a fresh example of bipartisanship. The aftermath of super storm Sandy created a steady stream of images of the president working side by side with New Jersey's Republican Gov. Chris Christie ... As he seeks to fire up Democrats in the final days, Obama also promises not to 'surrender' on his priorities."

Effective response to Sandy due to President Obama's governing philosophy. NYT's Paul Krugman: "...the difference is summed up in two images. One is the nightmare at the New Orleans convention center, where thousands were stranded for days amid inconceivable squalor, an outrage that all of America watched live on TV, but to which top officials seemed oblivious. The other is the scene in flooded Hoboken, with the National Guard moving in the day after the storm struck to deliver food and water and rescue stranded residents. The point is that after Katrina the government seemed to have no idea what it was doing; this time it did. And that’s no accident..."

NYT edit board reminds, Republicans would cut taxes for rich, raise taxes on poor: "If Congressional Republicans get their way, expiring cuts in the estate tax for America’s wealthiest families will be extended in 2013. But under their cruel plan, enhancements to tax credits for low- and moderate-income working families, which are also set to expire at the end of the year, would end."

"Gasoline prices post biggest fall in nearly 4 years" reports Reuters.

Chaos As Florida Restricts Early Voting

"Florida early voting fiasco," reports HuffPost: "Early voting is supposed to make it easier for people to carry out their constitutional right. Tuesdays are notoriously inconvenient to take off work, so many states have given voters the option of turning out on weekends or other weekdays in the run-up to Election Day. But in Florida this year, it has been a nightmare for voters, who have faced record wait times, long lines in the sun and a Republican governor, Rick Scott, who has refused to budge and extend early voting hours..."

Dems file lawsuit, one county extends hours. AP: " The judge ruled on a lawsuit filed late Saturday in Orange County after an early voting site was shut down for several hours. The Winter Park library was evacuated when a suspicious package — a cooler — was found outside. It was later detonated by a local bomb squad ... The Miami-Dade elections office reopened to accept absentee ballots Sunday after shutting down temporarily ... Voters banged on the front doors and demanded to vote, prompting staff to reopen the office about an hour later."

Unions getting out the vote. NYT: "With labor’s political influence having fallen short in the 2010 elections and with membership declining, unions are hoping that two new strategies will strengthen their efforts this time around. They have welcomed members of outside groups like MoveOn.org, the N.A.A.C.P. and Planned Parenthood to join their canvasses and phone banks. And for the first time, union members — as a result of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision — can call and visit not just union households, but nonunion ones too."

"Don't Just Vote" say Van Jones and Billy Wimsatt: "Here are eight cool, interesting (and useful) things to do in the next 36 hours in addition to voting..."

Money May Not Be Enough To Take Senate

"Last-minute money" could impact Senate races. NYT: "In Ohio, Arizona, Indiana and even Missouri, once thought to be an uneven contest, a last-minute rush of money on both sides suggests that neither party believes that the balance of power in the next Senate is set ... In the past two weeks, $22 million has poured into the Senate race in Virginia. Outside groups have dumped $17.2 million into Wisconsin, $12.7 million into Arizona, $11.3 million into Indiana, $8.6 million into Montana and $8.5 million into Nevada."

But Republicans not expected to take over Senate. Politico: "...the GOP is still widely expected to fall short Tuesday night. The three- or four-seat gain it needs to make Harry Reid minority leader no longer looks to be in the cards."

Money may stall Dems in House races. Politico: "...there’s little question that the GOP cash edge made a difference. Republican groups spent big on defense in races in Indiana, New Hampshire and suburban Orlando, Fla., allowing the NRCC to focus heavily on offense."

Budget Jockeying in Congress Before Election Day

Speaker Boehner wants to scrap deadline for budget deal. CNN: "...he said he expected 'some kind temporary push back of the sequester. I would think that would be the best you can hope for, and even that is going to be very difficult to do.'"

Missing deadline would not cause immediate impact. Politico: "...a new report by OMB Watch, which says the White House has the authority to effectively delay the effects of the across-the-board budget cuts by several weeks to allow time for Congress to cut a deal ... lawmakers have a powerful incentive to wait until January — after the 113th Congress is sworn in — to resolve the issue. In addition, he said, the expiration of the Bush tax cuts at the end of the year could greatly increase the odds of a deficit-cutting grand bargain in January — but not December."

Progressive Breakfast

Bill Scher — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 01:28:17 -0400

MORNING MESSAGE: Austerity Doesn't Work

OurFuture.org's Terrance Heath: "In Greece, Europe's austerity poster child, austerity has shrunk the economy and increased the national debt ... Austerity only increased inequality in Portugal. Now, after painful austerity measures that hit ordinary Portuguese and public sector workers hardest failed to reduce the deficit, Portuguese citizens are planning to rally against new tax increases ... All across the EU, austerity has driven joblessness to a record high ... Yet the austerians demand even more."

