Friday punditry.
Charlie Cook:
So what are pollsters and strategists seeing in 2010? Unquestionably, Republicans are still headed for a big year. My hunch is that GOP gains will be roughly comparable to 1994, when the party picked up 52 House seats and eight Senate seats. Over the past two weeks, Democratic performance has improved in some places and deteriorated in others, making any sweeping generalizations difficult.
Yet the races do seem to be tightening. Democrats who were trailing by more than a few percentage points remain behind, but by smaller margins. Although Republican strategists are hardly panicking, they are noticing the tightening. As one Republican strategist put it, Democratic voters were so demoralized that their intensity had only one way to go, and that was up. Democrats still have a formidable challenge in getting their sympathizers to the polls, but their task may not be as difficult as it appeared a few weeks ago, when Democratic voters were even more despondent.
[Shorter Cook:] Yeah, there’s tightening. Not just imagination. "Worst blowout evah" is avoided. But we lose the House.
Tom Jensen/PPP:
Here's a lesson everyone interested in polling needs to get down between now and the election: the enthusiasm gap is not spread evenly across the country.
We've polled 23 different states since switching over to likely voters. Likely voters in those states this year report having voted for Barack Obama by an average of 1 point. Obama won the 23 states by an average of 9 points. So taken as a whole we're seeing on average an electorate that's 8 points more Republican friendly than in 2008.
Here's the thing though: just because these 23 states average an electorate that's 8 points more Republican doesn't mean that's the case for all of them individually. Some of them are seeing gaps much larger than 8 points. And some of them are actually seeing a slightly more Democratic electorate than in 2008.
Nouriel Roubini, Michael Moran:
Roughly three years since the onset of the financial crisis, the U.S. economy increasingly looks vulnerable to falling back into recession. The United States is flirting with "stall speed," an anemic rate of growth that, if it persists, can lead to collapses in spending, consumer confidence, credit, and other crucial engines of growth. Call it a "double dip" or the Great Recession, Round II: Whatever the term, we're talking about a negative feedback loop that would be devilishly hard to break.
If Barack Obama wants a realistic shot at a second term, he'll need to act quickly and decisively to prevent this scenario.
Michael P. MCDonald:
OK, enough with the important definitions. Let's get to the good stuff!...
Overall, a continued registration trend away from the major political parties is evident, one that observers began noticing in the 1970s. The Democrats lost 927,332 registrants and the Republicans lost 587,698 registrants since Nov. 2008. There are substantially more Democrats than Republicans, so as a percentage change, Democrats lost 2.1% and Republicans lost 1.9% of their Nov. 2008 registrants. Minor party registrations increased by 55,194 registrants or 2.5% and unaffiliated registrants increased by 101,429 or 0.4%.
Of course, CT is looking good...
WaPo:
Historically, black turnout for midterm elections has lagged behind the national average, but two new reports offer a bullish outlook for this year.
A major survey conducted by The Washington Post, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University found that 80 percent of black Democrats are as interested or more interested in the midterms than they were in the 2008 presidential election, when their enthusiasm helped propel Barack Obama into office...
And the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, which researched the black electorate, said in a report Thursday that African American participation in November may be higher than in many past midterm elections.
Matthew Continetti:
5 myths about Sarah Palin.
This one's good for a long laugh. Continetti neglects some basic facts such as the 2008 exit poll's finding that 60% found her unqualified to be President, and invents others ("Palin is extreme" is myth #3.)
It's about time!
The Food and Drug Administration has warned eight companies to stop marketing miracle cures that claim to treat everything from autism to Parkinson's disease by flushing toxic metals from the body.
Regulators said the products, sold over the Internet, can cause dehydration, kidney failure and death. Known as chelation therapies, the products have been used for decades, although medical societies and government experts say there is no evidence they cure diseases.