Daily Kos

Both Iowa and New Hampshire argue that they should retain their cherished first-in-the-nation status because they force candidates to engage in retail politics.

They don't explain why retail politics matters in an era of 24/7 media saturation, but that's the argument. Unfortunately for them, it appears that the voters in Iowa and New Hampshire, like the rest of the country, really don't care about retail politics.

Iowa:

A new Insider Advantage poll in Iowa shows Newt Gingrich leading the Republican presidential race with 28%, followed by Ron Paul at 13%,  Mitt Romney at 12%, Herman Cain at 10%, Michele Bachmann at 10% and Rick Perry at 7%.

Was it retail politics? Um, no. Just today:

With 34 days until the Iowa caucuses, Newt Gingrich has finally opened a campaign headquarters in the Hawkeye State [...]

Gingrich is the last of the major candidates to open an office here located at 11386 Aurora Ave. in Urbandale (just outside of Des Moines). Furniture was just delivered and the office will be up and running for volunteers in the next couple days.

New Hampshire:

In the shock poll of the day, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has pulled into a statistical tie with Mitt Romney in the former Massachusetts governor’s backyard, New Hampshire.

The poll of likely Republican primary voters by Magellan Strategies for the online New Hampshire Journal shows Mr. Romney with 29% in the Granite State, within the poll’s 3.6-percentage-point margin of error over Mr. Gingrich’s 27%. Texas Rep. Ron Paul has 16% support, with former pizza company executive Herman Cain at 10%.

And that was before the Union-Leader endorsement, which historically has had a major effect on GOP primaries.

So has Newt Gingrich been retail politicking in New Hampshire? Um, no.

As recently as two weeks ago, the Gingrich campaign was apparently unable to name 40 New Hampshire supporters of his presidential campaign.

Candidates needed to file their slates of 20 delegates to the National Convention, along with 20 alternates, with the Secretary of State by November 18. The Gingrich campaign filed a partial slate of 14 delegates and 13 alternates, leaving 13 slots vacant. Among the 27 names Gingrich listed are three members of his staff.

What kind of candidate can't find 40 supporters? Well, one who is too busy doing book tours in non-primary states to do any retail politicking.

And do you know who surged in the Iowa and New Hampshire polls before Gingirch? Herman Cain, when he was the darling of right-wing media. Even Donald Trump had his surge in those states despite never even campaigning!

The era of retail politics is dead. Republican primary voters care more about what Rush Limbaugh says than what the candidates may personally tell them at a diner. Do you know who has spent the most ground in Iowa? Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum, for all the good it has done them.

There was never any reason to allow Iowa and New Hampshire to maintain their unwarranted monopolies on the presidential nomination process. But even their feeblest rationalizations are no longer operative.

If this is the path Mitt Romney's campaign ultimately pursues, it will be hilarious.

They’ll point out Gingrich’s past policy shifts which can protect them from attacks against Romney’s own inconsistencies. They’ll highlight Gingrich’s conservative apostasies as a hedge against Romney’s own moderate views. And they’ll highlight his stable family while leaving an unspoken impression about Gingrich’s two divorces.

The plan to increase the attention to Romney’s wife of 42 years and five sons in the hopes of sparking more conversation about Gingrich’s three marriages without raising the topic themselves is one of several subtle offensives. Another is the barrage of surrogate conference calls this week that they meant in part to remind Gingrich of their massive organizational advantage if he decides to lob an attack.

There's no question that Newt Gingrich is every bit as flip-floppy as Mitt Romney, but that's hardly a winning position for Romney to take—especially given that Newt is a far better liar than Mitt. And while Gingrich's personal life is definitely a problem for him, his line of defense—that he sinned but has sought forgiveness from God—is exactly the sort of redemption story that evangelicals love. And it probably doesn't hurt Gingrich that they see him as a Christian—unlike Romney.

The fact that Romney is even considering making these sorts of attacks is a sign of his desperation. It's like when he attacked Gingrich for being a career politician earlier this week ... the first thing that came into my head was that Mitt Romney has been seeking office since at least 1994. It was an attack with such an obvious response I couldn't believe he made it.

But at the same time, Romney can't afford to sit back and watch Newt Gingrich continue to soar. It tells you something about the weakness of Romney's campaign, however, that most of the attacks he's thinking of launching could easily blow up in his face.

Yesterday, Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Pat Roberts suggested that they just might be open to the Democrats' pay-for for the payroll tax cut extension, a small surtax on millionaires. They're joined today by fellow GOP Senator Mike Johanns (NE), who says he sees a "change in mood" among Republicans.

"I sense a change in mood," Senator Mike Johanns, Republican of Nebraska, said Wednesday. "It's a little more bipartisan. My position has always been, 'Let's not raise taxes,' but on the other hand, I don't want our country to collapse under a mountain of debt. If that means compromise, I am going to do everything to get that done."