Jobs Report Today

Monthy jobs report to be released at 8:30 AM ET. NYT previews: "Of late, consumers have been feeling better. Home prices have bottomed out in many markets, and are picking up in many others. The ranks of the jobless have shrunken, and millions of workers are seeing their wages increase, though not by much ... But businesses are feeling worse. Executives are very concerned about the 'fiscal cliff,' the huge tax increases and spending cuts looming in January. Manufacturing and exports, two of the bright spots in the recovery, have weakened of late."

Republicans threatening more economic blackmail if Obama wins, argues NYT's Paul Krugman: "Vote for Mr. Romney, they say, because if he loses, Republicans will destroy the economy. O.K., they don’t quite put it that way. The argument is phrased in terms of 'partisan gridlock,' ... are we ready to become a country in which 'Nice country you got here. Shame if something were to happen to it' becomes a winning political argument?"

Progressives Prepare to Thwart Bad Bargain

Progressive group draw lines for post-election budget battle. Politico: "Labor unions and liberal interest groups are going all-out for President Barack Obama’s reelection — but they’re just as ready to turn that firepower back on him if he betrays them with a grand bargain ... The network will hold what they’re calling a national day of action Nov. 8 and follow up later in the month with lobbying events ... 'It is safe to say many groups are very concerned that a grand bargain will be foisted on the Congress that goes against what Democratic candidates promised on the campaign trail,' said Roger Hickey, co-director of the Campaign for America’s Future."

Corporate split over grand bargain. W. Post: "The latest salvo was fired Wednesday when a coalition of business trade associations and advocacy groups warned Congress against agreeing to a deal that leans on new tax revenue. The group, which includes the Chamber of Commerce, the National Federation of Independent Business, and the National Association of Manufacturers, urged lawmakers to put deep cuts in federal spending at the center. This group, dubbed the Tax Relief Coalition, is pushing back against a rival campaign led by prominent chief executives who called on Congress late last month to include increased taxes, alongside spending cuts, in efforts to tame the national debt."

Sandy Puts Climate Crisis Back In Spotlight

More politicians making connections to climate change. W. Post: "Post-Sandy ... some politicians are stating the obvious. 'There’s been a series of extreme weather incidents,' said New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) ... New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (I) went even further on Thursday when he put his lips together and finally pulled climate change into the presidential race ... in his surprise endorsement of President Obama..."

Oil lobby says wind companies don't deserve tax credit. The Hill: "The conservative American Energy Alliance (AEA) unveiled the study Thursday as wind power companies — joined by allies including President Obama — are pushing Congress to renew credits that are scheduled to lapse at year’s end ... AEA commissioned a study by Louisiana State University economist David Dismukes that argues the 20-year-old production tax credit (PTC) provides 'training wheels' to an industry that doesn’t need them..."

Former GOP House rep slams party for rejecting climate science. The HIll: "The Republican Party is 'falling away from scientific opinion' on climate change, a former GOP lawmaker said Thursday. 'I believe that my party, the Republican Party, needs to do a much better job of making sure that we are examining the science,' [said] Mike Castle..."

FEMA cash reserve may not be enough to handle Sandy's devastation. Politico: "Hurricane aid could complicate what is already a jam-packed post election lame-duck session on Capitol Hill. Lawmakers are already confronting a one-two punch of tax increases and automatic spending cuts slated to take effect in 2013 that could shove the country back into a recession."

Sen. Rand Paul slams FEMA. CNN: "'I have always maintained that FEMA should exist on money that comes in as revenue, but not on borrowed money,' the fiscal conservative said ... Paul, a longtime critic of the agency, argued the U.S. should instead fund FEMA with the money it sends overseas in foreign aid. He also argued that local communities - as well as private groups such as the Salvation Army and the Red Cross - do a better job than federal agencies in the immediate aftermath of large-scale emergencies."

Federal energy regulators going after Wall St. speculators. NYT: "The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the government watchdog overseeing the oil, natural gas and electricity business, has lately taken aim at three major banks suspected of manipulating energy prices. After taking action against JPMorgan Chase and Deutsche Bank, the agency on Wednesday threatened to impose its largest fine ever against Barclays ... The banks sense that a larger regulatory battle is at stake. Unlike financial regulators, the energy commission can fine firms $1 million a day for every violation. The string of recent cases, banks fear, could lay the groundwork for years of costly litigation."

Progressive Breakfast

Bill Scher — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 06:28:06 -0400

MORNING MESSAGE: Stormy Weather

OurFuture.org's Terrance Heath: "First, there was Snowpocalypse. Then there was Snowmageddon. That was followed by Thundersnow. This summer brought the derecho. And most recently, we've been visited by Frankenstorm ... Climate change is certainly a contributing factor to both the frequency and intensity of these events ... while the president may be vulnerable to critics who say he hasn't had enough to say about climate change during the campaign, the record of what president Obama has done — or tried to do, faced with what was arguably the worst, most obstructionist, most unpopular do-nothing congress ever — makes it clear that if Obama hasn't said enough about climate change during the campaign, he's done several things to address climate change during his first term in office. "

Obama Leads Storm Response

President Obama and Gov. Christie displaying bipartisanship in wake of Sandy. NYT: "'I cannot thank the president enough for his personal concern and compassion for our state,' he added during a brief news conference. He said it was 'my honor' to turn the podium over to the president and then stood just behind him, occasionally nodding and smiling at his jokes. For all the disruptions caused by Hurricane Sandy, the most unexpected may have been its unsettling effect on a presidential campaign winding into its final days. Perhaps nothing demonstrated the sudden upending of a political landscape years in the making so much as Mr. Christie’s unexpected and effusive praise of Mr. Obama. Only last week he dismissed the president as 'clutching for the light switch of leadership.'"

