When you're husband is running for U.S. Senate in West Virginia and you aren't allowed to vote for him because the family home is actually in Florida, this is not the best defense:

In an escalating residency controversy between West Virginia's Senate contenders, the wife of Republican businessman John Raese is being purged from the state's voter rolls because she is also registered to vote in Florida.

John Raese is running against Democratic Gov. Joe Manchin to fill the seat of the late Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D).

Roll Call confirmed Friday that Elizabeth Raese is registered to vote in both states but has not voted in West Virginia since 1998. But in an interview this week with Time magazine, she indicated that she would be -- and has been -- voting in West Virginia.

"We are West Virginians," Elizabeth Raese said, according to Time reporter Jay Newton-Small. "We live here, we vote here, people know that. We also have a home in Colorado, but we're not residents there either."

Aha, I get it. It's not fair to call Raese a Floridian because he's actually from Colorado. Smart defense. Really. But where does West Virginia figure into it?

Yes, we're headed down that road again. Of the more than 9 million Americans surviving on unemployment benefit checks these days, 5 million depend on federal extensions of those benefits because they've been out of work for so long. But the extensions passed in July - for the third time - are set to expire Nov. 30. And Congress only has from Nov. 15 when members return from the campaign recess until Nov. 19 when they go on Thanksgiving recess to do something about it.

If it takes anywhere near as long to get the votes to pass the extensions as it did last time - 50 days - a million workers could be cut off from this meager but crucial life-line between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Still more come the new year. There are no indications that Republicans and deficit hawks among the Democrats will make passing the extensions any easier than last time. We'll be treated to another round of tedious imprecations about how the jobless get lazy on their average $310 weekly benefits checks and how the budget just can't handle additional stress. The usual delaying tactics will be employed. In the Senate, that means more filibuster threats and the usual foot-dragging by the usual knuckle-draggers.

That's why the UnemployedWorkers.org is gearing up now to prepare the way for that fight. A project of the National Employment Law Project, it is urging everyone to sign its petition to Congress on benefit extensions, pass the word to friends and political allies and offer feedback on its newly retooled web site. The site operates both to organize and as an information source, with fact sheets on the jobs crisis, links to and critiques of national and regional unemployment news and tracking of the weekly jobless claims data.

“Congress took seven weeks to reauthorize the extensions when benefits expired last June, and in that time more than two million unemployed Americans and their families lost their jobless benefits. With UnemployedWorkers.org, we intend to prevent any cut offs or lapses this November by partnering with mobilized workers, supporters and other advocates to put unemployment insurance at the top of Congress’ to-do list when it reconvenes,” said Chris Owens, NELP Executive Director.

If you've been out of touch for a while and are unfamiliar with the debate over benefit extensions, Unemployed Workers has produced a new video. Thrill to Sen. Orrin Hatch saying, "You know, we should not be giving cash to people who, who basically are just going to go and blow it on drugs."

Chris Owens has it right: "The statement that extending benefits is keeping people from working, making them lazy, etc., I think it is insulting and infuriating." But it also should be energizing to activists who are sick of seeing hard-working-if-they-could-find-work Americans being on the receiving end of yet another round of class warfare.  

Ultimately, unemployment insurance needs to be reengineered so that in times of need, out-of-work people aren't subject to Congressional whim and temporary extensions of this lifelife. But right now we've got a rematch on extensions coming our way Please sign the petition.

A Monday morning warm up ...

• Colorado's Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, Ken Buck, says being gay is a choice.
• Allen West, the Republican candidate in Florida's 22nd District, who on Friday was defending his association with the Outlaws motorcycle gang, on Saturday said the story was irrelevant because "the Outlaws do not accept blacks, Jews or gays."
• Nevada's Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, Sharron Angle, blew through more than $10 million in 3 months, with a third of it spent on fundraising.
• Is BP backing off their vow to "make this right"? Their lawyer is now talking about liability caps.
• And noted BP apologist Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) says that he “was a Tea Party activist before there was a Tea Party." Mr. Barton has been in Congress for 26 years.
• Delaware's Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, Christine O'Donnell, apparently taking a break from her vow to avoid the national media, complained during an interview on ABC's "This Week" that the NRSC isn't helping her enough.
• And in possibly related news, Meghan McCain says that Christine O'Donnell is "seen as a nutjob."
• And speaking of nutjobs, Meghan's formerly sane father, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) promises that he will  "absolutely filibuster" any attempt to repeal "don't ask, don't tell."
• Vice President Joe Biden certainly knows how to turn a phrase, saying of Republican talk about reducing the deficit, "is like making an arsonist the fire marshal."
• Barbara Billingsley, the actress best known for her role as June Cleaver on the 1950's sitcom "Leave it to Beaver," has died. She was 94 years old.

Jabber your jibber.

Monday punditry.

WaPo:

Republican Senate nominee Christine O'Donnell of Delaware is calling out the Republican establishment in Washington for not helping her underdog campaign.

In an interview on ABC's "This Week" that aired Sunday, the tea party favorite said she has asked the National Republican Senatorial Committee for help but that the group is standing on the sidelines even though her Democratic rival, Chris Coons, is getting a boost from his party.

Jack Conway debating Rand Paul:

Conway: "as AG of KY, I'm always amused to get a lecture in constitutional law from a self-certified ophthalmologist"

Ross Douthat:

The easy thing would be to take them at their word. But for liberals, that would be too simple. The Democrats are weeks away from a midterm thumping that wasn’t supposed to happen, and the liberal mind is desperate for a narrative, a storyline, something to ease the pain of losing to a ragtag band of right-wing populists. Something that explains the Tea Parties — and then explains them away.

The "Tea Partiers are racists" theory is the most inflammatory storyline, but there are many more. Let’s consider them, in order of increasing plausibility:

They're yours, Ross. Make your peace with them, explain them away.

Newsweek:

Given the personal fortune Linda McMahon has tapped to finance her Republican run for U.S. Senate in Connecticut, you’d think she’d hold a formidable edge against her Democratic opponent, state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal. She’s pumped $22 million of her own money into the campaign, while Blumenthal has raised only $3.5 million. She’s used that cash advantage to unload a barrage of ads that paint him as a career politician, clueless about how to create jobs and untrustworthy for having embellished his Vietnam War service. By contrast, she’s depicted herself as exactly the sort of business-savvy outsider these grim economic times call for. With only two weeks to go until Election Day, however, polls show her trailing Blumenthal by about 10 points.

With a few exceptions, McMahon’s fellow millionaires (and a couple of billionaires) aren’t faring much better.

NY Times:

Mr. Gibbs said that whatever disaffection Americans have with the Democratic Party  was not because of the president’s policies but because of the difficult economic picture, with 8 million jobs having been lost and unemployment at 9.6 percent, a situation he largely blamed on the previous Republican administration.

"I think at the end of the day, people are going to understand that message and not turn over control of Congress to people that want to take us back to what we’re trying to get out of," he said.

NY Times on their NY Gov poll with R-Paladino crashing and burning (59-24):

The two men, along with five minor party candidates, will appear Monday evening in the first debate of the campaign. Mr. Cuomo’s popularity appears to be fueled in part by widespread doubts about Mr. Paladino’s temperament and qualifications.

Some 59 percent of voters in the poll said that Mr. Paladino did not have the right temperament and personality to be a good governor, while 55 percent said that Mr. Paladino, a novice candidate who made millions as a real estate developer, did not have the right kind of experience.