Three cheers for the recognition that higher taxes could reduce that "mountain of debt." That's a connection that very few Republicans seem keen to acknowledge. But this is another case of "I'll believe it when I see it." Note that no House Republicans have shown any bending toward this solution. But here's where a relentless focus on the GOP's allegiance to Grover Norquist and protecting the rich has paid some dividends: these Republicans see the need to at least pretend like they'd consider increasing taxes.

With one month to go until the caucuses, Mitt Romney's is going up on the air with his first ad in Iowa—and it's a major league sop to the austerian right:

I spent my life in the private sector. I've competed with companies around the world. I've learned something about how it is that economies grow. We're not going to balance the budget just by pretending that all they have to do is take out the waste. We're going to have to cut spending.

And I'm in favor of cutting spending, capping federal spending as a percentage of GDP at 20% or less, and having a balanced budget amendment. The right answer for America is to stop the growth of the federal government, and to start the growth of the private sector.

As far as message goes, the ad is an obvious effort to shore up Mitt Romney's support among economic conservatives. The problem he'll have is that even though the ad positions him on the right side of all the hot-button economic issues important to tea party types, Romney's record doesn't back up his rhetoric. As governor of Massachusetts, Romney put revenue growth ahead of budget cuts, and although he opposed President Obama's stimulus plan, in 2009 he embraced federal stimulus spending, even saying he wished Bush had proposed a stimulus plan. So while his message might be the right message for the segment of the Republican electorate that he's targeting, he has a serious credibility problem.

Aside from the message, the ad is a tacit confirmation of the fact that Mitt Romney is trying to go for an early knockout blow by winning Iowa. Conventional wisdom says that is a crazy thing to do—Iowa Republicans have a reputation of being dominated by social conservatives and the evangelical right, with whom Romney is pretty much dead on arrival. In a heads-up scenario, that would make sense, but in a multiway contest, Romney could plausibly win with less than 30% of the caucus vote.

Iowa is no different than any other state—as long as the rest of the field is divided, Mitt Romney can win with plurality support. And given that Iowa is the first primary or caucus on the GOP nomination calendar, the Republican field will be more divided in Iowa than it will in any other contest. Because of that, Iowa represents a golden opportunity for Mitt Romney. And while he has worked hard to keep expectations low, the fact (as Jonathan Martin points out) that he's quietly put in place a strong campaign team there makes it clear he's planned to make a serious play there all along. And if he can't win there, or at least come extremely close, it'll be that much harder to see his path forward.

Reposted from Comics by Tom Tomorrow

Reposted from Daily Kos Elections by David Nir Leading Off:

• FL-22, FL-16: Wow, this is mega! The Miami Herald reports that "a highly placed source affiliated with" Rep. Allen West says that the GOP freshman is considering a switch from the 22nd District to the 16th if the state Senate's redistricting proposal passes into law. Both districts would be made considerably bluer, but the 22nd would become a lot more hostile to Republicans (56% Obama) than the 16th (51% Obama). But there's one serious freakin' problem with this plan: There's already a Republican who represents the 16th, sophomore Rep. Tom Rooney. That would set off a truly epic primary battle, and you'd have to figure that West, with his Tea Party credentials and impressive (if artificially fluffed) fundraising abilities would be the favorite. That would be extra-awesome for Democrats, because the revised 16th is at least winnable on paper, especially if the GOP nominates West after a bloody fight. I'm honestly not sure I could imagine tastier cat fud.

Of course, as the Herald's Marc Caputo suggests, this could all just be jockeying by West in the hopes of getting some more favorable lines out of the final product. But I wonder how much sympathy he'll get. After all, if West really had any allies in the legislature, he wouldn't have gotten such a crappy district in the first place. Then again, what really matters is how many friends Rooney has, which could make this a super-clever bit of jiu-jitsu on West's part. Caputo reminds us that Mark Foley made similar threats in 2002 in the other direction, in order to avoid having to give up red turf to fellow Republican Clay Shaw. (Foley represented the 16th and Shaw the 22nd.) But of course, Shaw wound up losing four years later to Ron Klein, so that augurs against the GOP trying to save both seats once again—and in favor of sticking with the plan to triage West. Anyhow, stay tuned!

Senate:

• CT-Sen: Rep. Chris Murphy just secured the endorsement of the League of Conservation Voters in his quest to win the Democratic nomination to succeed retiring Sen. Joe Lieberman. This is a welcome thing to see, considering the LCV had regularly given its support to Republican ex-Rep. Chris Shays in the past, even in his final (losing) campaign against Jim Himes in 2008. Shays, of course, faces wrestling impresario Linda McMahon's mega-millions in the GOP primary and isn't likely to emerge alive, so it makes sense that the LCV would spurn him. Oh, and yeah, Murphy has an infinitely better record on the environment. Funny, that.