While Romney tones down. NYT: "Mr. Romney’s 20-minute stump speech in the final stretch is a case study in ... modulation ... Two words that nobody has heard over the past week: 'severely' or 'conservative.'"

Obama left FEMA "flush" with cash. NY Mag's Dan Amira: "You're not hearing a lot of complaints about FEMA these days ... One reason is money: FEMA, often cash-strapped in recent history, is flush with enough funds to cover its Sandy relief efforts, and has thus been able to keep mayors and governors happy by providing whatever aid they need ... In these waning days of the campaign, a big, splashy demonstration of efficient federal governance just might help Obama win that argument ..."

"Will Climate Get Some Respect Now?" asks NYT's Nick Kristof: "Along with eight million others, the Kristofs have lost power, so I’ve been sending Twitter messages on my iPhone by candlelight — an odd juxtaposition that feels like a wake-up call. In the candlelit aftermath of a future hurricane, I’m guessing, we’ll look back at the silence about climate in the 2012 election and ask: 'What were they thinking?'"

Obama prepares return to campaign trail. CNN: "The president kicks off his multi-state swing Saturday, traveling to Mentor, Ohio; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Dubuque, Iowa; and Bristow, Virginia. The following day, he'll visit Concord, New Hampshire; Ft. Lauderdale, Florida; Aurora, Colorado and Cincinnati, Ohio. Before he sets off on the weekend tour, Obama will give remarks at three events in Ohio on Friday and travel to Wisconsin, Nevada and Colorado on Thursday."

Jeep Lie Weighs Romney Down

NYT edit board rips Romney for repeatedly lying: "Mr. Romney apparently plans to end his race as he began it: playing lowest-common-denominator politics, saying anything necessary to achieve power and blithely deceiving voters desperate for clarity and truth ... What Mr. Romney cannot admit is that all this is a direct result of the government investment he would have rejected. It’s bad enough to be wrong on the policy. It takes an especially dishonest candidate to simply turn up the volume on a lie and keep repeating it."

Romney's lying forces auto companies to respond, notes TNR's Jon Cohn: "They tried hard to stay out of the presidential campaign. Although both companies were beneficiaries of the rescue package President Obama authorized in 2009, over the summer they started refusing requests to use their factories as venues for candidate events ... But now officials from the companies are speaking out. And they are seriously pissed off."

"Romney’s ‘Plan’ To Help The Auto Industry: Massive Corporate Tax Breaks." ThinkProgress: "Writing on Romney’s campaign web site, ex-Chrysler chairman and Romney endorser Lee Iacocca has now laid out Romney’s plan to help the auto industry: it’s a massive corporate tax break that will make it easier for businesses to offshore their profits ... Steven Rattner, Treasury’s lead adviser during the auto rescue, said on a conference call today that he would 'take issue' with the idea that auto companies need tax breaks. 'I’m not sure what Lee Iacocca is talking about,' Rattner said. 'The least of the industry’s problems has been taxes.'"

Jobs Number Still Coming Friday

BLS won't delay. NYT: "Economists expect the jobs figures to show slow, steady employment growth, the product of an anemic but persistent recovery, with the unemployment rate remaining about where it is in the coming months, and employers expected to add workers too slowly to pull the overall jobless rate down further."

Robert McElvaine compares Obama's handling of financial crisis to Hoover's, in NYT: "The government did not collect employment data during the Hoover years, but the best estimate indicates that unemployment soared from 3.1 percent when he took office [to 23.5%.] ... Under Obama, unemployment continued to rise in the early months of his administration, clearly the result of the near-depression that he inherited, peaking at 10.0 percent in October 2009. The improvement since then has been painfully slow, but it has moved in the right direction, reaching 7.8 percent — a record vastly better than that in the last similar collapse ... G.D.P. plummeted by more than 25 percent under Hoover; it has increased by almost 7 percent under Obama."

Progressive Breakfast

Bill Scher — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 06:52:16 -0400

MORNING MESSAGE: Is Sandy God's Stimulus?

OurFuture.org's Richard Eskow: "Hurricane Sandy was the stimulus nobody wanted. It took a terrible toll in lives, homes, and dreams. For the families who lost loved ones the tragedy will never end. And yet, in a bitter irony, this terrible storm will spur the kind of spending we should have been seeing all along. There will be jobs, at least for a while -- in construction, road work, repair, and other lines of work ... why does it always seem to take a tragedy to make us see the common good -- and the common sense -- so that we'll fix what's broken? Why must some people pay such a high price for bringing us together as a community, when we should have been a community all along?"

