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The next few weeks could turn out to be the most important politically in the remainder of this year. Because this may be the last chance Congress has of passing any big or contentious legislation, before politics consumes everything (even more than at the current time). This is due to a combination of factors, but mostly boils down to the congressional calendar and the midterm election season.
Several states hold primaries this Tuesday, many of which may have implications beyond their state. For instance, the primary runoff election in Arkansas will likely be the closest-watched race (at least by Democrats), to see if challenger Bill Halter can pull an upset against sitting Senator Blanche Lincoln, who enraged many by her corporate-friendly work on the health reform. Other states will also have interesting races to watch, but today I'm going to concentrate on California's primary. Call me parochial if you will (I live in the Golden State), but there are a few California races worth watching tomorrow.
While I would immediately caution everyone not to get overly optimistic about what I'm about to say, President Obama's approval rating was looking up in April. Gains were modest, but were pretty much across the board. Although, as I said, the end of the month saw a slight reversal to this trend, likely the result of the drip, drip, drip nature (or, more properly, "gush, gush, gush") of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
The new media narrative, which is exactly what the White House was pushing just before the primaries happened, coincidentally (for once, Democratic framing actually worked -- the media snapped it up like a cheese puff at cocktail hour) is now: "it's an anti-incumbent year." The White House was pushing this, because it is a lot better sounding than what the media was using previously, which was: "it's an anti-Democrat year," or even: "it's an anti-Obama-agenda year." Of course, even if it is just an "anti-incumbent" year, Democrats still have more incumbencies to defend, so it's not like the party's out of the woods yet in regards to November.
While the Tea Party folks have gotten a lot of attention from the media in the Republican primaries so far, there are a few Democratic primary races which may have just as interesting an impact on the Democrats as the Tea Party challenges are having for Republicans. And since last week I took a look at the effect of the Tea Partiers in Republican races, today I thought it would be worth paying some attention to the Democratic side of the aisle. Because the anti-incumbent "throw the bums out" feeling seems to be happening to some degree in both parties this year. What it all means for the general election remains to be seen, of course. For now, let's take a look at a handful of these upcoming primary races.
Since it's the Friday after month's-end, the new monthly unemployment numbers were released today. Which adds another bar to the "bikini bottom" chart. Now, the measure of how many people know exactly what this means is exactly the measure of how well Democrats are getting the "jobs" message out. Because, as I've said previously, this chart should be front and center in the Democrats' campaigns this year.
Charlie Crist just made the Florida Senate race a whole lot more interesting, by announcing he will run as an independent candidate, making it a real three-way race. This will make the election more interesting for political reporters, because it's always more fun to cover a three-horse race than a two-horse race (as it were). But the most interesting question to me is what happens if Crist actually wins and goes to the Senate -- with which party would he caucus?
But what really worries me about the new rules for corporations and unions is what could happen out of sight of the voting public. I can foresee two ways for such invisible influence to happen, although there may be others I have not thought of as well, I admit.
The two prevailing views so far seem to be: "Good news for Republicans!" and, alternatively, "Good news for Democrats!" It is possible that neither are true, and yet neither entirely false. There was certainly some interesting news, but it's tough to read amongst all the spin.
When a stage magician makes a flourish, causing a puff of smoke and a flash of light to appear, there's a reason for it. It is called "misdirection." It is meant to dazzle the audience with a shiny object, so that they don't notice what is going on elsewhere on the stage, or perhaps even in the magician's other hand. It is an effective technique, so effective that it is the basis for most stage magic tricks. And there's a huge story that's sucking up a lot of oxygen from the inside-the-Beltway media scene right now that seems to be tailor-made misdirection which has been tossed into the media shark tank in order to stir up a feeding frenzy.