Running on Fumes: Romney Momentum

Have you noticed that the whole "Romney is going to win" argument suddenly disappeared? The GOP is back to latch ditch potshots against a popular and well trusted President who has presided over 32 months of straight job growth and a strengthening economic recovery.

Karl Rove is already making excuses for his SuperPAC's inability to buy the election. The Sunlight Foundation's preliminary study finds that "dark money," political spending from undisclosed donor, 81% has supported Republicans. A loss poses an existential threat to Karl Rove's votes-for-cash business. If Team GOP can't win this election on a red tide of capital, there is no earthly reason for plutocrats to hand him million dollar checks.

Rove has now announced that Superstorm Sandy is to blame; the news and a competent government response reminded Americans that the federal government should be muscular, agile, and smart in how it responds to disasters. That is the record of the Obama administration in crises from the automaker rescue, the Bin Laden Raid, and the destruction along the Eastern seaboard. You can compare that record to "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt," the idea that America should ask permission before a raid into Pakistan, or Romney's record of denying funds to emergency preparedness in Massachusetts.

This weekend, Team Red blogs are no longer championing their lost cause candidate. They stopped advocating for an alternative and are arguing for a critique of the President's verbiage.

Rove is filling an important role in the party, however. He's at least attempting to direct the inevitable firing-squad outward. It's in his self interest; after squandering millions of dollars, he's a pretty big target if it goes circular.

*Correction - 81% of 'dark money' has gone towards Republican candidates. This post originally cited 83%. We regret the error.

Seattle PI Complicit In McKenna Doubletalk

I sent this letter to the PI staff today about their coverage of the Washington Governor's race. They botched their Inslee, McKenna offer ideas for Maritime industry article. It's a nice snapshot of what's wrong with the coverage of the Inslee/McKenna matchup:

It is disappointing that the PI is letting Rob McKenna get away with his double talk. The article "Inslee, McKenna offer ideas for maritime industry" quotes McKenna as saying that Washington corporations can't grow because they pay too much for insurance. The cost of hiring a new worker is a lot higher than the wages that the corporation pays to the employee. Insofar as his logic is concerned, he's right; we could encourage job growth by taking insurance burdens away from corporations. Bringing down the marginal cost to higher a worker will mean more jobs created in good times and fewer people laid off in lean times. That's what Rob McKenna says.

What Rob McKenna has done, however, is the opposite. The highest non-wage cost of hiring is by far health insurance. In 2010, health insurance cost employers an average of $3.35 per employee hour according to this study by the Kaiser Family Foundation: http://www.kff.org/insurance/snapshot/Employer-Health-Insurance-Costs-and-Worker-Compensation.cfm That surcharge grew four times as faster than wage growth over the previous decade. Yet Rob McKenna has obstructed, litigated, and lobbied against the only national means of reducing that burden on employers. His decision to fight against the Affordable Care Act may have been good politics for his gubernatorial campaign, but it's terrible policy for Washington workers and businesses.

The Affordable Care Act introduces competition into small group markets into which the majority of Washington businesses fit. It's a market-driven approach that will bring prices down and service quality up. Rob McKenna has fought against this common sense measure. While Rob McKenna's 'solutions' point to small potatoes "unemployment insurance, high workers compensation cost and burdensome taxes," any business owner knows that he's distracting from the bigger picture. Rob McKenna's opposition to more affordable, flexible, and reliable health insurance for Washington business owners and employees is the elephant in the room in the economic debate.

While Rob McKenna's job is to distract Washington from his record, the Seattle PI's responsibility is to hold him to it. Please do a better job in the future.

You can let the PI know how you feel by email too.

Lying Through Your Teeth: Rob McKenna edition

I'm beginning to get the sense that Rob McKenna is not the political wunderkind that Washington political reporters have been waiting for. He's made a continued campaign to highlight his own discrepancies on issues. He has consistently done one thing and said another on women's health, biased ballot initiative language, and protection against health insurance company abuse. McKenna is making a pattern of saying one thing and doing the opposite.