(bumped, MB)

At The Nation, Greg Mitchell writes Upton Sinclair's EPIC Campaign:

Nearly two years after a Democrat promising hope and change entered the White House, amid an economic crisis left behind by an unpopular Republican, unemployment remained at century-high levels. Despite new stimulus programs, recovery seemed far off. Opponents in the GOP (and even some in the president's own party) called for cutting spending to reduce the budget deficit. Democrats were split:  Was the president acting as boldly as possible—or was he not nearly bold enough?  Pundits on the left accused him of dithering and caving in to "big business." Yet as a midterm election approached—one that might decide whether the president and his programs had much of a future—right-wing demagogues on the stump and in the media accused the White House of imposing socialism on America. The year was 1934; the president was Franklin D. Roosevelt. The economic crisis FDR faced was far worse than what President Obama confronts today, but many similarities exist. Among the major differences: the grassroots activism getting all the attention this year comes from the right, not the left. And that's one reason the outcome of the 2010 midterms will be quite different from the 1934 results, when Democrats gained seats in Congress, emboldening Roosevelt to propose landmark legislation establishing Social Security and other safety nets. Of all the left-wing mass movements that year, Upton Sinclair's End Poverty in California (EPIC) crusade proved most influential, and not just in helping to push the New Deal to the left. The Sinclair threat—after he easily won the Democratic gubernatorial primary—so profoundly alarmed conservatives that it sparked the creation of the modern political campaign, with its reliance on hired guns, advertising and media tricks, national fundraising, attack ads on the screen and more. Profiling two of the creators of the anti-Sinclair campaign, Carey McWilliams would later call this (in The Nation) "a new era in American politics—government by public relations." It also provoked Hollywood's first all-out plunge into politics, which, in turn, inspired the leftward tilt in the movie colony that endures to this day. Back in the autumn of 1934, political analysts, financial columnists and White House aides for once agreed: Sinclair's victory in the primary marked the high tide of electoral radicalism in the United States. Left-wing novelist Theodore Dreiser wrote a piece for Esquire declaring EPIC "the most impressive political phenomenon that America has yet produced." The New York Times called it "the first serious movement against the profit system in the United States." Sinclair lost in November, but the inspiring success of his mass movement—among other things, it basically created the liberal wing of the state's Democratic Party, which also endures to this day—and its powerful influence on a wavering new president deserves close study. And where are the EPIC-style mass movements today?

• • • • •

At Daily Kos on this date in 2008:

Campaigning today in North Carolina, Sarah Palin said something quite extraordinary: Palin also made a point of mentioning that she loved to visit the "pro-America" areas of the country, of which North Carolina is one. So, where are the anti-America areas of the country? I know she hasn't visited Maryland, so apparently that means I hate America. Has she visited your state?

• • • • •

If you haven't read Aji's diary and Ojibwa's diary about this year's GOP attempts to suppress the American Indian vote, you should.

Tonight's Rescue Rangers who helped make tonight's effort a reality include: claude; ItsJessMe; Rexymeteorite; srkp23; mem from somerville; and vcmvo2 as reader and editor.

The rescued diaries are:

• burrow owl does some great research, suggesting the situation is "either pay tax and get confidentiality by gifting to a 501(c)(4), or don't pay tax and have the gift disclosed" in Are Contributions to 501(c)(4)s Taxable Gifts? (srkp23)
• Setrak analyzes reports on the ground about the Afghan War in Scrutinizing the Military's Captured/Killed #'s in Afghanistan. (vcmvo2)
• dsteffen delves into another shocking case of mining malfeasance and explores How regulation came to be: The Buffalo Creek Act of God. (mem from somerville)
• A trio of anguished Kossaks, calling for harmony: TBug's Freedom of speech does not mean freedom of responsibility.; lotusmaglite's Take A Month Off; and Living With One Another from Barth. (claude)
• the national gadfly reveals the coordinated effort to withhold information about sex from teenagers, and relays the importance of web resources like Scarleteen in preventing teen pregnancy and STDs in Sex Education Is A Political Act. (rexymeteorite)
• In Nationwide Criminal Conspiracy Revealed! twcollier demonstrates why Shakespeare wrote "First we kill all the lawyers!" (vcmvo2)
• KAMuston tells the tale of the fascinating first daughter of Teddy Roosevelt in GO ASK ALICE. (srkp23)
• TheseusInWisconsin revisits a classic text to remind us of what is at stake in this election cycle with 1984 and the shoes of the immigrant. (mem from somerville)
• orca43 reminds us about one of the things that makes our country great, in The America I Love - Jury Duty. (ItsJessMe)
• Randall Sherman's first-hand report is a BINGO: The Dems Not-So Secret Weapon in Chicago's 33rd Ward. (srkp23)
• not2plato brings us the story of Chicken Cantor; the amazing (and freakish) politician who refuses to debate his opponent because he fancies himself cock of the walk in VA-07: The Saga Continues. (rexymeteorite)

jotter has High Impact Diaries: October 16, 2010 and Week's High Impact Diairies: October 9-15, 2010.

asimbagirl has tonight's Top Comments: Shrimp Bisque Edition!

Enjoy and please feel free to recommend your own favorite diaries from the past twenty-four hours in this Open Thread!

   This Rescue Diary covers the period from 6 PM, Saturday, 10/16 to 6:00 PM EDT, Sunday, 10/17

Today's Menu Includes :
36 Diaries Overall

- 5 On House races

- Covering 5 individual Districts in 5 states

- 7 On Senate races

- Representing 5 different states

- 10 On Various election races and ballot issues

- Encompassing Governor, Secretary of State, Local, and more

- 14 General election-related diaries

   

And be sure to follow the Election Diary Rescue on Twitter

(Tonight's compilation and more after the jump............)

If there is a single word to characterize the 2010 election cycle, that word would be, without a doubt, uncertainty. As Nate Silver acknowledged earlier this week:

There is considerable uncertainty in the forecast because of the unusually large number of House seats now in play. A gain of as large as 70-80 seats is not completely out of the question if everything broke right for Republicans. Conversely, if Democrats managed to see a material rebound in their national standing over the final two weeks of the campaign, they could lose as few as 20-30 seats, as relatively few individual districts are certain pickups for Republicans.

Add to that the myriad of questions that are being asked about the state of polling in this cycle (many of which have been covered here at DK), and even at this late stage of the game, there is a vast universe of things we don't know about this election.

Which, it would seem, would make this a cycle where upset specials ought to be a common sight on November 2nd. This Sunday night, your intrepid Wrap curator is going to have his genius/idiot moment of the cycle--for he is going to try to concoct a list of eight House races that could be upsets in two weeks time.

It's not that these races are completely off the radar screen. But they are races that have been, by and large, ignored as the cycle has gone on by most of the punditocracy. And, for individual reasons, I suspect that they will be much closer than advertised. The good news for Democrats--three of the eight are, indeed, GOP-held seats.

It is possible, of course, that the party in power will hold all eight of these seats, and that a couple of them might even be held by substantial margins. The reason these eight make the cut is because there is something about those races that makes them more competitive than most.

DEMOCRATIC RACES TO KEEP AN EYE ON

California's 20th district makes the list for two reasons. For one thing, this district is not as solidly Democratic as its decades of Democratic House representation would lead the casual observer to believe. John Kerry only narrowly carried the district, in the same year that current incumbent Jim Costa won the seat with just 53% of the vote. For another thing, Costa's GOP opponent (rancher Andy Vidak) has raised legitimate cash in this race. There has been one public poll in the race, and it showed the race as just a two-point Costa lead.