Contrasting Responses To Sandy

President rallies nation in response to Sandy. NYT: "'My message to the federal government: no bureaucracy, no red tape,' said Mr. Obama, flanked by Red Cross employees. 'Get resources where they’re needed as fast as possible.' Referring to a call he held earlier with 20 governors and mayors, Mr. Obama said he told them, 'If they’re getting "no" for an answer somewhere in the federal government, they can call me personally at the White House.' ... Mr. Obama recalled stories of nurses removing patients from a darkened New York hospital, firefighters wading into waist-deep water in Queens and a Coast Guard ship off North Carolina, sending a swimmer out to rescue people from a sinking ship. 'During the darkness of the storm,' he said, 'I think we also saw what’s brightest in America.'"

While Romney ducks repeated questions about his past comments suggesting privatization of FEMA reports HuffPost.

Romney back on trail while Obama monitors disaster sites. The Hill: "Romney will hold a trio of events in the swing state of Florida with prominent Republicans Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. Obama will also appear with a prominent Republican: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who will be giving the president a tour of the damage in his state ... Those close to the campaign suggested that Obama could be back on the trail later this week, possibly as early as Thursday."

Republicans privately grouse at Gov. Chris Christie's praise for President Obama's leadership. NYT: "One Republican in Washington said Mr. Christie could have simply expressed appreciation for what any president would have done. Another Republican strategist observed that Mr. Christie’s kind words for the president were delivered with the kind of gusto that he often uses to criticize Mr. Obama ..."

Sandy highlights ideological differences between Obama and Romney, argues TNR's Noam Scheiber: "The president gets to look in-command after a disaster ... while the challenger has to sit around inventing politically-correct photo-ops. But in this case there’s actually some deeper significance. That’s because, unlike his rival for the Oval Office, Romney has suggested that government should have a rather limited role helping disaster-stricken people, and that private citizens should pick up the slack."

"Paul Ryan’s Budget And GOP Sequestration Plan Would Slash Hurricane Prediction Capabilities" reports ThinkProgress.

Automakers Rip Romney

Chrysler, GM chiefs slam false Romney claims. NYT: "Mitt Romney’s latest advertising campaign suggesting that the auto bailout recipients Chrysler and General Motors were shifting jobs to China drew him into a public argument with top executives at both companies, who condemned the advertisements as false on Tuesday. 'The ad is cynical campaign politics at its worst,' Greg Martin, a spokesman for General Motors, said in an interview late Tuesday. 'We think creating jobs in the U.S. and repatriating profits back in this country should be a source of bipartisan pride.'"

NY Mag's Jonathan Chait on "Romney's Insanely Dishonest Auto Bailout Defense": "Before Hurricane Sandy hit, Mitt Romney had turned to his make-your-head-explode closing message in Ohio that Barack Obama is the one who let the auto industry go bankrupt, and Mitt Romney is the guy who wanted to save it. This is perfectly in keeping with Romney’s approach to any situation in which his opponent has a more popular position: Just say you’re for that thing, and also, possibly, that they’re not ... [But in] his book, Romney excoriates the bailout in the starkest terms, contending that 'the rule of law was ignored in order to reward the auto workers union at General Motors.' ... Romney insists that when liberals are in power, 'they take action' like the bailout 'that is consistent with socialism but call it by a more plausible name.'"

Romney brings back false charge Obama "gutted the work requirement for welfare." HuffPost: "...the idea that Obama weakened welfare reform [is] a point that countless fact-checkers have disputed ... Obama has offered waivers to states after governors asked for them. None have applied yet."

Economic growth in MA below national average under Romney. ThinkProgress: "...its economy never reached 2 percent annual growth ... Massachusetts would have had to grow far faster to keep pace with the national average and even more quickly to keep up with the 4 percent annualized growth Romney now promises will occur under his economic plan ... if the American economy performed at the same growth rate as the Massachusetts economy under Romney, he would create just one-sixth of the 12 million jobs he has promised..."

Outside campaign money nears $1B. McClatchy: "[Super PACs] and nonprofits unleashed by the Citizens United 2010 Supreme Court decision have spent more than $840 million so far on the 2012 elections, with the overwhelming majority of it favoring Republicans, particularly presidential nominee Mitt Romney ... Republican-aligned nonprofits have outspent their Democratic counterparts by more than 8 to 1."

Progressive Breakfast

Bill Scher — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 08:14:05 -0400

MORNING MESSAGE: Romney's Final Lie

OurFuture.org's Dave Johnson: "Mitt Romney told a lie Friday, scaring Ohio's Jeep workers with a claim that Jeep is shutting down US manufacturing and moving it to China. Now he is doubling down on this lie with a new ad. He is calculating that the lies will scare enough poorly-informed people to vote his way, never mind the truth. If we elect a president based on a campaign of flat-out lies, deception and misdirection what kind of country will we have as a result?"