This has been an open secret of the Inslee-McKenna campaign so far, but it's rare to see an acknowledgement of the McKenna duplicity in print. I was shocked to see this in the Spokesman-Review, the flagship East of the Cascades paper.

McKenna did support a maneuver by all 22 Republicans and three breakaway Democrats late in the regular session that pushed through an alternative budget. Murray questioned how McKenna, who has called for increased spending on education, could support a budget that cut public schools and colleges.

McKenna later said he “wasn't thrilled” with the education cuts in that alternative budget, which later was revised in the House. At a campaign press conference during the third week of the special session, he said if he'd been involved in discussions over that alternative Senate budget “I would've gone to them and said 'Let's not make the education cuts.'”

 The thing about "I would have" quotes is that they are proof that McKenna is saying one thing and doing another. He "would have" supported a budget that didn't cut the education budget, but he did support a budget that cut $74 million in education funding next year. It appears that McKenna's staffers was actively involved in whipping votes for the Republican education-gutting budget. He

When it comes to the Washington marriage equality ballot initiative, Rob McKenna was responsible for drafting the language of the initiative that would appear in front of voters. Rob McKenna inserted right-wing talking points into the ballot title. A state judge had to straighten out the mess McKenna made. I bet the judge feels better knowing that McKenna "would have" not used "anti-gay" language if only Rob Mckenna had any common sense.

And then there's the Affordable Care Act, which McKenna decided to sue along with the other Republican Attorneys General, and then claimed that he supports the popular provisions in the law. A gap of that size between behavior and self-proclaimed values borders on a psychological disorder.

This is beginning to show up around the fringes of the Washington establishment media. This Spokesman-Review piece appeared first in a blog post. McKenna has been getting off easy from state media, but that tide may be turning.

Religious Freedom

Religious Freedom is a term that has been thrown around a lot recently, and typically, the side throwing it around has been Team GOP. It was recently invoked in a political fight against the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Religious Freedom been a canard in the fight against teaching science in public schools, and is a plank of the modern Home Schooling movement. Indeed, it seems that Religious Freedom is a fairly sophisticated dog whistle for Republican voters who want to believe that the President does not share their religious beliefs.

Religious Freedom is a common theme in the courts, as well. In February, a federal judge struck down an administrative rule from the state pharmacy board requiring pharmacies to stock and provide prescription contraceptives on the grounds that the rule prevented pharmacists from the free expression of religious beliefs, if those religious beliefs included a prohibition on providing contraceptives to people with prescriptions. The judge believed that this was a violation of the first amendment free exercise clause, but failed to consider or weigh patients' constitutional rights, see Griswold v. Connecticut. Regardless, I want to highlight a more recent judicial decision over 'religious freedom' that elucidates the slippery nature of the phrase.

Crossover Vote Strategy a Double Failure

The political news of Primary Day in Michigan today was that Rick Santorum sent out an automated call targeting Democrats. The robocall asked Democrats to vote in the Republican primary. Exit polls are finding that very few Democrats are answering his call: 10% of the primary electorate identifies as Democrats. That number is in line with Michigan primaries where there was minimal crossover voting.

This was a terrible strategic decision in the first place. Even if Santorum's call to Democrats had driven a few into the voting booth for him, the election would become suspect. As much as a couple of extra delegates would have helped Santorum in the mathematical race to 1,144, the media environment is what matters in Michigan. The news that the campaign relied on Democratic voters who will turn out for Barack Obama in November for a victory would have negated any positive news from a win in the Motor State. We'll see what happens tonight, but we already know that Santorum's campaign shot itself in the foot today.

Nevada Caucuses Liveblog

Image Credit: David Rumsey Map Collection

The most important thing to know about tonight's Nevada Caucuses is that the 28 delegates at stake will be split proportionally to the vote total. Results are trickling in but we'll expect most of them around 7pm local time. I'll mostly be interested in seeing if Romney can beat his 2008 numbers in the state, which was one of the handful that he won before bowing out of the race.