Maine's 2nd district, and its fourth-term Democratic incumbent (Michael Michaud), has not been getting as much attention as neighbor Chellie Pingree, who made a similar list thrown together by Stu Rothenberg. For my money, Michaud is of greater concern. Recent polling shown Michaud's battle with Republican Jason Levesque a bit closer than Pingree's test with GOPer Dean Scontras. While Michaud has still mostly held double-digit leads, they have been of the low forties vs. low thirties variety. Furthermore, the district is considerably less hospitable. The 2nd district has a much lower PVI (D+3) than does the 1st district (D+8). Michaud, mindful of how tough this race was going to be, began campaigning in earnest earlier than expected. But he also was sitting on $700K as of September 30th, hinting that he might have been caught a little flat-footed.

Massachusetts' 6th district (and its longtime incumbent, John Tierney) arrive on this list, in part, due to the fact that this just seems (given what happened here in January) to be the year that the long-held Democratic hegemony in the Bay State's House delegation is endangered. While most eyes are on the Cape's swing-ish 10th congressional district, some unfortunate legal headlines involving Tierney's wife Patrice (who was convicted of tax fraud in a matter involving her brother) have come at a most inopportune time for Tierney, who is being challenged by Republican Bill Hudak. While Massachusetts is a deeply-blue state, this district is at least willing to flirt with Republicans. Only the 5th and the aforementioned 10th have been more amenable to Republicans at the presidential level over the past eight years.

Michigan's 15th district is, without question, the most Democratic district of the five named. Barack Obama won here with 66%, and John Kerry carried the district with 62%. That is why it came as an absolute shock to see a recent poll (albeit a Republican one, from Rossman Group) showing a slight lead for Republican challenger Rob Steele over the venerable Dingell. The lack of competing polling from the Democrat is a little surprising. I would have expected a counter poll within the week. Steele had a monster third quarter of fundraising ($347K), although Dingell still easily outraised him. One has to wonder if, with voters convinced the country is on the wrong track, the change narrative is so strong that Dingell's decades of service in Congress is now working as a powerful undertow to his re-election chances.

Mississippi's 4th district is the polar opposite of the Michigan 15th. It is, far and away, the most Republican-friendly of the five Dem districts on the list. But, for years, conservaDem Gene Taylor has used a personal appeal (and a large number of apostate votes) to keep the conservative tide in his district at bay. Now, apparently, Taylor's own polling is confirming the narrowness of the race. After his Republican opponent, Steven Palazzo, released a poll showing a four-point race, Taylor's crew essentially confirmed it by releasing their own numbers, which had the margin at eight points. In the 1994 wave election, a lot of the damage was in conservative Southern districts like this one. One has to wonder, if such a wave does exist in the 2010 cycle, if this is the kind of district that can be flipped.

REPUBLICAN RACES TO KEEP AN EYE ON

Arizona's 3rd district is a district where I am truly shocked that there is no public polling available (although the Kossack community might have changed that with their vote last week. The district has a distinctive Republican lean, but the GOP nominee there is pretty flawed (and not just because of his surname). Ben Quayle survived the primary with an unspectacular vote total, in no small part because the primary was a 10-candidate affair. Meanwhile, the Democratic challenger (attorney Jon Hulburd) has raised legitimate money, and is damned near even with Quayle on cash-on-hand, despite Quayle's campaign being a freaking ATM ($1.93 million raised).

Florida's 12th district, on paper, should be a hold for the GOP. Their candidate, former state legislator Dennis Ross, has outraised Democratic challenger Lori Edwards by a two-to-one margin in this R+6 district. But two things make this one interesting. For one thing, the district might be shifting noticeably. Florida moved a total of eight points in the Democratic direction between 2004 and 2008. But the 12th district's shift was even sharper, from a 16-point GOP margin in 2004 to just a single point in 2008. Furthermore, there is a wild card in the race: Polk County Commissioner and Tea Party candidate Randy Wilkinson. A poll taken over the summer by Dem pollsters Greenberg Quinlan Rosner gave Edwards a shocking three-point edge, elevated by Wilkinson's ability to notch 20% of the vote. Given his lack of funds, that might be a bit optimistic, but if not...watch out for this one.

Pennsylvania's 16th district is on here solely because of the internal polling we have seen here. On paper, Republican Joe Pitts would be expected to be heavily favored over Democrat Lois Herr. Not only is the district tilted to the GOP (Bush took 61% here, though McCain only snagged 51%), but Pitts beat Herr by seventeen points (56-39) in a great Democratic year in 2008. But the Herr campaign released an internal in late September showing Pitts out in front by just seven points (41-34). Given the pollster's incredibly good track record as of late, it was a poll I took seriously.

That pollster, for those who are curious, was PPP, whose work is often found on the DK front page, as they became our polling partner a few months ago.

Are there races I missed? Of course, there are. This is a cycle marked by a huge amount of uncertainty, as I said at the open. If there are "upset specials" that you like more than the ones I have named, please feel free to make your case in the comments.

Jabber your jibber.

The question of money is seeded through the debate over education, in several ways. This week I want to focus first on the way money most immediately factors in the current political debate; namely, where is the money behind the push for charter schools coming from?

Answer: To a significant extent, the money for charter schools is coming from Wall Street, and in particular from hedge fund managers. Consider:

Mr. Petry, 38, and Mr. Greenblatt, 52, may spend their days poring over spreadsheets and overseeing trades, but their obsession — one shared with many other hedge funders — is creating charter schools, the tax-funded, independently run schools that they see as an entrepreneurial answer to the nation’s education woes. Charters have attracted benefactors from many fields. But it is impossible to ignore that in New York, hedge funds are at the movement’s epicenter.

“These guys get it,” said Eva S. Moskowitz, a former New York City Council member, whom Mr. Petry and Mr. Greenblatt hired in 2006 to run the Success Charter Network, for which they provide the financial muscle, including compensation for Ms. Moskowitz of $371,000 her first year. “They aren’t afraid of competition or upsetting the system. They thrive on that.”

Hedge fund managers may be better known for eight-figure incomes with which they scoop up the choicest Manhattan penthouses and Greenwich, Conn., waterfront estates. But they also dominate the boards of many of the city’s charters schools and support organizations. They include Whitney Tilson, who runs T2 Partners; David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital; Tony Davis of Anchorage Advisors; and Ravenel Boykin Curry IV of Eagle Capital Management.

The Tiger Foundation, started by the hedge fund billionaire Julian Robertson, provides a large chunk of financing for several dozen charters across the city. Mr. Robertson’s son, Spencer, founded his own school last year, PAVE Academy in the Brooklyn, while his daughter-in-law, Sarah Robertson, is chairwoman of the Girls Preparatory Charter School on the Lower East Side.

The Robin Hood Foundation, the high-profile Wall Street charity founded by Paul Tudor Jones II, a legendary hedge fund manager, considers charter schools “right there at the top of our list of priorities,” said Marianne Macrae, a spokeswoman.

Or the recent $20 million contribution from Goldman Sachs Gives to the Harlem Children's Zone.

These are the people who ruined our economy, but suddenly we're supposed to think it's a good idea to turn them loose on our schools?

Or, moving away from Wall Street, consider the fact that one of the producers of the pro-charter movie Waiting for Superman is Philip Anschutz, owner of the Weekly Standard and funder of anti-gay campaigns and an intelligent design think tank. Again, are we to believe that his political projects are innocent?