Backlash From Jeep Lie

Romney bets on wildly misleading claims in last ditch effort to win OH. NYT: "His effort to do so is now intently focused, at times including statements that stretch or ignore the facts, on knocking down what is perhaps the most important component of President Obama’s appeal to blue-collar voters in Ohio and across the industrial Midwest: the success of the president’s 2009 auto bailout ... Democrats are hoping that Mr. Romney’s latest move will draw a backlash in a city [Defiance] so dependent on Jeep, which has announced plans to add 1,100 jobs to an assembly plant here that is currently being refitted for the next iteration of what is now called the Jeep Liberty."

Obama campaign fires back hard. Yahoo! News: "The Obama campaign released a commercial rebutting the allegation, while Vice President Joe Biden and former president Bill Clinton denounced the former Massachusetts governor's commercial as, basically, a lie. 'Now it turns out that Jeep is reopening in China because they made so much money here they can afford to do it,' Clinton said at a Youngstown, Ohio, rally. 'They put out a statement today saying that it was the biggest load of bull in the world that they would consider shutting down their American operation.'"

Romney Meets With FEMA. Licks Chops.

Romney speaks with the agency he pledged to dismantle. CNN: "Mitt Romney spoke Monday with officials from the Federal Emergency Management Administration ... Romney's comments about FEMA, made at a CNN Republican primary debate in June 2011, received renewed attention Monday. At the time, Romney said he favored states taking on a large role in disaster relief. 'Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that's the right direction,' he said."

The Ryan budget which passed the House devastates funding for weather forecasting. Econobrowser cites earlier CBS report: "The GOP budget plan that passed through the House last month aimed to cut funding for a tsunami warning center that issued a slew of warnings around Japan's devastating earthquake. The budget, which proposed about $60 billion in budget cuts, would slash funding for the National Weather Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)."

In May House Republicans voted to slash disaster relief. ThinkProgress: "The House Republicans’ Sequester Replacement Reconciliation Act of 2012, which was passed without a single Democratic vote, called for zeroing out funding for the Social Services Block Grant (SSBG), a program that provides funding to state and local governments to aid needy children, adults, and the disabled. As the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities noted, the SSBG also offers assistance for disaster relief ... Republicans last year held disaster relief funding hostage several times, demanding offsetting budget cuts. They also attempted to slash disaster funding in a 2011 continuing resolution."

Yet FEMA is well-budgeted this year. Politico: "Nearly $7.8 billion is available for storm response through FEMA’s disaster relief fund, congressional aides said Monday. That includes more than $7 billion set aside in the stopgap spending bill that funds the federal government through March, as well as money designated for disaster relief carried over from last year that was not spent. On top of that — thanks to the debt limit deal last year — FEMA can tap a several billion dollars in additional emergency funds without turning to Congress for extra money."

Sandy threatens "rickety power grid." Time: "The U.S. power grid is delicate even under the best of times—a 20th century technology charged with keeping a 21st century charged. There’s hope that new smart grid advancements—including distribution automation and smart meters that can keep utilities appraised of problems in real times—will make the grid more resilient in the future. But for now, as Sandy socks the East Coast, all we can do is hope that the lights stay on."

Economy expected to withstand Sandy. AP: "...for the overall economy, damage from the storm will likely be limited. And any economic growth lost to the storm in the short run will likely be restored once reconstruction begins, analysts say. Americans may even spend more before the storm when they stock up on extra food, water and batteries."

Romney's Bain

Romney can't shake Bain in final week. Politico: "...several of the Democrats’ top independent spenders are leaning hard into the Bain message, eschewing a pure policy message for a gut-punch reminder ... Democratic pollster Geoff Garin, who advises Priorities USA, said Bain ads have the potential to cut through the fog of commercials from both sides that’s currently cluttering the airwaves with statistics about taxes, job creation, health care and more."

No evidence Romney can usher in bipartisanship. Politico: "...the likelihood of Romney and Ryan locking arms with 'good Democrats,' as Romney put it this week, to solve the nation’s problems is dubious given the GOP nominee’s legislative priorities ... if Romney makes good on his pledge to roll back the health care overhaul — which he almost certainly must in some way given his insistent campaign rhetoric and likely pressure from conservatives — that will hardly foster the bipartisan atmosphere that Romney has recently lauded."

Progressive Breakfast

Bill Scher — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 08:28:11 -0400

MORNING MESSAGE: Is Keeping The Rich Comfy Your Job Future?

OurFuture.org's Sam Pizzigati: "Good manufacturing jobs have largely disappeared, outsourced away. Most Americans no longer make things. They provide services. We could, of course, have a robust 'service' economy, if we built that economy on providing quality services to all Americans. But providing these quality services, in everything from education to health to transportation, would take a significant public investment — and significant tax revenue from America’s rich ... That leaves young people today, as economist Jeff Faux points out in his new book The Servant Economy: Where America's Elite is Sending the Middle Class, with a stark choice. ... Young people can become engineers and programmers and spend their careers in 'pitiless competition with people all over the world' just as smart and trained but 'willing to work for much less.' Or they can join the servant economy and 'service those few at the top who have successfully joined the global elite.' In this new 'servant economy,' we’re not talking just nannies and chauffeurs. We’re talking, as journalist Camilla Long notes, 'pilots, publicists, art dealers, and bodyguards' — a 'newer, brighter phalanx of personal helpers.'"

