The most telling commentary on the Aurora massacre was actually created in 2011. Tom Tomorrow, in response to the recent tragedy in Colorado, reposted a "This Modern World" comic he had originally drawn in response to the Gabrielle Giffords shooting. The comic is brutally and nakedly truthful about the current politics of gun control. Sparky the Penguin, speaking to a nameless conservative, admits defeat:

Barring some seismic realignment in this country, the gun control debate is all but settled -- and your side won. The occasional horrific civilian massacre is just the price the rest of us have to pay. Over and over again, apparently.

No matter where you stand on gun control, this is where the country stands politically -- like it or not. Democrats learned, back in the 1990s, that they could get thrown out of office when they voted for new gun control laws. You can quibble over whether the assault weapons ban was the sole motivating factor for any individual lawmaker's defeat, but in this case perception has become reality, at least in Democrats' thinking. "Once burned, twice shy" is the party's mantra now on gun control.

Continue Reading »

To begin, we're not going to have our normal partisan talking points today. We're going to follow the lead set by Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, and we're just not going to go there today. There will be plenty of time for many vicious partisan talking points in the upcoming weeks, never fear. But today, it just doesn't feel right.

Second, we're not going to talk directly about the horrific shooting today in Colorado. But we are going to have a few choice words to say about idiotic snap judgments, with a heaping side order of scorn for the mainstream media, in lieu of our normal talking points.

To tell the truth, we were already in a sad mood this week, upon hearing the news that Tom Davis passed away. Davis was half of the comedy team "Franken & Davis," which is how both I and millions of other Americans ("of a certain age," these days) were first introduced to now-Senator Al Franken. Davis, while at Saturday Night Live with Franken, came up with such instantly-memorable sketches as the "Coneheads," Steve Martin's "Theodoric of York," and one of the funniest one-time bits they've ever done, the Julia Child "Always save the liver!" sketch. The Washington Post ran a very nice obituary, which is worth reading if you understood those references in the previous sentence.

Continue Reading »

Today's column has been pre-empted, so that we may bring you a major announcement. To compensate, we have linked to a funny video at the end, in an effort to hold your attention until then. So, are you sitting down? Comfortable? OK, here goes:

ChrisWeigant.com is going to the Democratic National Convention!

The kindly folks at the Democratic National Committee have generously seen their way to awarding this organization a press credential so we can get access to the interesting parts of the convention hall. There is a great danger in offering such credentials to yours truly, and this danger is that if I walk by one of those blowdried helium-brains who is our society's poor excuse for a "national news anchor," that I will not be able to restrain myself from telling them exactly what I think of their "journalism." Heh. Even now, I am restraining myself from naming names as possible candidates to receive my valuable insights as to their shortcomings.

Continue Reading »

Welcome back once again to our quadrennial column series examining the state-by-state polling in the electoral race. I should mention I've gotten one question from many folks about this series: "When will the next one be?" The answer is "When I get around to doing one," which is not, admittedly, very informative. Unlike my other two column series (one of which is weekly, the other monthly), the Electoral Math columns are on what I'd call an "increasing frequency" schedule. This far out, expect one about every three or four weeks. As we get closer, and as the state-level polling activity increases, we'll start doing them more often, until (just before the election) we'll probably have one every week. The first column in our 2012 series ran on June 25, and I'm going to start listing an archive of all these columns at the bottom, in the data section, so you can go back and read what came before.

OK, enough of that. For this installment of the series, we've got even more charts and graphics! Woo hoo! The first of these is a fairly blunt assessment of the state of the race. It adds all states for each candidate, no matter how solid they are, and puts all the data into a single chart, which also (unlike the breakdown charts) shows the tied states where the polling is exactly even. How to read this chart: Romney starts from the top (in red), Obama starts from the bottom (in blue). Ties are any white gap in between the two. If the blue section is above the green line, Obama has the advantage. If the red section is below the green line, Romney has the edge. The scale (which really is only accurate for Obama, sorry about that) is in percent of the total Electoral College. Here's the current "all in one" chart:

Continue Reading »

Despite what you may think from that title, this article has nothing to do with Mitt Romney. Or, at least, not directly.

For the past two days, Democrats fought in the Senate to pass the "Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light On Spending in Elections Act," otherwise known as the DISCLOSE Act. Today, they failed to break a Republican filibuster attempt, and while a majority of 53 senators voted for it, 45 voted against it -- including 14 Republicans who had previously voted for it the last time the bill came before the Senate.