One big number to watch out for tonight is the overall turnout. The Florida primary attracted 300,000 fewer voters this year than four years ago, a shocking drop when you consider that there wasn't a competitive Democratic primary this year. Caucus goers tend to be more active partisans, so a drop in caucus attendance may be more worrying for the GOP.
In the 2008 Nevada Caucuses, Mitt Romney won 22,646 votes for 51% of the caucus goers' preference votes. Republican turnout totaled 44,315. An interesting note: in 2008, Nevada's caucuses followed a more traditional caucus process of proportional representation through tiers of conventions. This year, the preference vote is binding on the state's eventual national party delegation.
9:12pm Washoe County, the second largest in Nevada, is now 100% in. Romney won with 42.3% of the vote with 2,836 supporters coming out tonight. That's a pretty big problem for him. In 2008, he won Washoe county with 4,032 votes. That's nearly 1,200 supporters he lost in that county in the last four years.
8:42pm The lack of actual returns at this point is disgusting. Most caucuses began at 9am this morning, but there hasn't been any effort to report them. There have been literally no results reported from Clark County, the most populous county in Nevada, and also the largest contributor to Mitt Romney's win in 2008. I'll be back tomorrow with the delegate allocation totals once the results are in. Currently, with 18.7% of results in, Romney has 38.4%, Gingrich 27.6%, Paul 18.6%, and Santorum 14.7%. These numbers will almost certainly change when Clark comes in. If these percentages were to hold up, Romney would gain 11 delegates, Gingrich 8, Paul 5, Santorum 4. Goodnight.
8:39pm Gingrich suckered into getting back onto podium to announce he's rooting for the Giants to win the Superbowl. The press boos the announcement.
8:34pm "It's a fight, and if you're not willing to fight, you might as well get out of the race." Gingrich decries that campaign has had relentlessly negative tone, especially with unregulated tv ads. Of course, he doesn't support any reforms of campaign finance laws.
8:32pm Gingrich backing up his arguments by appealing to Larry Sabato, Jack Kemp, John McCain, etc... Not a winning rhetoric when the base is energized by anti-elitist and Gingrich is trying to cast himself as anti-establishment.
8:29pm Gingrich makes the numbers argument that Santorum should have made:

When you look at Florida, I won every county that had increased turnout. Mitt Romney won every county that had decreased turnout [relative to 2008]. I think that Republicans won't be comfortable with a candidate who wins by suppressing turnout.

8:26pm Gingrich inadvertently telegraphs when he'll concede:

I've run a national campaign that his twice made me the frontrunner so far, and I believe will again by the time we get around to the Texas Primary.

Gingrich must believe that he has enough financial backing to compete until Texas votes.
8:23pm No obvious 'new strategy' from Newt. Is anyone disappointed that Gingrich bluster turned out to just be self-promoting joke?
8:20pm New Gingrich attack on Romney's economic record: Romney had the third-worst record of job creation as governor while he served.
8:17pm CNN cuts away from the Ron Paul caucus-goers speaking for 45 minutes to cover Gingrich. "Unlike Governor Romney, I care very deeply about helping America's poor."
7:51pm What's with CNN's delegate bar? They have Gingrich, Paul, and Santorum all with the numbers they had earlier in the week. Maybe they didn't figure out that Nevada is a proportional system?
7:46pm To be fair, it's hard to fit in new focus groups on such a compact calendar. Maybe he'll put in some new buzzwords in February when there's a 3 week gap.
7:44pm Same Romney stump speech he's given after every primary and caucus. But he's still surprised by applause.
7:42pm Romney effectively conceding that the end of 'tough times' is in sight, but claims the President's policies "made them longer." It's a rare if half-realized capitulation to reality that the economy has improved under the Obama administration's tenure.
7:40pm Romney's speech: He is gifted at lying that the President is responsible for anything that a state doesn't like. In this case, he's blaming President Obama for the backlash against racist anti-immigrant bills signed by Governor Brian Sandoval. The President never commented on the boycott.
7:30pm Santorum has been getting all of the face time in the last two hours on cable tv. Not many viewers tonight, but enough conservative activists. He has to convince them that he can beat Romney, that he can do better than Gingrich, and that he can win in November. So far, he's done a pretty good job in his interviews, but and his speech was passable. The one thing he isn't doing is making the hard case with quick talking points. Still, he's done a great job dominating the message to the audience he really needs to reach tonight.
7:23pm Douglas county is 100% reported now, and Romney is also down from his 2008 support by about 10%.
7:18pm CNN has video of Paul delegate trying to get into 'religious exception' caucus. It looks bad for both the Paul campaign and the Nevada GOP.
7:17pm Google and CNN seem to be counting very different races.
7:07pm So far, the real winner of the night is Matt Strawn and the Iowa Republican Party. Nevada GOP is making them look competent by comparison. Via Nate Silver:

