Senate Control On Knife's Edge With One Month To Go
Battle for Senate tight. HuffPost: "The battle to control the Senate remains deeply competitive, according to new data from CBS/New York Times/YouGov polling conducted nationwide and NBC/Marist surveys in three key swing states ... The GOP's chance of retaking the Senate ticked down on HuffPost Pollster's Senate forecast, which incorporates all publicly available polling. One reason for the change: the newest surveys push Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) up to a 61 percent chance of winning, edging North Carolina out of the tossup camp."
GOTV efforts could make the difference. NYT: "The Democrats have invested millions more than Republicans in building a strong turnout operation, and the effects of that effort are already evident in the YouGov data. More voters have been contacted by Democratic than Republican campaigns in every state but Kansas and Kentucky, where Republican senators fought competitive primaries. Whether the Democratic turnout machine can turn its advantage in voter contacts into additional votes on Election Day might well determine Senate control.
But not if voter suppression efforts work. TNR's Brian Beutler: "... the conservative advocacy group Americans for Prosperity [is] sending hundreds of thousands of erroneous voter registration forms to residents (and at least one cat) around the state ... in North Carolina, and maybe elsewhere, these efforts work in tandem with new, highly restrictive laws ... designed to make it harder for young people and minorities to vote ... Since Democrats respond to voter suppression efforts with more sophisticated organizing and GOTV, the idea this year is to make those suppression tactics less vulnerable to those efforts."
Can Dems Message The Economy?
W. Post's E. J. Dionne explains "Why Democrats aren’t getting credit for the economy": "The first is that the very improvement in the economy means that it is a less central concern to voters than it was when Obama took office — or in 2010 ... Yet voters who are still concerned about the economy tend to be focused not on its successes but on what it is failing to do for them. That’s the Democrats’ other problem. The unemployment rate is way down, but it’s still not low enough to create rapid and widespread wage growth. Many of the forces that have been driving up inequality since the 1980s are still with us ... There is still a month to go before Election Day, enough time to develop a sustained argument that highlights both how much better the economy is and how much we still have to do to spread prosperity more widely."
A Republican Senate could ruin the CBO, says Paul Krugman: "... for years they have relied on magic asterisks — claims that they will make up for lost revenue by closing loopholes and slashing spending, details to follow. But this dodge has been losing effectiveness as the years go by and the specifics keep not coming. Inevitably, then, they’re feeling the pull of that old black magic — and if they take the Senate, they’ll be able to infuse voodoo into supposedly neutral analysis."
Bailout On Trial
Geithner, Bernanke and Paulson slated to testify this week in AIG bailout trial. AP: "Six years ago, their rescue plan revived AIG, protected its far-flung financial partners and helped save the financial system. Yet AIG's former CEO, 89-year old Maurice Greenberg, argues that the government's bailout was illegitimate and is demanding roughly $40 billion in damages for shareholders ... For, Greenberg the case represents a chance to make the former Federal Reserve chairman (Bernanke) and two past Treasury secretaries (Paulson and Geithner) defend a landmark action made at the most perilous moment for the U.S. financial system since the Great Depression ... For Americans who yearn to see reckless bankers held accountable in court, it's somewhat surreal to have a lawsuit based on the premise that the government's rescue unfairly punished a company whose collapse would have threatened the global financial system."
Supreme Court to hear Amazon wage theft case. Bloomberg: "After clocking out ... workers went through an airport-style screening process, including metal detectors, to make sure they weren’t stealing from the Web retailer. Getting through the line often took as long as 25 minutes, uncompensated, he and others employed there say ... The suits underscore the growing tensions between employers that seek to minimize costs to gain a competitive edge and the workers who may suffer the consequences. While companies such as Amazon use the screens to guard against theft, employees ... say what’s being taken is their own time, for Amazon’s benefit."