Gubernatorial:

• IL-Gov: It doesn't seem like there's much to this, but a report in Crain's Chicago Business claimed that GOP sophomore Aaron Schock was interested in running for governor in 2014, which was enough to get his chief of staff on the record refusing to rule anything out. But when you're all of 30 years old and you're talking about a race that's three years away, obviously you're not going to close any doors. Anyhow, the piece also mentions that 2010 nominee Bill Brady, 2010 primary candidate Kirk Dillard (who lost the nomination to Brady by just 193 votes), and state Treasurer Dan Rutherford are also possible candidates.

House:

• GA-14: The Club for Growth is firing a warning shot over ex-Rep. Bob Barr's head, saying they'll support the incumbent, Tom Graves, if Barr goes ahead with a challenge in the GOP primary. As you may recall, back in October, Barr reportedly began expressing interest in making a comeback, even though he hasn't held office for a decade.

• MA-04: Right after Barney Frank announced his retirement, people started spitballing about Joseph P. Kennedy III (son of Joe II and grandson of Bobby) as a possible candidate to replace the incumbent. Now Kennedy says he "will give it some thought," though he didn't offer a timetable for a decision. Until September, Kennedy had been a prosecutor in the Cape & Islands, but he recently moved to the Middlesex County District Attorney's Office. While some parts of the new 4th overlap with Middlesex, Kennedy doesn't live there but rather splits his time between Brighton (in the 7th) and Cambridge (which is split between the 5th & 7th).

• MA-04: There's nothing really new here, but in a new interview with the Boston Globe, Barney Frank complained at length about how his district was altered in redistricting—much to his dissatisfaction. Frank claimed that fellow Dem Reps. Stephen Lynch and Ed Markey were "protected," while he (along with Bill Keating, John Tierney, and Niki Tsongas) got a "bad deal" (in the Globe's words). For his part, Markey said that the legislature's over-riding goal was to create nine safe Democratic districts, which they appear to have done.

• MD-06: Uh, this is going to be one hell of an awkward office holiday party. Roscoe Bartlett's chief of staff Bud Otis has been going around soliciting support from Republican politicos for a congressional bid in case his boss decides to retire… but Bartlett's said all along that he plans to seek re-election, despite his age (85) and the new Obama percentage of his district (56). A Bartlett spokeswoman confirmed her boss's plans to run and wouldn't comment on Otis (except to call him "loyal,"), while Otis is refusing to say squat himself. I guess both men will be hoping that one intern gets totally blitzed and distracts everyone from the weirdness.

Oh, but it actually gets weirder, because yet another Republican says he's going to run—a state senator, no less. David Brinkley apparently plans to seek the GOP nomination regardless of what Bartlett does, which is just strange because really, this seat doesn't represent a good opportunity for any Republican looking to move up in the political world. Then again, unless you live on the state's Eastern Shore, there aren't many good opportunities for Republicans in Maryland, period, so this may be the best of otherwise bad options.

• OH-06: Dem ex-Rep. Charlie Wilson, who lost last year after serving two terms and has been mooting a rematch since January, made it official on Wednesday. He'll take on GOP freshman Bill Johnson, the man who beat him last year, though district lines are rather up in the air given Democratic attempts to put recent redistricting legislation on hold (and then repeal it altogether) via a ballot measure. Also of note, Wilson directly attacked Johnson by name in his kickoff for supporting recent "free trade" deals, an issue which ought to play well in a district like this.

• OR-01: Democrat Suzanne Bonamici also just scored the endorsement of Oregon's small Independent Party. The state is one of the few which uses fusion voting, so having extra ballot lines is always helpful. It also gives people who don't want to vote for a major party a less cognitively dissonant way to pull the lever on your behalf, especially when they get to regard themselves as "independent" for doing so. (In New York, where fusion tickets have long been an important feature of the political landscape, the similarly-named Independence Party plays a similar role.) Bonamici faces Republican Rob Cornilles in the Jan. 31 special election replace ex-Rep. David Wu.

Other Races:

• FL-Pres (R): Holy smokes! It's rare that we mention GOP primary polls in the digest, but wow. PPP's new Florida poll has Newt Gingrich at 47 and Mitt Romney at just 17!

• Special Elections: Via Johnny, in Tuesday's night's special in Alabama HD-45, Republican Air Force vet Dickie Drake defeating publishing company owner Paige Parnell, 56-44. Drake was the brother of deceased incumbent Owen Drake, who died in June.