Nevada GOP has reported results of 29 precincts in 23 minutes, putting them on pace to report all results by 8:38 PM. Tomorrow.

7:03pm There are massive margins for Romney in the counties bordering Utah. I wonder why that would be?
7:00pm Romney party in Las Vegas was clearly designed by overzealous advance team. Backdrop of supporters in stands is already in place. Also, has anyone checked if Romney placed any $10,000 bets while in Vegas?
6:54pm Newt Gingrich's daughters are deferring details about Gingrich's "new delegate strategy" that he'll announce an hour after the caucus sites close. I suppose his old delegate strategy has been a pretty big failure if he walks away with with the same number of Nevada delegates as Ron Paul.
6:50pm In Storey County in the North West, Mitt Romney wins by a single vote. In second place is Ron Paul
6:46pm Carson City is 100% reported. Romney garners 656 votes there, a 14% decline from 2008.
6:43pm Nate Silver reports that Washoe County is seeing 25% lower turnout than four years ago. Where's the enthusiasm, GOP?
6:06pm Josh Romney says, "My dad is a turn-around guy. That's who he is." Great neologism for "flip-flopper" which always sounded childish to me.
6:07pm Exit pollings are showing 54% of Republicans caucusing tonight have the economy as their top concern. That's good news for Romney tonight, but better news for the President in November. He has a more effective message and has fought for policies that Republicans blocked that would alleviate the largest problem in Nevada's economy.
5:55pm Santorum interviews with CNN, and is pandering to Colorado voters with a bolo tie and a sports jacket. Stick to the sweater vest, Mr. Former Senator. Update: CNN notices the bolo tie and does a 2 minute segment on it at 6:22pm. Hard hitting news, guys.

Current Delegate Standing

Newt Gingrich has 29 pledged delegates to Romney's 65.

A brief update on the pledged delegate numbers before we head into the Nevada Caucuses tomorrow: Mitt Romney 65, Newt Gingrich 29, Ron Paul 9, Rick Santorum 6.

The territory is favorable to Mitt Romney. So far, exit polling has found that Romney overwhelmingly wins the votes of Republicans who say the economy is their top priority, and Nevada has one of the hardest hit housing markets in the country. Add on top of that a sprinkling of Mormon communities around the state, an gambling industry that's less receptive to social conservatism, and Romney's momentum, and he should be good for a win.

That said, there's a good chance that everyone will walk away from Nevada with at least one delegate. The results of the state-wide 'preference vote' tomorrow are binding, so we don't have the uncertainty in delegate count of your typical caucus. Any candidate that garners at least 3.57% of the vote tomorrow is eligible for at least one delegate, the lowest threshold for a delegate in the entire Republican calendar. Most states require either 15 or 20% support before a candidate gets their first delegate, even when they are awarded 'proportionately.'

That's why no matter who wins Nevada, every campaign would be wise to spend a little extra attention on the state. A little extra marginal investment can easily translate into a second or ninth delegate.

