Trump surrogate Sarah Palin was a guest on Jake Tapper's CNN show yesterday, where she endorsed efforts to defeat Paul Ryan's reelection bid back in Wisconsin because of his refusal to embrace Trump yet. "I think Paul Ryan is soon to be 'Cantored,' as in Eric Cantor," she told Tapper.
PPP polled minimum wage as an issue in half a dozen battleground states with heavily-contested state-wide races, Iowa, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Illinois, Kentucky and Louisiana. Support for increasing the minimum wage to $10.10 was strong across the board, ranging from 61% in Illinois to 53% in Wisconsin. Opposition was strongest in Wisconsin, but still weak at just 39%.
There aren't many-- if any-- Republicans who have been more demonized in those annoying DCCC emails begging for money from lo-info grassroots Dems, than Paul Ryan. Reading them, you'd think the DCCC is gearing up to fight-- if not already in the midst of hand-to-hand combat-- against the despised and much-vilified (rightfully despised and vilified) Ryan.
Last night John Amato and I went to the first of two rallies in L.A. this weekend meant to help turn out Democratic voters. The main speaker was Alan Grayson and he was out here supporting CA-33 progressive Democrat Ted Lieu. Without any doubt, the biggest reactions came when Grayson explained why he was one of the leaders of the fight against arming and training the so-called "moderate" Syrian terrorists-- the tragic McKeon Amendment that passed the House Wednesday, 273-156.
Today Maggie Haberman did a puff piece on the failed DCCC chairman Steve Israel. "My position as DCCC chair," he boasted, "has given me the opportunity to elevate House races and the midterms to some of the most influential and highest-profile donors in the country.
If someone offered me a huge sum for the Blue America mailing list, I would tell them no. If they doubled the offer, I would tell them to go suck wind. Today I got an e-mail from a candidate in New York who I've never been in contact with, Aaron Woolf, a film producer from New York's North Country who is trying to hold a rough swing district for the Democrats.
Wednesday the House Budget Committee approved Paul Ryan's latest Ayn Rand Budget, which cuts trillions in healthcare spending and repeals the Affordable Care Act. "His budget," reports Hospital CFO, "would make significant changes to Medicare, reducing program spending by $129 billion over the next 10 years.
Over the weekend, E.J. Dionne suggested in the Washington Post that Democratic Party strategists are blowing the 2014 midterm cycle. "Listlessness is bad politics. Defensiveness is poor strategy. And resignation is never inspiring."
Yesterday's Politico featured a post by Manu Raju explaining how both Democratic and Republican candidates are running against the NSA's Cheney-conceived domestic spying agenda-- the NSA's Cheney-conceived domestic spying agenda that Obama has largely kept intact.