Romney Would Scrap FEMA

Romney position on FEMA: shut it down. HuffPost: "During a CNN debate at the height of the GOP primary, Mitt Romney was asked, in the context of the Joplin disaster and FEMA's cash crunch, whether the agency should be shuttered so that states can individually take over responsibility for disaster response. 'Absolutely,' he said ... A Romney official reaffirmed the former governor's position Sunday evening in an email."

Bill Clinton to help close deal while President manages storm response. The Hill: "'When you were down, you were out and your whole economy was threatened, the president had your back,' Clinton said. 'You’ve got to have his back, too.'"

Fresh Auto Bailout Lies

In OH, Romney tries to overcome his opposition to the auto bailout with deeply misleading ad. HuffPost: "...the ad's narrator says that President Barack Obama 'took GM and Chrysler into bankruptcy.' ... [But] Obama supported a bridge loan from the government to help the auto companies go through bankruptcy, while Romney wanted the private sector to pick up the tab ... basically every principal involved in rescuing the auto industry said at the time, there was no money available from the private sector during the height of the recession ... the ad accuses Obama of selling 'Chrysler to Italians who are going to build Jeeps in China.' ... Fiat, the Italian company that now owns Chrysler, is building Jeeps in China. But the company is not moving jobs from America to do it ... [The ad] displays a line from a Bloomberg story stating that Chrysler 'plans to return Jeep output to China,' ... Chrysler has denied the report, and multiple news outlets have called out the Romney campaign for using it in on the stump."

Bank on Romney gutting Medicaid, says NYT's Paul Krugman: "...while Medicaid is generally viewed as health care for the nonelderly poor, that’s only part of the story. And focusing solely on who Medicaid covers can obscure an equally important fact: Medicaid has been more successful at controlling costs than any other major part of the nation’s health care system ... Mr. Romney has said that a lack of health insurance doesn’t kill people in America; oh yes, it does, and states that expand Medicaid coverage show striking drops in mortality ..."

The agendas of Obama and Romney are clear, says NYT's Bill Keller: "With Obama, we can anticipate that the unfinished business of universal health care and the re-regulation of the Wall Street casino will be finished. We can expect investments in education, infrastructure and innovation, followed by a gradual, balanced attack on deficits that includes higher taxes on the wealthiest ... If Romney is elected ... we can fairly expect a rollback of universal health care in favor of the rough marketplace, and at least a partial dismantling of regulations on banks, extractive industries and whatever other industries squeal about job-killing red tape. We can expect a lowering of the safety net, especially a retrenchment of Medicaid and a marketization of Medicare. His deficit plan will rely on draconian spending cuts and on the supply-side superstition that tax cuts automatically produce growth."

But Romney's gains are because he is denying his agenda. Jared Bernstein: "...what bothers me about the Romney campaign and the current moment is not just the policy agenda. It’s their ability to completely deny that agenda and gain ground in the polls. It’s Romney’s ability to very successfully argue that he doesn’t really have a big tax cut (the first debate), that the tax cut he doesn’t really have can be paid for by magic math, that his foreign policy is the same as the President’s (the last debate), that his plan will add 12 million jobs—the number that forecasters tell us we’re likely to see regardless of who wins."

Dems Hold Early Vote Edge

"Democrats Hold Early Voting Advantage Over Republicans" reports Bloomberg: "[In] Iowa and Nevada -- Democrats are building a significant advantage in early voting. Who has the edge is more muddled in the bigger swing states of Ohio and Florida, while Republicans have a narrow lead in Colorado ... If current trends for ballots requested and ballots returned [in Iowa] remain unchanged through this week, he said Obama’s advantage could become almost insurmountable for Republican challenger Mitt Romney."

Black churches redouble early voting efforts after FL Gov. ends early voting on Sunday before Election Day. NYT: "Across Florida, black churches have responded with ferocity to changes that Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican, and the Legislature made to eliminate six days of early voting this year — including the Sunday before Election Day, which had been the traditional day to mobilize black congregations. In 2008, black voters cast early ballots at twice the rate of white voters, and turned out in significant strength on the Sunday before Election Day to help propel Mr. Obama to victory here."

"What Will Hurricane Sandy Do to Early Voting?" asks The Atlantic: "The storm could potentially slow the pace of of early or in-person absentee voting in the three swing states of Virginia, Ohio, and North Carolina..."

Obama campaign holding its own against the Super PACs. so far. NYT: "Over the last month, the pro-Obama forces have run more ads and, more critically, have reached audiences in roughly the same numbers as Mitt Romney and the group of well-financed conservative super PACs working to elect him ... The lack of a discernible Republican advantage is all the more surprising because Mr. Romney and conservatives have been spending more money ... But Mr. Romney and his supporters have started to buy more advertising time. And with eight days until the election, there is still plenty of time for them to increase their engagement."