Keeping Track of the 2012 Republican Delegate Race

I whipped up a little tool to help us keep everything straight with the Republican nomination race. This spreadsheet of the Republican delegates will attempt to keep track of pledged and unpledged (or Super) delegates that have either endorsed or been awarded to candidates based on voting. You'll notice that I've gone ahead and 'awarded' Iowa delegates even though the actual delegates won't be known until June 16 as the Iowa State Convention wraps up.

This is going to be a lot of work to keep accurate, up-to-date, and clean, so please help me out. If you notice any inaccuracies, chances for an update, or if you have some questions about a judgment call, please let me know in the comments. I focused on trying to keep a consistent description of how delegates will be split up, for instance, whether awarded proportionally across the At-Large (A-L) statewide level or within each Congressional District (CD). The contests are organized by scheduled date. Caucus events are listed separately to reflect when delegates are actually pledged to a candidate. After all, Santorum's supporters who were elected at the precinct caucuses could decide to back other candidates at the next level if he decides to drop out. The level of fluidity in the race means that even activists who have cast their lot with a campaign might become convinced that their vote could be more important tactically in support of another candidate.


Spreadsheet is licensed for use under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.

Palin's Docudrama

Scott Conroy, a reporter at Real Clear Politics, broke the news that Palin is producing a film explaining her abrupt departure as governor of Alaska. The former-half term governor fled her responsibility to her state amid a flood of complaints of multiple and flagrant ethics violations, including using state resources for family travel. Similar complaints would be aired after the 2008 presidential campaign, when she abused staffers' credit cards and donations to purchase clothes and accessories for herself and her family.

Joshua Green at the Atlantic thinks that the film will be a disaster. I would tend to agree with him, but for different reasons. He sees a missed opportunity of showcasing pragmatic non-ideological leadership during Palin's half term, although I'm not sure that bridging differences between Alaska Republicans and Alaska Democrats is quite as impressive as the President's accomplishments of bridging differences between North Dakota Democrats and Vermont Democrats. Palin's audience is the Republican base, which is mostly interested in finding a candidate who is least like a democrat. Showcasing bipartisanship is not a winning strategy in the 2012 Republican primaries.

Gingrich Now Cheerleading Radical Right-Wing Social Engineering

I was willing to give Newt Gingrich some substantial credit for foreseeing the electoral problems that Ryan's Folly would walk the GOP through. Last week when Mr. Gingrich came out against the "radical" plan to remove medicare coverage and replace it with an annual check to insurance companies, it seemed like the sane political move. After all, Americans have about as much taste for "right-wing social engineering" as they do for using the metric system. The public resentment of Ryan's Folly was evident in the Republican forfeiture of a traditionally very conservative upstate New York congressional seat yesterday, in a race that revolved primarily around Medicare.

So you can imagine my surprise that after Newt Gingrich was proven right that Ryan's Folly is a Randian-phantasm too far for the American public, he flip flops and comes out with support for the disastrous Republican budget. In his letter today to the Republican House caucus, who pursued a lemming-like plunge in its unanimous April vote to end Medicare, Newt Gingrich pledged his support (and epistemic closure) to the House Republicans:

“Paul Ryan and the House Republicans are trying to save Medicare in a period of enormous economic and fiscal difficulties,” Gingrich wrote to lawmakers after the GOP suffered a loss in a special election in upstate New York Tuesday night. “THE ROAD AHEAD: CHEERFULLY KEEP TELLING THE TRUTH.”

That'll work- cheerfully keep telling Americans that a single-payer system like Medicare can be replaced by sending checks to insurance companies without serious losses in coverage, decreased efficiency, and skyrocketing debt for individual families.

Goldberg's Defense of Ryan's Folly Raises More Questions Than Answers

Jonah Goldberg's right-wing fan fiction knows no bounds. His Tuesday op-ed in the LATimes, "Run, Ryan, Run," is a particular disaster. Any aware political commentator could only mean this headline as a warning to Paul Ryan to get as far away from his disastrous budget proposal as he can. Goldberg unironically asks the Folly author to run for Presdient.

