Visual source: Newseum
NY Times:
At the same time, President Obama, while still embattled, has seen his poll numbers improve slightly in the wake of the chaos on the Hill. Further, the Republican narrative that so dominated 2010 — deficit spending as the nation’s greatest ill — has been matched in recent months by the Democratic pounding of the table on income inequality.
Occupy Wall Street protests eclipsed Tea Parties around the nation this fall in defining at least some of the national mood. In a New York Times/CBS News poll conducted in October, 66 percent of respondents who were asked if they felt that “the money and wealth in this country should be more evenly distributed among more people” said it should be more evenly distributed, while 26 percent said the system was fair.
All of this has left Democrats feeling more hopeful that they can recapture many of the 25 House seats needed for a majority, fend off a formidable challenge by Republicans over control of the Senate and perhaps keep Mr. Obama in Washington.
Too early to think that, but better hope than depression.
WaPo:
Mitt Romney holds a formidable lead in New Hampshire heading into the final days of campaigning before Tuesday’s primary and has solidified his position in the crucial battleground state of South Carolina, according to new polls, with his rivals looking to a pair of weekend debates to knock the GOP front-runner off his stride.
NY Times:
As Mr. Romney took a 24-hour detour to South Carolina this week in hopes of getting a head start campaigning for the first Southern primary on Jan. 21, some of his rivals trudged across New Hampshire trying to plant the seed that he is already looking beyond New Hampshire and taking the state for granted.
It was a sentiment that resonated with some voters, who are already feeling neglected because the primary here has not received the overwhelming attention of previous years because of Mr. Romney’s wide lead in many polls.
He'll still win. And if the polls are right, he'll win by a lot. That's why no one is paying too much attention to New Hampshire if your name isn't Huntsman.
NY Times:
Dismayed by the prospect of Mitt Romney as the Republican presidential nominee, conservative Christian leaders are intensifying discussions about jointly backing an alternative candidate from a field reshaped by Rick Santorum’s strong performance in Iowa.
Too little, too late. But, clearly, good for
John McCain Mitt Romney (because everything is.)
Gail Collins reads Rick Santorum's book so you don't have to:
Since “It Takes a Family” was published in 2005, Barack Obama doesn’t make an appearance. But during his current campaign, Santorum has made it clear that he thinks Obama is the worst village elder of all, who is feeding us “the narcotic of government dependency” so that Americans will be helpless and he’ll be more powerful and important.
Do you think, people, that it might be possible to criticize the president without insisting that everything he does is propelled by sinister motives and bad character? O.K., maybe not this year.
Charles Blow:
That didn’t take long...
In 1935, W.E.B. DuBois’s “Black Reconstruction in America 1860-1880” pointed out that one of the major themes that American children were being taught in textbooks about that period was that “all Negroes were lazy, dishonest and extravagant.”
The themes are eerily resonant of today’s Republican talking points on welfare.
One textbook theme excerpted by DuBois stated that “legislatures were often at the mercy of Negroes, childishly ignorant, who sold their votes openly, and whose ‘loyalty’ was gained by allowing them to eat, drink and clothe themselves at the state’s expense.”
Another stated that “assistance led many freed men to believe that they need no longer work.”
This tired trope was reprised in 1976. After losing the Iowa caucus to Gerald Ford and heading into the New Hampshire primary, Ronald Reagan glommed onto the idea of the “welfare queen.”
Eugene Robinson:
Before there was the Tea Party to define the phrase “far-right fringe,” there was Rick Santorum. He’s a nice-guy zealot who should never be allowed anywhere near the Oval Office...
And if Santorum somehow manages to win the nomination, he will be easier for Obama to beat than Romney. I mean, Obama beats him easily. Doesn’t he?
But I know there’s no such thing as an airtight guarantee, and that’s why those welcoming the Santorum surge for Machiavellian reasons should be careful what they wish for.
I neither welcome nor fear it. Get Santorum's views out in the open (see our piundits today) early and often. He's unelectable, and let's show the public why that is.