Handful of billionaires taking power away from traditional Republican Party. NYT's Tom Edsall: "The newly empowered billionaires are positioned to challenge the Republican Party at its point of greatest vulnerability, during the primaries. The three major party organizations — the Republican National, Congressional and Senatorial Committees – cannot, except in unusual circumstances, intervene in primaries. Those are to be decided by voters, not the party. The new class of financial bosses, equipped to legitimate primary candidates at all levels, has no such restriction over participation in primaries. Instead, the incentives are substantial to engage full force in the nomination process where the marginal value of each dollar is higher and more likely to influence the outcome than in the general election."

Progressive Breakfast

Bill Scher — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 09:41:44 -0400

MORNING MESSAGE: Europe's Agony Could Be Our Future Under Romney

OurFuture.org's Richard Eskow: "Austerity makes victims pay for other people's crimes. And the lesson of Europe confirms what we always suspected: It's not just morally wrong. It's self-defeating. Nations like Greece aren't just wracked with sky-high unemployment, endangered by full-scale depression, and experiencing the first throes of social disintegration. They're also struggling with soaring debt. That why even the International Monetary Fund, hardly a bastion of leftist dissidence, has turned against Romney-style austerity. The United States isn't immune from contagion if Romney and Ryan enact a full-blown austerity program. The riot-torn streets and malarial villages of Greece could become our nation's future."

BREAKING: GDP Ticks Up

Uptick in 3rd quarter GDP. NYT: "The economy grew at a annual rate of 2 percent in the third quarter, as more positive consumer activity and a healthier housing sector outweighed the effects of the drought, caution on the part of businesses and weaker exports ... It compares with the 1.3 percent pace of growth in the second quarter ... Consumer spending rose at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 2 percent, compared to 1.5 percent in the second quarter. Residential investment increased at an annual rate of 14.4 percent in the third quarter, versus 8.5 percent in the second quarter, a positive sign for the housing sector."

Romney Spox Plays Race Card

Top Romney spokesman John Sununu dismisses Colin Powell's endorsement of Obama as race-based, on CNN: "I think when you have somebody of your own race that you're proud of being president of the United States, I applaud Colin for standing with him."

Sununu tries to backtrack. Politico quotes: "... I do not doubt that it was based on anything but his support of the president’s policies. Piers Morgan’s question was whether Colin Powell should leave the party, and I don’t think he should."

Romney Recipe For Deep Inequality

Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz rips Romney plan as recipe for deep inequality, in NYT: "... the macroeconomic consequences of the Romney-Ryan economic program would be devastating: growth would slow, unemployment would increase, and just as Americans would need the social protection of government more, the safety net would be weakened ... Romney and Ryan have tried a hard tack to the center in their rhetoric in recent weeks. But let no one be deceived: their tax policies will lead to even more inequality at the top, the continued hollowing out of the middle, and more poverty at the bottom."

ThinkProgress' Pat Garafalo on "How Romney’s Tax Plan Denies $5 Billion In Credits To The Poorest Families": "...Romney’s plan calls for repealing an expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit, meaning that “a two-parent family raising three children on $30,000 of earnings would lose $1,076 a year.” Romney also wants to roll back an expansion of the Child Tax Credit that was included in the 2009 Recovery Act. "

Fresh lies about autos from Romney campaign. CNN: "Romney did not bring up the bailout, but did mention a Bloomberg report that suggested some auto jobs could be moved to China. 'I saw a story today that one of the great manufacturers of this state, Jeep, now owned by the Italians, is thinking of moving all production to China,' Romney said. 'I will fight for every good job in America. I'm going to fight to make sure trade is fair, and if it's fair America will win.' A spokesman for the Chrysler Corporation, which owns Jeep, had earlier emphatically denied that report."

Auto bailout reveals fundamental difference between Obama and Romney. TNR's Jonathan Cohn: "... it’s possible to draw from the auto industry rescue a pretty good lesson about the real differences between Obama and Romney. Obama understands that the market doesn’t always work on its own—that sometimes government must intervene in order to protect Americans from economic harm. Romney doesn’t. Obama is also willing to act in the face of political peril. Romney isn’t."

Many media outlets fail to fact-check Romney tax claims. TNR's Noam Scheiber: "Outside of one fact-checking piece, Politico alluded to Romney’s tax cut plan in six different post-Denver-debate stories without addressing the substance of Romney’s claims a single time. Instead, the stories typically covered the back-and-forth over the proposal as irresolvable ('the quibbling over numbers aside…' went one segue) or of purely tactical interest (Romney had reason to tone down the tax-cut talk, another story observed, because the “'tax cuts for the rich' message polls poorly with centrists'). And I hate to single out Politico. Many of the pundits up and down the cable dial are much, much worse ... if enough of the media refuses to sort out substantive claims, how many of us will walk into the voting booth November 6 knowing what it is we’re actually voting for?"