Not suprisingly, Goldberg's lyricism runs into several problems. This is the general argument:

1. The Ryan's Folly will be the defining issue of the 2012 election.
2. Ryan's Folly is massively unpopular, even among Republican candidates. Paul Ryan alone would be motivated to defend it.
3. Only someone defendnig a far-right plan could pose as a credible alternative to President Obama.
4. Therefore Paul Ryan should run.

You know, I was going to do a more in-depth debunking of some of the lies and hyperbole in Goldberg's piece, but that about sums up exactly where the conservative intelligentsia stands at this point. They are so out of touch with reality that they think that hurling insults at cost-control mechanisms in the Affordable Care Act will make everyone forget that the Republican party's only "big" plan is to end Medicare and replace it with a voucher that doesn't cover the cost of health insurance.

And then they throw in some class-baiting lines just to make sure you can't take them seriously.

Republican Cowardice, Part 2

Political junkies have noted that the first official Republican primary debate (this Thursday at 9pm EST) will be lacking the top four contenders for the Republican nomination. Gingrich, Palin, Trump, and Romney are shying away from the event. This forces Reuters to label Tim Pawlenty a "top-tier candidate," clearly indicating that they've never heard him speak. Regardless, these are the Republicans who aren't too chicken to show up for a preliminary debate:

Joining Pawlenty at the debate will be Representative Ron Paul, former Senator Rick Santorum, former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson and former Godfather's Pizza executive Herman Cain.

"Out with the old, in with the who?" indeed.

Undeclared candidate Mitch Daniels is fully candid that hiding at this point in the election cycle is a good strategy. Leadership is difficult, so why should Republican presidential candidates try their hand at it? Mitch Daniels himself is a keen Washington insider who helped President Bush turn the largest American budget surplus in history into the historic amount of debt the nation is digging itself out of. The former head of the Office of Management and Budget says he is shocked that May 4th isn't too late to start running for President, but because of the cowardice of the field, the opportunity remains for him to jump in.

All this avoidance of public scrutiny, debate moderators, and voters isn't preventing the candidats from taking cheap shots. Sarah Palin accuses President Obama of pussyfooting from her twitter hidey-hole. Palin apparently has split with her neocon advisers, who have been at her side since she was a vice-presidential candidate. Arguably, this is a good move, as McCain's foreign policy stance included that he would not launch the type of raid that President Obama ordered in Pakistan. So maybe Palin has learned something in the last three years.

All in all, it's been a bad week for Republican candidates. Donald Trump was mocked for nearly a quarter of an hour (if you include all the birther jokes) at the White Hosue Correspondents' Association Dinner, all the while the President had just ordered the killing of Bin Laden. Palin is projecting her "pussyfooting" onto the President, showing some serious psychological strain. Romney and Gingrich have attracted maybe a dozen headlines put together in the last week. Maybe they should follow in former Florida Governor Charlie Crist's footsteps and get a real job.

Ryan's Folly Squanders GOP Edge Among Seniors

You would expect that Paul Ryan's much heralded plan to cut taxes for the rich and pay for it by ending Medicare would poll well somewhere in the electorate. Let's look at where Republicans tend do perform best: voters 65 and older. Republicans won the 2010 elections largely on impressive turnout from Seniors, who split for Republicans by 21 points (59-38) in the 2010 midterm elections.. On the other hand, Republican strength in 2010 was largely built from the perception that the Affordable Care Act would diminish the opportunities available to Seniors receiving Medicare, hence the talking point "Keep your government hands off my Medicare." Ryan's Folly promises to replace Medicare, where the government pays for medical care for Seniors, with a voucher system that will not cover the costs of health insurance. The Republican dominance in the Senior vote in 2010 essentially resulted in the realization of the fears that Republicans used to get elected.