And this isn't just some long-term project to privatize public education. There's short-term profit in it, as well. NY Daily News columnist Juan Gonzalez explained on Democracy Now:

There's a lot of money to be made in charter schools, and I'm not talking just about the for-profit management companies that run a lot of these charter schools.

It turns out that at the tail end of the Clinton administration in 2000, Congress passed a new kind of tax credit called a New Markets tax credit. What this allows is it gives enormous federal tax credit to banks and equity funds that invest in community projects in underserved communities and it's been used heavily now for the last several years for charter schools. I have focused on Albany, New York, which in New York state, is the district with the highest percentage of children in charter schools, twenty percent of the schoolchildren in Albany attend are now attending charter schools. I discovered that quite a few of the charter schools there have been built using these New Markets tax credits.

What happens is the investors who put up the money to build charter schools get to basically or virtually double their money in seven years through a thirty-nine percent tax credit from the federal government. In addition, this is a tax credit on money that they're lending, so they're also collecting interest on the loans as well as getting the thirty-nine percent tax credit. They piggy-back the tax credit on other kinds of federal tax credits like historic preservation or job creation or brownfields credits.

Gonzalez lays out how it works in Albany, NY:

In Albany, which boasts the state's highest percentage of charter school enrollments, a nonprofit called the Brighter Choice Foundation has employed the New Markets Tax Credit to arrange private financing for five of the city's nine charter schools.

But many of those same schools are now straining to pay escalating rents, which are going toward the debt service that Brighter Choice incurred during construction.

The Henry Johnson Charter School, for example, saw the rent for its 31,000-square-foot building skyrocket from $170,000 in 2008 to $560,000 last year.

The Albany Community School's rent jumped from $195,000 to $350,000.

(Via Open Left)

In short, education reform is a good cause. Experimentation is good -- and some of the best charter schools today have experimented in what could be valuable ways. But the push, coming from Wall Street and the extremely wealthy, for this specific form of charter schools, for this specific way of funding them, is part of both short-term and long-term drives for profit that will accrue to the wealthiest while weakening the middle class. The question is not whether we should back away from the cause of education, or the cause of education reform. The question is in whose interests it should be done and who should most strongly influence the outcomes.

Two other huge questions of money play in the education debate. What difference does money in the schools make to educational outcomes? The public debate is sort of ridiculous -- we hear, on the one hand, that traditional public schools couldn't work no matter how much money you threw at them, but on the other hand so many of the things we hear as positives about charter schools come from additional funding. Neither set of claims stands up to the complexity of the issue. For instance, there's the 4,100 student traditional public school in Massachusetts recently featured in the New York Times for its extraordinary turnaround in the course of a decade, today outperforming 90% of Massachusetts high schools. And there's the tens of millions of dollars lavished on the Harlem Children's Zone and the so far mixed results of its schools. But then again, as School Finance 101 recently asked, if money doesn't matter, why do private independent schools spend so much more than traditional public schools?

Obviously, money in schools matters. The thing is, we don't know enough -- not nearly as much as people all over this debate would have us believe -- about where and how it matters. Is it small class size, or teacher pay (and if so, merit pay or tenure), or computers in the classroom, or extended school hours, or or or?

The thing is, and it can't be emphasized enough, there's a clear area where money and things related to it matters overwhelmingly in educational outcomes. It's just not in the schools and too often it falls entirely out of the public debate: the biggest factors in student success are outside the classroom. Richard Rothstein of the Economic Policy Institute puts this in the context of the economic crisis:

Consider the implications of this catastrophe for our aspirations to close the black–white achievement gap. The national unemployment rate remains close to an unacceptably high 10%. But 15% of all black children now have an unemployed parent compared to 8.5% of white children. If we also include children whose parents have become so discouraged that they have given up looking for work, and children whose parents are working part-time because they can’t find full-time work, we find that 37% of black children have an unemployed or underemployed parent compared to 23% of white children. Over half of all black children have a parent who has either been unemployed or underemployed during the past year.{v} Thirty-six percent of black children now live in poverty.{vi}

The consequences of this social disaster for schools are apparent, and include:

Greater geographic disruption: Families become more mobile because they can no longer afford to keep up with rent or mortgage payments. They are in overcrowded housing; they often have to double up with relatives in apartments that were already too small. Children have no quiet place to study or do homework. They switch schools more often, fall behind in the curriculum, and lose the connection with teachers who know them well enough to adapt instruction to their individual strengths and weaknesses. Inner-city schools themselves are thrown into turmoil because classes must frequently be reconstituted as enrollment rises and falls with family mobility. Even the highest-quality teachers cannot fully insulate their students from the effects of this disruption.{vii}

Greater hunger and malnutrition: When more parents lose employment, their income plummets and food insecurity grows. More children come to school hungry and/or inadequately nourished and are less able to focus on schoolwork. Attentive teachers realize that one of the best predictors of how their students will perform is what they had for breakfast, if anything at all.{viii}

Greater stress: Families where parents are unemployed are under greater psychological stress. Such parents, no matter how well-intentioned, often become more arbitrary in their discipline and less supportive of their children. Children from families in such stress are more likely to act out in school and are less able to progress academically. The ability to comfort and support such students may be a more important indicator of a teacher’s quality than her students’ test scores, which may still be lower than the scores of students coming from stable and secure homes.

Poorer health: Families where parents lose employment are also more likely to lose health insurance.{ix} Their children are less likely to get routine and preventive health care and more likely to miss school days because of illness. They are less likely to get symptomatic treatment for illnesses like asthma, the most common cause of chronic school absenteeism. Children with asthma, even when they attend school, are more likely to come to school irritable, having been up at night with breathing difficulty.{x}

Recession isn't the only time those factors are at play -- it's just a time when they're at play for more people. Until we incorporate inequality outside the classroom fully into the debate on education reform, the improvement we want to see will be out of reach.

Last week, a generic right-wing propagandist named S.E. Cupp appeared on Bill Maher's show, spewing what to a certain breed of climate denialist has become a favorite misdirection. They don't flat out deny the science, although they certainly don't acknowledge the gravity of what the science tells us; but they attempt to pretend that the real question isn't whether or not anthropogenic climate change is occurring, rather it's whether or not we can afford to deal with it. But any excuse for not dealing with it is but a different flavor of the same. It all boils down to ignoring the depth of the crisis so the fossil fuels industries can churn right along, reaping massive profits from the destruction of the biosphere.

Cupp's cutesy claim was that we can't afford to address climate change. It's about people's mortgages, she blithered. But not only does she ignore the obvious fact that the environmental consequences of climate change will render such concerns trivial if not moot, she also ignores the actual economics of climate change. Because it's not a question of whether we can afford to deal with it, it's the answer that we can't afford not to. Perhaps living in some fantasy land divorced from science provides people like Cupp with some sort of psychological solace, but it doesn't require exercising one's imagination to consider the geopolitical consequences of some 200,000,000 people being displaced, worldwide. It does require a sober acceptance of the meaning when even the usually staid and cautious National Academies of Sciences reach this conclusion:

The compelling case that climate change is occurring and is caused in large part by human activities is based on a strong, credible body of evidence, says Advancing the Science of Climate Change, one of the new reports. While noting that there is always more to learn and that the scientific process is never "closed," the report emphasizes that multiple lines of evidence support scientific understanding of climate change. The core phenomenon, scientific questions, and hypotheses have been examined thoroughly and have stood firm in the face of serious debate and careful evaluation of alternative explanations.

"Climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for — and in many cases is already affecting — a broad range of human and natural systems," the report concludes. It calls for a new era of climate change science where an emphasis is placed on "fundamental, use-inspired" research, which not only improves understanding of the causes and consequences of climate change but also is useful to decision makers at the local, regional, national, and international levels acting to limit and adapt to climate change. Seven cross-cutting research themes are identified to support this more comprehensive and integrative scientific enterprise.

And while Republicans such as Joe Miller, Ken Buck, Carly Fiorina, Linda McMahon, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, David Vitter, Roy Blunt, Richard Burr, Rob Portman, Jim Huffman, Pat Toomey, Dino Rossi, John Raese, and Ron Johnson are among those Republicans that specifically deny the clear scientific consensus on climate change, other Republicans, such as John McCain, Christine O'Donnell, Mark Kirk, Kelly Ayotte, and both Republicans running in New York are among those opposed to cap-and-trade to address it. The National Academies?

A carbon-pricing system is the most cost-effective way to reduce emissions.  Either cap-and-trade, a system of taxing emissions, or a combination of the two could provide the needed incentives.  While the report does not specifically recommend a cap-and-trade system, it notes that cap-and-trade is generally more compatible with the concept of an emissions budget.

Of course, those opposed to cap-and-trade don't offer any realistic alternatives, not only because there aren't any to offer but because they aren't interested in a realistic response. But to be even more specific and direct, the false question of whether or not we can afford to deal with climate change ignores the economic impacts of climate change itself, which have actually been studied. And written about--for those who actually care about the research and that are capable of reading.

Four years ago, the British government's HM Treasury produced a comprehensive analysis, titled the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change. It takes its name from the radical hippie who led the team making the analysis: Nicolas Stern, former chief economist and senior vice president of the World Bank, former chief economist and special counsellor to the president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and currently the first holder of the I. G. Patel Chair at the London School of Economics and Political Science, as well as the chair of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics.

When it was released, the BBC summarized the Stern Review's conclusions about the environmental impacts of climate change:

TEMPERATURE

# Carbon emissions have already pushed up global temperatures by half a degree Celsius

# If no action is taken on emissions, there is more than a 75-percent chance of global temperatures rising between two and three degrees Celsius over the next 50 years

# There is a 50-percent chance that average global temperatures could rise by five degrees Celsius

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT

# Melting glaciers will increase flood risk

# Crop yields will decline, particularly in Africa

# Rising sea levels could leave 200 million people permanently displaced

# Up to 40 percent of species could face extinction

# There will be more examples of extreme weather patterns

And the economic impact:

# Extreme weather could reduce global gross domestic product (GDP) by up to 1 percent

# A two-to-three degree Celsius rise in temperatures could reduce global economic output by 3 percent

# If temperatures rise by five degrees Celsius, up to 10 percent of global output could be lost. The poorest countries would lose more than 10 percent of their output

# In the worst case scenario global consumption per head would fall 20 percent

# To stabilise at manageable levels, emissions would need to stabilise in the next 20 years and fall between 1 percent and 3 percent after that. This would cost 1 percent of GDP

But what is that compared to the cost of dealing with climate change? For Cupp and anyone else who might need things explicitly spelled out, The Guardian two years ago quoted Stern from a London speech:

Lord Stern of Brentford made headlines in 2006 with a report that said countries needed to spend 1% of their GDP to stop greenhouse gases rising to dangerous levels. Failure to do this would lead to damage costing much more, the report warned - at least 5% and perhaps more than 20% of global GDP.

But speaking yesterday in London, Stern said evidence that climate change was happening faster than had been previously thought meant that emissions needed to be reduced even more sharply.

This meant the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere would have to be kept below 500 parts per million, said Stern. In 2006, he set a figure of 450-550ppm. "I now think the appropriate thing would be in the middle of that range," he said. "To get below 500ppm ... would cost around 2% of GDP."

Yes, the cost of stopping the rise in greenhouse gases is now estimated at up to 2 percent of global GDP. But the cost of the damage from them is estimated to be- at a minimum- more than twice as much, with a maximum of up to 10 times as much. Even someone with Cupp's challenges and values ought to be able to understand that!

And a little closer to home, the University of Maryland's Center for Integrative Environmental Research compiled a series of reports, some broken down by state and some by region, which can be found here. As explained in the introduction of the full report, titled The US Economic Impacts of Climate Change and the Costs of Inaction (pdf):

In the West and Northwest, climate change is expected to alter precipitation patterns and snow pack, thereby increasing the risk of forest fires. Forest fires cost billions of dollars to suppress, and can result in significant loss of property. The Oakland, California fire of 1991 and the fires in San Diego and San Bernardino Counties in 2003 each cost over $2 billion. Every year for the past four years, over 7 million acres of forests in the National Forest System have burned with annual suppression costs of $1.3 billion or more.

The Great Plains and the Midwest will suffer particularly from increased frequency and severity of flooding and drought events, causing billions of dollars in damages to crops and property. For example, the North Dakota Red River floods in 1997 caused $1 billion in agricultural production losses, and the Midwest floods of 1993 inflicted $6-8 billion in damages to farmers alone. The Northeast and Mid-Atlantic region will see increased vulnerability to sea level rise and storms. Depending on the category of the event, evacuation costs for the Northeast region may range, for a single event, between $2 and $6.5 billion. Since 1980, there have been 70 natural weather-caused disasters, with damages to coastal infrastructure exceeding $1 billion per event. Taken together, their combined impact surpassed $560 billion in damages.

Decreased precipitation levels in the South and Southwest will strain water resources for agriculture, industry and households. For the agriculturally productive Central Valley in California alone, the estimated economy-wide loss during the driest years is predicted to be around $6 billion per year. Net agricultural income for the San Antonio Texas Edwards Aquifer region is predicted to decline by 16-29% by 2030 and by 30-45% by 2090 because of competing uses for an increasingly scarce resource – water.

The true economic impact of climate change is fraught with “hidden” costs. Besides the replacement value of infrastructure, for example, there are real costs of re-routing traffic, workdays and productivity lost, provision of temporary shelter and supplies, potential relocation and retraining costs, and others. Likewise, the increased levels of uncertainty and risk, brought about by climate change, impose new costs on the insurance, banking, and investment industries, as well as complicate the planning processes for the agricultural and manufacturing sectors and for public works projects.

In other words, climate change isn't just an environmental issue, and it isn't just a humanitarian issue. Those who don't much care about the environment or humanity can't find comfort in making economic excuses, unless they don't really care about the economy, either. To be as explicitly clear as is possible: The climate crisis is an economic crisis, and unless one cares only about the continued staggering profits of the fossil fuels industries, there are no rationales or excuses not to be addressing climate change as the global environmental, human and economic crisis that it is.

Come January, fewer women will be seated in the House and Senate, the first decrease in their numbers in Congress since 1978. Most, possibly all, of those losses will be Democrats. At the same time, Blue Dog Democrats may see their coalition in the House cut by a third, or deeper, with possibly more than two dozen of them defeated. How this will influence the Congressional dynamic can only be imagined. Some liberals will no doubt say "good riddance."

Without benefit of a time machine, it's easy to make a fool of oneself delivering hard-and-fast predictions. Especially so when one of the most-read analysts suggests that overall Republican gains this year could be as low as 20 or as high as 80. As he says: "[F]airly subtle shifts in the political environment between now and Nov. 2 could have relatively profound implications for the seat count."

