Demographics vs. Economics

11 June 2012 |permalink | email article

THE SHIFTS in key battleground states could aid President Obama’s re-election bid, the New York Times’ John Harwood reported. Jan van Lohuizen, a Republican pollster who advised President George W. Bush, said many historically large rural states are urbanizing. Ruy Teixeira, a Democratic political demographer, noted that in 12 battleground states, the proportion of votes cast by working-class whites, a group Obama badly lost, will drop by 3 percentage points this fall. By contrast, the proportion cast by minority voters who backed Obama by huge margins, will rise by 2 percentage points. While Tom Barrett, the mayor of Milwaukee, failed to oust GOP Gov. Scott Walker, exit polls showed Obama was favored by 51 percent over 44 percent over Mitt Romney in Wisconsin.

California Politic

After Wisconsin, the union battle is moving to California in November. Labor and business interests have quietly been raising millions of dollars and testing messages for months, preparing for a November ballot measure that could fundamentally shift power to Sacramento. The campaign battle, The Sacramento Bee reported, is likely to consume $50 million or more in political spending. The measure, not yet with a proposition number, would ban both unions and corporations from contributing directly to candidates, but both sides could still freely spend money on their own independent interests. Proponents include former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan and former Univision CEO Jerry Perenchio, both very wealthy Republicans. Ken Jacobs, a labor expert at UC Berkeley, said opponents will also work to frame the initiative as part of a larger attack on unions, and the middle-class values they espouse, that gained momentum with the U.S. Supreme Court’s controversial Citizens United ruling. The decision found that corporations and unions have the right to spend unlimited money on political causes—a decision which significantly favors corporations.

On Books

Colin Powell’s new book, “It Worked for Me,” hits the hardcover nonfiction list at No. 2 this week. The four-star general and former secretary of state is making news largely because of a chapter called “February 5, 2003,” about Powell’s speech to the United Nations on that day, and his role in the buildup to the war in Iraq. He writes, “How could we have been so far off the mark? How could our seemingly solid case have been so devastatingly unraveled?” He faults the process, especially Vice President Dick Cheney’s control of intelligence, but accepts responsibility for the speech.

“If you don’t know multiple people who are suffering, then you must be living in a very rarefied atmosphere. You must be maybe a member of the Romney clan, or something.”—Economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, out with a new book, “End This Depression Now,” suggesting that the country’s economic problems are solvable. “Solving this depression is not fundamentally an economic problem, it’s a political problem.”

134

     

    Monthly archives

    Links

    Syndicate

    • Add Joe Scott--The Body Politic to Newsburst from CNET News.com
    • Subscribe in Rojo
    • Subscribe in Bloglines
    • Add to Google

    • Enter your email address:

      Delivered by FeedBurner