Ryan's Folly has destroyed the Republican advantage among Seniors, according to today's Gallup poll on the nation's budget preferences. Only 48% of seniors prefer Ryan's Folly to the President's budget plan, which actually lowers the costs of health care. Ryan's plan to place that health care burden on the backs of individual Americans has cost the Republican party a 20 point lead among their most important demographic group. Meanwhile, Democrats maintain their 20 point advantage among voters aged 18-30, greatly expanding on their actual margin among the young in 2010.

Thune Is Out

Senator John Thune just announced he would not run for President in 2012, narrowing the list of skilled Republican politicians from the midwest running for President to exactly zero.

This gives lackluster Tim Pawlenty some extra oxygen, potentially giving him a freer hand in Iowa, a media market that is highly cross pollinated with Minnesota news. In a field in which Huckabee doesn't run (and Caucus-going Republicans don't like their other options i.e. Mitt Romney), Thune's absence is certainly a shot in the arm to Pawlenty's campaign, giving him an early hope for national news coverage. I can't wait for the first Des Moines Register poll, which usually sets the perception of the field.

Maybe Progressives Should Organize GOP Voters

Two recent polls show that GOP congressmen are more conservative than GOP voters, with 47% of rank-and-file Republicans supporting the repeal of DADT, and 58% supporting raising taxes as part of a deficit reduction solution. Both of these positions have been filibustered by the Republican Senate Minority in the last week. To put it another way, only 3% of Senate Republicans support repealing DADT (thank you, Susan Collins) and none have stepped forward to support raising tax cuts on the super wealthy despite a number of proposals being floated around (including creating an additional tax bracket at $1 million) that would be substantial concessions from the Democratic position.

The Obama tax compromise sums up nicely the problem that American government is facing: Democrats conceded their basic principles of a fair tax cut in order to implement moderate goals like extending unemployment assistance and cutting payroll taxes. Essentially, the Republicans were not in a position to compromise because they do not have principles. They only have a desire to give welfare handouts to the wealthy. There are not two serious parties who could negotiate a fair outcome.

The death of the two party system (as long as we regard legislative sanity as the primary goal of the two party system) is partially a result of the Democratic party broadening its appeal to ideological moderates and conservatives in some districts, and also a reaction to that outreach from Republicans. Republicans sought to differentiate themselves in campaigns from conservative Democrats, and entrenched themselves in far-right nonsense land. The tea party is the logical outgrowth of the rhetoric that nothing Democrats do is good: since Democrats controlled government, nothing government does is good. Now we should see either a realignment among some Tea Party voters to a more anti-everybody position, or more likely, Fox News will take away their megaphone from those groups. This leaves us with a serious problem: Republicans will govern from the extreme fringes and in cases where they can't force concessions from Democrats in the Senate (Recall that Democrats in the Senate will be looking mostly to keep the economic growth going in their home states, not for ideological victories), more grandstanding and obstructionism.

Progressives have an opportunity to change this balance by pouring some effort into promoting liberal Republicans in primaries. Not to help Democrats win the general election, but to actually modernize and de-crazy-fy the Republican party. Republican voters will vote for people who want to actually solve our nation's problems, but Republican activists won't work for them. Top Republican strategists will also be focusing on the Presidential race, and activists may be overwhelmed at state legislature and Congressional levels by progressives organizing for moderate Republicans.

Electing moderate Republicans in open seats will encourage actual bipartisanship and will weaken the control of Boehner, Cantor, and Ryan on the GOP caucus. Republicans actually interested in improving the economy may be anathema to the Democratic branding of the GOP, but it's what this country needs in order to solve our problems. Progressives should consider post-partisan activism this cycle. Turnout will be high for the Republican Primaries, which will produce a more moderate primary electorate than in 2012. There may even be some opportunities to primary far-right Republicans if a strong moderate Republican Presidential candidate shows up. Convincing a Huckabee voter to oust an incumbent in favor of a moderate Republican will also be a lot easier than convincing the same voter to split their ticket in November. Progressives need to elect better Democrats, but better Democrats also need to be legislating with better Republicans.