So what follows – distilled from the wisdom and calculations of professional and amateur analysts whose perspectives I've grown to trust over the years - should be taken with all the appropriate caveats. Every election contains surprises. Honest opinions expressed to pollsters today can change by the time votes are cast. What appear to be coming defeats should therefore never be viewed as inevitable, as an excuse to give up on this or that candidate. A last-minute get-out-the-vote push has often been known to turn the tide. As we told our 140-plus precinct workers here in northeast Los Angeles Saturday, we're rapidly approaching the last minute in this cycle. All the more so with early voting under way.

First up, the Blue Dogs. If things go the way it looks right now, as few as 28 of the 54 members of the Blue Dog Coalition might be seated in the 112th Congress.

Five are leaving at the end of this term:

Marion Berry (AR-01), Bart Gordon (TN-06) and John Tanner (TN-08) aren't running. Brad Ellsworth (IN-08) and Charlie Melancon (LA-03) are running steep uphill campaigns for the Senate.

There are eight toss-up races:

Mike Arcuri (NY-24), Leonard Boswell (IA-03), Ben Chandler (KY-06), Lincoln Davis (TN-04), Gabrielle Giffords (AZ-08), Baron Hill (IN-09), Jim Marshall (GA-08) and John Salazar (CO-03) are vulnerable.

Thirteen seem headed for defeat:

Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin (SD-at-Large), Allen Boyd (FL-02), Bobby Bright (AL-02), Christopher Carney (PA-10), Travis Childers (MS-01), Kathy Dahlkemper (PA-03), Frank Kratovil (MD-01), Betsy Markey (CO-04), Walt Minnick (ID-01), Harry Mitchell (AZ-05), Dennis Moore (KS-03), Patrick J. Murphy (PA-08), Earl Pomeroy (ND-at-large).

Worst case: Minus 26.

Best case: Minus 18.

Democratic Congresswomen face far fewer losses from their ranks. They now hold 56 seats in the House. Together with the 17 Republican Congresswomen, they total 73 (excluding non-voting members from the territories and the District of Columbia). That makes for a 17 percent slice of the House (the same percentage of women as in the Senate). Unimpressive is about the most charitable description that can be offered for this state of affairs a half-century after modern feminism began and 90 years after the Constitution was amended to give women the vote. Indeed, add up all the women who have ever served in the House since Jeannette Rankin was first elected in 1916 and it amounts to slightly more than enough to fill half the chamber, a total of 222. Thirty-eight women have been Senators.

Left to right: Alice Robertson of Oklahoma, Mae Ella Nolan of California, and Winnifred Mason Huck of Illinois pose on the House entrance steps of the U.S. Capitol, Feb. 15, 1923. Credit: Women in Congress

Pitiful. The United States now ranks 73rd, tied with Turkmenistan, for the percentage of women serving in national legislative bodies. Among the nations that can be more or less considered democracies, we're 56th. And yet 2009 was a record year for numbers of women in the Senate and House.

Women have set records in 2010 as well. In the two major political parties, 36 women (19 Democrats, 17 Republicans), filed for the Senate, beating the previous record of 29 in 1992. Fifteen (9 Democrats, 6 Republicans, including write-in candidate Lisa Murkowski of Alaska) are currently candidates in 14 states.

For the House, 262 women filed, and when the winnowing of state conventions and primaries was completed, 138 women candidates for the House emerged - 91 Democrats, 47 Republicans. Sixty-nine of them are incumbents – 54 Democrats, 15 Republicans.

That's the end of the good news for Democratic women as a whole. In a worst case scenario, they could see their numbers in the House drop by eight, in the Senate by three, a loss of 11. Best case? A net loss of five, four in the House and one in the Senate.

Contests that could go either way include Gabrielle Giffords (AZ-08) and Dina Titus (NV-03).

At greater risk are Kathy Dahlkemper (PA-03), Debbie Halvorson (IL-11), Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin (SD-at-large), Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ-01), Mary Jo Kilroy (OH-15), Suzanne Kosmas (FL-24) Betsy Markey (CO-04) and Carolyn Shea-Porter (NH-01).

Already out after losing her primary is Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (MI-13). The Democrats will keep that seat, but with a man in it. Diane Watson (CA-33) is retiring, but Karen Bass has that contest well in hand.

A defeat in all the at-risk races would run the total losses of women Democrats in the House to 11. Countering these, however, are definite pickups by Terri Sewell (AL-07) and Frederica Wilson (FL-18), a possible win by Ann Kuster (NH-02) and a probable win by Colleen Hanabusa (HI-1). So, a net loss of seven or eight at worst. If you split the difference between best and worst cases, it comes in at six losses.

As for the Senate, there's no hope for Arkansas' Blanche Lincoln. Some risk still exists for Barbara Boxer of California and Patty Murray of Washington, but both those seats seem far more secure than they did a couple of months ago.

Republican women might also see their numbers dwindle. But perhaps not. They are starting out behind in the House, having lost Mary Fallin (OK-5) to the Oklahoma governor's race and Ginny Brown-Waite (FL-5) to retirement. But Kristi Noem is poised to replace Herseth-Sandlin in South Dakota and, if Kosmas loses in Florida, it will be Sandra Adams who replaces her, a wash. In the Senate, Lisa Murkowski's fate has no certain path.

Worst case for women of both parties in the House: Minus 8. Best case: Minus 4.

Worst case for women of both parties in the Senate: Minus 3. Best case: Minus 1.

If the base numbers weren't so pathetically low, no way could either of those scenarios be called disastrous. But because we're already at 17 percent, come Nov. 3, we could very well clock in 80th on the worldwide gauge of women serving in parliaments, just below Zimbabwe.

• There are 16 days until the November 2 elections. Early voting is now taking place in Alaska, Arizona, California, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. Virginia allows early absentee voting under certain circumstances -- check here and see if you qualify. And New Jersey allows voting by mail -- apply here
• The DCCC is beginning to cut funding for races it believes are lost or won, according to the Wall Street Journal. Among those being cut are Blue Dogs Kathy Dalhkempber (PA-03) and Gabrielle Giffords (AZ-08), the former because she is behind and the latter, ahead.
• Field Negro writes to the First Lady:

  I see that you are under attack from the wingnuts for asking us black folks to pray for you and keep "the spirits around" you "clean". And, as is to be expected, the wingnuts are losing their minds. You have become the butt of all their jokes. Glenn Beckkk, a man who is supposed to be religious, and who has called A-merry-cans to turn to god, dedicated damn near an hour of his show to making fun of you and your religious reference. Nice people those Christians. Remind me to reserve separate rooms when I get to heaven.

• In the game of chicken over trade with China, once again it is very clear who has who by the family jewels. McClatchy reports:

  For the second time this year, the Obama administration delayed Friday the release of a report on whether China manipulates its currency, but deflected some of the political heat from angry Democrats by launching an unrelated trade probe.

  At issue is whether China deliberately undervalues its currency to make its exports cheaper abroad and imports from other countries more expensive at home. The International Monetary Fund recently said that China's currency, the yuan, is significantly undervalued.

  Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner first delayed a report to Congress about China's currency policies in July, saying he wanted to use several prominent gatherings of world financial leaders to press China to act. Friday, he said he'd delay the report until after Nov. 11-12 meetings involving leaders from the G-20, the 20 most industrialized nations.

  Not action, but just the issuing of a report has the American government cowering in fear. Superpower, indeed.

• The Center for American Progress' Progressive Tradition series is good reading. I enjoyed, especially, the sixth part of the series noting the central role Christian faith has played in in the Progressive movement. The whole thing is worth a read.
• My old movie recommendation of the week: Me and My Gal from 1932 starring Spencer Tracy and Joan Bennett. No academy award performances here, but plenty of Depression-era wisecracks and old New York accents. As a bonus, we see Joan Bennett in a very different role from many of her other firms: vivacious, seductive, and oozing sex appeal!