The DISCLOSE Act would force political donors of $10,000 or more to (as the name suggests) disclose their political expenditures publicly. This should not be a partisan bill -- it applies equally to unions, corporations, and individuals. It would not change any campaign finance laws (who is allowed to give what to whom) -- it would merely shine some disinfecting sunlight on the process.

Democrats in the Senate, led by folks such as Sheldon Whitehouse, Al Franken, and Carl Levin (as well as plenty of others), held a late-night vigil last night to force a vote. Today, they held a second vote. Both times, Republicans killed the legislation on party lines.

Continue Reading »

The team of people working diligently to re-elect Barack Obama should really, right about now, be sending a big "thank you" note to none other than Karl Rove -- for providing them the playbook they are now using to maximum effect on Mitt Romney. Maybe Rove left a copy of it lying around, when the Dubya administration was packing up its things to exit the White House, who knows?

In pre-Rovian times in American politics, election strategy went something like this: Find the major weaknesses in your opponent. Exploit those weaknesses by informing the public what a serious lack each weakness is. Build on attacking the opposition candidate's weaknesses, until you eventually undermine even their strongest points in the public's eye.

Karl Rove, however, stood all that on its head, to brilliant effect. The re-election of George W. Bush in 2004 was the most successful example of this new way of thinking: Find out what your opponent thinks are his strengths. Directly, indirectly, and through innuendo, launch a full-scale attack on his perceived strongest point. When you've obliterated the opponent's main rationale for running, then there'll be plenty of time later on to take on the minor stuff -- the opponent's weaknesses. By destroying the strongest part of their campaign first, you define them to the public before they get a chance to define themselves -- thereby making it impossible for your opponent to create his own "first impression" with the voters. The first impression that they'll get is "the main reason he says he is running is based on a lie," and that's the one that will stick in their minds.

To put this another way, Mitt Romney is finding out what it's like to be John Kerry. The two, after all, have a lot in common -- a political career in Massachusetts, lots of money, and a serious deficit of charisma. Terms such as "Bain-boating" and "Swissboating" are starting to be used to describe the similarities between Romney's current position and the infamous "swift boat" ads of 2004.

Continue Reading »

To fully appreciate that subtitle, you really have to read it in your best impression of The Simpsons character "Comic Book Guy." I'm just sayin'....

The phrase refers to a very in-depth article by Ezra Klein of the Washington Post, who gives us (happy Friday the 13th, by the way) thirteen reasons why this is the "worst Congress ever." It is an excellent article which I highly recommend, and I'm not just saying that because I am (admittedly) a sucker for articles with lots of graphs in them.

Continue Reading »

From tomorrow until the end of this year, the House of Representatives has scheduled an underwhelming 41 days of work. This is pathetic. Call it "our taxpayer dollars not at work," if you will.

During the first half of 2012, from January through June, the House worked a grand total of 85 days. From July through December, there are only 45 days on the work schedule. That is nine weeks worth of work, to put it another way, out of six months on the calendar (roughly 26 weeks).

Counting from tomorrow on (the "rest of the year"), there are a total of 172 days on the calendar. To be fair, 50 of these are weekend days, leaving 122 weekdays. Also to be fair, there are five federal holidays in there as well, which leaves 117 non-holiday weekdays until the new year dawns. Divide 41 into 117, and you come up with the reprehensible figure of 35 percent. That's right -- your representative in the House is planning on only working a little over one-third of the rest of this year.

Continue Reading »

A new political action committee was announced today: a lesbian "super PAC." Now, some folks might decry this development (for various reasons, which I'll get to in a moment), but personally I think it's a great idea. A super idea, in fact. Until progressives can manage to get a constitutional amendment passed which overturns Citizens United, we're all living in the world it created -- and we'd better realize it and adjust to it rather than just bewail the sad state of modern politics and money's influence therein. So I say: more power to the lesbians! Go LPAC!

In fact, I'd go further and advise other special interest groups dive into the same pond and create your own super PAC. How about a "Populist PAC," for instance? Or even an "Occupy PAC" or a "99% PAC"? Perhaps, a super PAC devoted to passing a "corporations aren't persons" amendment? I see nothing wrong with any of these, to tell the truth.

Continue Reading »

Today, baseball holds its mid-season All-Star game. Which got me to thinking... maybe politics should put on a similar extravaganza, at least every two years while we're gearing up for election season.

All year long, every year, the American public is exposed to a vast universe of politicians speaking their minds, most often on television shows that encourage feisty responses. So would it be such a leap to put together the best from each side in the summer before an election? Rather than watching B-team politicians who can't even remember their talking points and think on their feet, wouldn't it be fun to pit the best against the best, in a grand debate spectacle on prime-time television?

Continue Reading »