New study shows possible impact of Romney-Ryan Medicare voucher plan. TPM: "The study’s conclusion: healthy seniors tend to gravitate to private plans and sicker seniors gravitate to traditional Medicare. That’s because private insurers craft their plans to attract lower-cost patients and leave sicker, more expensive ones for traditional Medicare ... 'fee-for-service Medicare would gradually be a dumping ground for the sickest people and the premiums would go higher and higher'"

Obama also tells Rolling Stone Republicans would overturn Roe: "Governor Romney has made clear that's his position. His running mate has made this one of the central principles of his public life. Typically, a president is going to have one or two Supreme Court nominees during the course of his presidency, and we know that the current Supreme Court has at least four members who would overturn Roe v. Wade. All it takes is one more for that to happen."

Conservatives licking their chops at prospect of taking over Supreme Court. TPM: "Roger Pilon, director of the libertarian Cato Institute’s Center for Constitutional Studies and a member of the Federalist Society, told TPM that one more solid conservative vote would pave the way for 'fundamental shifts on the Court' toward 'a revival of greater protection for economic liberty and a direct assault on the modern regulatory state.'"

Obama Signals More Wall St Reform In Second Term

Tackling executive pay tied to high-risk moves big on Obama's second-term agenda. Reuters: "In an interview to be published on Friday in Rolling Stone magazine, Obama said that despite passage of Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation, there is more to be done to make financial markets safe after the damage caused by the crisis of 2007-2009. 'The single biggest thing that I would like to see is changing incentives on Wall Street and how people get compensated,' Obama said."

Obama mocks Ayn Rand to Rolling Stone: "Ayn Rand is one of those things that a lot of us, when we were 17 or 18 and feeling misunderstood, we'd pick up ... Then, as we get older, we realize that a world in which we're only thinking about ourselves and not thinking about anybody else ... that's a pretty narrow vision."

President Obama has already made most of the spending cuts in the Simpson-Bowles plan, reminds Jared Bernstein: "...Congress and the President have actually already cut $1.5 trillion ($1.7t including interest savings) in discretionary spending, not including war costs, over the next decade. That’s 70% of the Simpson-Bowles discretionary spending cuts! ... [Grover Norquist said,] 'When bipartisan deals are struck promising to cut spending and raise taxes, the spending cuts don’t materialize but the tax hikes do.' But Grover–dude!–a big start on the spending cuts has already materialized…so it’s tax revenue time, right? "

Early Vote Push May Make Difference

President votes early. Chicago Tribune quotes: "For all of you who have not yet early voted, I just want everybody to see what an incredibly efficient process this was thanks to the outstanding folks who are at this particular polling place ... all across the country we’re seeing a lot of early voting. It means you don’t have to figure out whether you need to take time off work, figure out how to pick up the kids and still cast a ballot. If something happens on election day you will have already taken care of it. If it’s bad weather you won’t get wet ... this was really convenient."

Early voting helps get out unlikely voters. NYT: "Early voting is popular among those with inflexible work or transportation schedules, who often tend to be lower-income, elderly, or minority voters and are thus more likely to be Democrats. In North Carolina four years ago, more than half the black vote was cast before Election Day, compared to 40 percent of the white vote. In many states, black voters went directly to the polls from church on the Sunday before Election Day. Republicans have not been as successful in getting their voters to the polls early, which is why Republicans in several states have tried, occasionally with success, to eliminate or restrict the practice."

And early voting make break records. Daily Beast: "Early voting nationally appears to be on the rise compared to the 2008 campaign, in which about one-third of all ballots were cast before Election Day. That’s notable since the conventional wisdom among many election officials and political scientists has been that we were not likely to seeing very big early turnouts this year due to a lack of enthusiasm in the race, especially among Democrats. There are signs that the experts were wrong ... In Iowa, the lead is about 60,000, while it’s about 170,000 in North Carolina. If those are hints of things to come, there is reason for Mitt Romney’s camp to be anxious."

Obama campaign structure geared to turnout unlikely voters. NYT: "After using their huge database to increase registration among favorable voting groups in crucial states, they are now pinpointing people who ordered absentee ballots and need a nudge to send them, or sporadic voters who indicated they would vote for the president but may need to be pushed to show up at their polling place."

"Are the Polls Undercounting Latino Obama Backers?" asks Mother Jones' Adam Serwer: "During the fall [of 2010], Reid had looked like he was going to get swept away in the tea party wave ... Then something weird happened. Reid won—by almost 6 points. In Colorado, another state with a large Latino population, Democratic Senate candidate Michael Bennet eked out a 1-point win despite polls showing his GOP rival, Ken Buck, up by an average of about 3 points ... Latino voters, undersampled by pollsters and written off as unlikely voters, had made a huge difference for Democrats."

Mourdock further hurts GOP hopes for Senate takeover. NYT: "...Republicans are now in jeopardy of losing seats in Massachusetts and Maine. If they do, they will need to win at least five seats held by Democrats and hold three other Republican seats at risk to net the three needed to take the Senate if Mitt Romney wins the presidency. If President Obama prevails, Republicans will have to win at least one additional seat in a state where they are seen as slightly behind — in Connecticut, Florida, Ohio or Pennsylvania."