High School graduates without higher education have seen their incomes decline substantially before and since the onset of the Great Recession. Additionally, a report to Congress by the Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance noted college enrollment for low income high school graduates declined to 40 percent in 2004 from 52 percent in 1992. The Wall Street Journal noted:

If that trend has continued, low- and moderate-income students who don’t move on to college face an even darker outlook. The unemployment rate for 16- to 19-year olds averaged 17% in 2004, the jobless rate for people over age 25 with just a high school diploma averaged 5% the same year. So far this year, those figures have jumped to 25.8% and 10.6%, respectively.

Additionally, the BLS reports:

In October 2009, 70.1 percent of 2009 high school graduates were enrolled in colleges or universities, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. This was a historical high for the series, which began in 1959. Recent high school graduates not enrolled in college in October 2009 were more likely than enrolled graduates to be in the labor force (70.0 compared with 42.1 percent).

The unemployment rate for recent high school graduates not enrolled in school was 35.0 percent, compared with 23.7 percent for graduates enrolled in college.

Imagine what starting out is like for someone graduating high school but not interested in going to college. If these two sets of statistics are correct, even though there are large numbers of recent graduates who attend college, a huge number of them do not complete matriculation. When they join the labor force, the prospects are slim. Obviously, the astronomical rise in the cost of attending college coupled with the decline in middle and lower class income has taken a tremendous toll on young students. They can't afford college and they can't get a job. And for those who do get a job, there is this:

In 2008, the median of the earnings of young adults with a bachelor's degree was $46,000, while the median was $36,000 for those with an associate's degree, $30,000 for those with a high school diploma or its equivalent, and $23,500 for those who did not earn a high school diploma or its equivalent.

In 2008 dollars, the median earnings for a high school graduate was in 1980 was $36,600.

What to do? Go to college, and you face costs that may leave you saddled with debt and no degree. Choose not to go, and you face a horrendous job market and meager wages if you find a job. For minorities and women, it isn't a Great Recession. It is a full-on 1930's style Great Depression. This is the America we are bring our future into. It is no wonder that the military is the only place of refuge for high school graduates from low income families. It is an anecdote, but a family member of mine has been waiting five months to ship out for Army basic training. The waiting list is that long.

This, in my opinion, constitutes the worst consequence of our economy. It is terrible when the middle-aged or seniors lose their homes and their jobs. It is tragic that those who have the energy, idealism, and optimism to renew our nation face such reckless disregard for their strength, talents, and sheer vibrancy. We have a multitude of young people who will may not even get the chance to lose everything in an economic crash.

Everyone isn't cut out for higher education. There are some young people who have a more mechanical bent or prefer to work with their hands. There are those with artistic or athletic talents who haven't won their lucky ticket to the big leagues. Circumstances for the poor, such as becoming a young parent or coming up in the foster-care system are coupled with a public school system that is strained of resources. Many aren't ready for college. Worse, the Great Recession has brought a substantial decline in retail employment that has made even the lowest-wage, entry-level job scarce for young people who probably feel lucky they even managed to graduate high school.

Starting out is a hard to do under most circumstances, but these days are particularly challenging. This is important because the lifetime habits of these young people are going to be shaped by what they do now. We as a nation cannot simply sit idly by while a generation of young people misses out on even a decent shot at earning a decent living. It is an act of national suicide for any country to neglect its youth.

We have to do more to help these young people get a good start. We have to modify our trade policies so that these young folks get a chance to do some work with their hands and their backs and earn enough to make a living in the process. We have to raise minimum wage and index it for inflation. This nation must do more to make sure that all young people starting out get the opportunity to get a piece of the action, and not just those who finish college.

Well, Michelle did it.

First lady Michelle Obama isn't your typical voter, but she did something this morning that is increasingly common: She voted early.

And she's not the only one. A few days back, I came across a pair of articles by election expert Michael P. McDonald, posted at pollster.com. For Ohio:

Early voting usually begins to pick up pace as the election nears.

But something special is going on in two Ohio Democratic strongholds: Cuyahoga and Franklin counties. I track on this handy web page that other places around the country -- including other Ohio counties -- are so far reporting low single digit early voting rates. In stark contrast, over 112,000 votes have already been cast in these two Ohio counties. As a comparison, this represents over ten percent of all ballots cast in the 2006 election in these counties, with still some time to go.

And for Iowa:

Something is afoot in Iowa. Not only have nearly 120,000 voters already cast their ballot, registered Democrats are returning their mail ballots at a higher rate than Republicans in nearly every Iowa county. This, in part, explains the approximately 5:3 partisan registration advantage Democrats have over Republicans among mail ballots returned so far in the Hawkeye state.

Something is indeed afoot, but not what it seems. That is, don't take this as evidence that Dems are making a remarkable resurgence compared to conventional wisdom. What it probably means is that:

1. early voting is now institutionally part of GOTV

2. Dem voting may well be as good or better than usual,  but that has nothing to do with whether R voting will be terrific (see 2004.)

3. some counties are going out of their way to help citizens vote. Franklin and Cuyahoga counties in Ohio are prime examples.

For comparison purposes, we have the unsatisfactory apples-to-oranges Presidential year of 2008 (this being an off-year with Obama not on the ballot), and a few voting years before that. McDonald says:

While President Obama performed well among early voters in 2008, it should be noted that in previous elections Republicans generally performed better among early voters as early voters tended to fit a more Republican profile: they tended to be older, better educated, and be composed of fewer minorities. It will be interesting to observe if 2010 will mark a continuation of 2008 or a reversion to previous elections.

In that context, we may be doing better than pre-2008. The data that McDonald has collected suggests that compared to 2006, the early voting in Iowa that's already in represents more than 13% of the total vote in 2006, which is a higher percentage than in other states doing early voting this year (at this stage for other states, that number is 1-5%.) So Iowa is getting their votes in early, and without knowing results, the early votes trend "casted by D".

But does that affect the outcome? In other words, how predictive is early voting compared to final result? Before even trying to look at that, it's important to be clear that we don't know who people voted for in these early ballot stories, only which party's ballots are being returned. You can assume as a best case scenario that Democrats voted for the D and Republicans voted for the R, but that may or may not be true everywhere (see Delaware, where many Republicans will vote for the Democrat Coons and not the Republican O'Donnell; see the FL panhandle, where the D's vote R; see Alaska where all bets are off.)

One thing we can do is look at 2008 (remember, a Presidential year) and what we knew at this stage. In 2008, blogger X Curmudgeon collected commercial and public polling data for the states on early voting:

Iowa Early Voting {2008}

SUSA (as of 10/29) (32% of sample)
Obama 69% (+40)
McCain 29%

SUSA (as of 10/9) (14% of sample)
Obama 65% (+34)
McCain 31%

Big 10 Battleground (10/19-10/22) (3.4% of sample)
Obama 70% (+40)
McCain 30%

In that first SUSA link, Obama lead by 40 (noted as +40) with early voters, and/but by only +3 with those who said they'd vote on election day. The final Iowa election result was Obama 54-45 (a +9, reflecting the greater number of election day voters.)

Michael P. McDonald has more data here for 2008 Iowa:

Party (total early vote 481,179)

Dem     46.9%
Rep     28.9%
No/Oth  24.2%

That looks like the same 5:3 ratio we have now. So, if that's no worse than 2008, that would be a good thing for Democrats (2008 was a decent year, and there was no "enthusiasm" gap.) But still, the final result was much closer, so the predictive value really isn't there as to what happens in November. All those people intending to vote can still show up on election day, and that's the number that counts.

So what about Ohio? The Cleveland and Columbus counties in Ohio are also voting early (they represent a similar 13-14% of 2004 votes cast, and thus match Iowa - no one else does.) In this case, it seems like there's a structural reason.

Paul Gronke, a non-partisan researcher and politcial scientist from Reed College, follows early voting and notes on his blog:

I have been tracking early vote returns with the team at the Early Voting Information Center. A recent exchange with Matt Damschroder, the deputy director of the Board of Elections in Franklin County, OH, unearthed a fascinating administrative experiment underway in Ohio.

Damschroder, and his counterpart in Cuyahoga County, OH, have implemented some procedures to make it easier for their registered voters to return their ballots. Both counties:

• Send no-excuse absentee applications to all voters on the NVRA list
• Paid for postage for registered voters to return their voted absentee ballot
• Cuyahoga only also is paying postage for registered voters to mail in their absentee ballot application.

Given this administrative innovation, it should be possible to examine the responsiveness of citizens to administrative outreach with respect to no-excuse absentee voting. The patterns are fascinating: self-identified partisans are dramatically more responsive to these outreach efforts.

So, easy early voting brings out the partisans, and the non-affiliated take their time. This is yet another reminder that most people are not political junkies like us. Oh, and btw, this year the non-affiliated may not lean D, whenever they do show.

So, what to look for in "early voting" stories? Context. See what the population in question did in 2006 and 2008. See, if a poll, what the comparison is between early voters and election day voters (and see how different the more numerous election day voters are.) And don't make any assumptions that this year is exactly like any other year, or that early votes tells us what comes next. When I asked Prof. Gronke for a comment on early voting and partisanship, he noted, "it's really unmapped territory, and I'm pretty leery of concluding much." Good advice.

Follow early voting at the United States Election Project and the Early Voting Information Center.

We have been down this road for more than a year, regarding the limits to the Department of Justice's obligation to defend the constitutionality of laws which it does not favor -- and how this applies to legal challenges to DOMA and DADT.

And as you know if you've been following these arguments for a while you know there are generally three areas in which DOJ has felt no such obligation: (a) statutes which cannot be defended as constitutional with any reasonable arguments; (b) statutes which intrude on the inherent power of the executive branch; and (c) if John Roberts is the acting Solicitor General and there's a federal agency in place to defend the statute.  (See above link.)

As to DOMA, then, this administration's more recent arguments have defended Congressional desire to proceed incrementally and avoid patchwork results while avoiding arguments about procreation and child-rearing.

With DADT, while focusing largely on standing the administration's arguments did rely in part on a claim that Congress could "rationally have believed that the DADT policy serves to preserve unit cohesion, accommodate personal privacy, and reduce sexual tension," while nevertheless stating that as a matter of policy they'd like to repeal it.  As for the stay of Judge Phillips' injunction, they're arguing "we're about to do it ourselves; it's complicated, but just give us time."

But do they even have to make any case for these laws?  Kudos to John Aravosis of AMERICAblog, who last week revealed an incredibly on-point example of an administration not defending such laws.

The year was 1996, and as part of the Defense Authorization bill Rep. "B-1" Bob Dornan inserted a provision requiring the military to discharge any HIV-positive person, regardless of the cause of the affliction or the person's ability to physically and medically perform his or her military duties.  And back in 1996, not only did President Clinton vow to repeal the policy legislatively, he refused to defend or enforce it.  From the press briefing by White House Counsel Jack Quinn and Deputy Solicitor General Walter Dellinger:

[T]he President has determined that this provision is unconstitutional. He's, therefore, directed the Attorney General not to defend it in court. The President has been informed in this regard by the Department of Defense that in its judgment the Dornan Amendment serves no legitimate military purpose; that it is arbitrary, unwarranted, and unwise....

Based on this advice from the Department of Defense and Joint Chiefs of Staff, and after consulting with the Department of Justice about the legal effect of that advice, the President concluded that the Dornan Amendment is unconstitutional. It arbitrarily discriminates and violates all notions of equal protection. Again, at the direction of the President, the Attorney General and the Department of Justice will decline to defend this provision in court. If the Congress chooses to defend this treatment of men and women in the military, it may do so. But this administration will not.

Q Jack, is there any precedence -- do you know of a precedence for a President refusing to enforce a -- to defend a law?

MR. DELLINGER: Let me give you just one example. In 1943, President Roosevelt signed the Urgent [Deficiency] Appropriation Act notwithstanding his reluctance because of a provision that in his view violated the Constitution by depriving named individuals who were singled out by Congress of the right to ever receive any pay from their government jobs. The President directed the Attorney General not to defend the constitutionality of the provision. The Senate, in fact, defended in the Court of Claims through counsel, and the court ruled in United States v. Lovett that the President was correct in his conclusion and held that provision of the Urgent Efficiency Appropriations Act unconstitutional.

There are, to be fair, tenable arguments that in the absence of Congressional action, proponents of equality are better off having this cases appealed so as to have broader application (assuming those courts are favorably disposed), as well as arguments wholly separate from the issue of gay equality (such as the need for uniformity in federal benefits, or the Commander-in-Chief's control over the military or the need for a phased-in end to DADT) which could be made here.  Still, that doesn't mean it sits right to have the Obama administration making these arguments.  Let someone else.

And indeed, that has happened in other cases.  When the Reagan White House challenged the constitutionality of the independent counsel statute in the late 1980s, the Office of Senate Counsel, as amicus curiae, defended the statute (as did the independent counsel).  Other times, Congress has hired outside counsel to do so.  (It's more complicated here, because there's no majority in either chamber which wants to defend DADT, so I don't know how this plays out.  Perhaps Senate Republicans could participate in an amicus capacity.)

Still, in the meantime, the President need not enforce DADT.  I was lucky in my law school days to have The Hon. Abner Mikva as my Legislative Process professor; just two years earlier as White House Counsel he wrote this to President Clinton, which provides fodder for both sides of the argument:

As a general matter, if the President believes that the Court would sustain a particular provision as constitutional, the President should execute the statute, notwithstanding his own beliefs about the constitutional issue. If, however, the President, exercising his independent judgment, determines both that a provision would violate the Constitution and that it is probable that the Court would agree with him, the President has the authority to decline to execute the statute.

Where the President's independent constitutional judgment and his determination of the Court's probable decision converge on a conclusion of unconstitutionality, the President must make a decision about whether or not to comply with the provision. That decision is necessarily specific to context, and it should be reached after careful weighing of the effect of compliance with the provision on the constitutional rights of affected individuals and on the executive branch's constitutional authority. Also relevant is the likelihood that compliance or non-compliance will permit judicial resolution of the issue. That is, the President may base his decision to comply (or decline to comply) in part on a desire to afford the Supreme Court an opportunity to review the constitutional judgment of the legislative branch.

In other words, if you don't believe Congress will repeal a law and fear some future President enforcing it, a President may have to defend it in order to enable the Supreme Court to kill it dead.

It has some logic to it.  But if President Obama wants to stop having a military which discharges members on the basis of sexual orientation, he needs to put on his Commander in Chief cap and order it to stop discharging members on the basis of sexual orientation.  And there's a bonus: once he does that, all these cases go away.  If no one's being harmed by DADT, no one has legal standing to pursue these lawsuits.  Win-win all around.

Jabber your jibber.