Grab Bag:

• Arizona: PPP has a batch of Arizona miscellany, focused on gay marriage. As Tom notes, one thing that's worth mentioning is that Arizona voted down an anti-same sex marriage amendment in 2006 (before, unfortunately, voting in favor of one in 2008). The anti-equality movement likes to ignore that 2006 vote, though, always claiming they have never lost on a ballot measure.

• Pennsylvania: PPP's PA miscellany includes a generic House ballot question, on which Democrats lead 47-42. That's little changed from July's 46-40 edge, but at least it's a sign that our downballot fortunes haven't tanked even though our presidential numbers are awfully tight.

Redistricting Roundup:

• AZ Redistricting: Gov. Jan Brewer formally declared on Tuesday that she would not call a special session of the legislature so that lawmakers could place a measure on the ballot to either repeal or modify the independent redistricting commission approved by voters back in 2000. This has seriously cheesed off a bunch of her fellow Republicans, who swear that Brewer promised them exactly this opportunity. But Brewer for once wasn't completely stupid, because there's no reason to believe voters would be receptive to this kind of referendum (and in fact every reason to think they'd be quite hostile).

However, she did hint that she might seek to re-impeach redistricting commissioner Colleen Mathis, despite getting twice smacked down by the Arizona Supreme Court. Somewhat ominously, she added that "there may be another time to deal with the court," which makes me wonder if (as andgarden has speculated) she's really thinking about trying to impeach the members of the high court as well!

• TX Redistricting: There are so many legal papers flying back and forth in Texas that I think we may have gotten a bit mixed up the other day. Only just yesterday did AG Greg Abbott filed a request with the Supreme Court for an emergency stay of the new court-drawn interim congressional map; he'd sought a stay of the legislative maps on Monday. He also has an appeal on the merits in the works, too, and on Tuesday, he amended that filing to include the congressional plan along with the legislative ones. (The purposes of the stay request is to bar implementation of the maps while the appeal on the merits is pending.)

Fox's Brett Baier, appearing on The O'Reilly Factor, talks about Mitt Romney's thin-skinned reaction to his interview on Tuesday night:

He was irritated by the interview after we were done ... he said he thought it was overly aggressive as we were walking in the walk-and-talk, and then after we finished he went to his holding room and then came back and said he didn't like the interview and thought it was uncalled for.

It's astonishing that Romney said that interview was "uncalled for." Baier didn't really ask him any tough questions. If you read the transcript you won't find a single question that Romney shouldn't have easily handled, yet he still botched the interview, cracking under the pressure of a feather. I don't know how to explain it. Maybe he's been looking at internal polling and he sees his dream slipping away. But that doesn't excuse his performance in the interview. If you're a Republican and can't handle Fox ... how are you going to handle President Obama?

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE

Don't Say We Didn't Warn You

Hey, if cigarette makers have to do it...

Warning! This month contains three GOP debates

Warning! Rick Perry is subbing today in your kid's civics class

Warning! Newt Gingrich is feeding

Warning! Michele Bachmann is on the Intelligence Committee

Warning! This history book was written by Bill O'Reilly

Warning! Republicans are the Party of "No!" as it applies to the middle class, and the Party of "Yes!" as it applies to the rich.

Warning! The House is in session

Warning: Soylent Koch is people!

Warning! Electing Mitt Romney will result in four years of Mitt Romney

Warning! Sarah Palin is relevant

Warning! This is your brain on Fox News

Warning! Scott Walker's lips are moving

There are approximately five thousand others.

Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]

Recapping yesterday's action:

The House spent most of their day rejecting every amendment to the so-called "Workforce Democracy and Fairness Act," and then passing it on a vote that hewed as nearly to 100% party-line as we've seen in recent years. Only six of the most reactionary Blue Dog Democrats (Barrow, Boren, Cooper, Cuellar, Matheson and McIntyre) could stomach crossing the aisle for this one, even as eight Republicans from heavily unionized states (Grimm, Tim Johnson, Peter King, LaTourette, LoBiondo, Runyan, Chris Smith, and Don Young) crossed right back. Afterward, they passed the rule for today's upcoming bill debates.

The Senate agreed to invoke cloture on the defense authorization bill, setting up a vote on final passage by this afternoon. In addition to the work on the bill, there was further procedural maneuvering today. First, it was the filing of a cloture motion on S. 1917, the payroll tax bill, now moving under the title of the "Middle Class Tax Cut Act," that was entered on the calendar under Rule XIV procedures earlier this week. Now, it seems the move to bring the bill directly to the floor under Rule XIV has unleashed a torrent of copycat (or in some cases retaliatory) responses on measures relating to an ongoing railroad labor dispute, earmark reform, a Republican alternative payroll tax cut proposal, and the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline issue. Rule XIV only gets you as far as the calendar of measures available for potential floor consideration, though. You've still got to get the Senate as a body to agree to take an item up, whether by unanimous consent or by adopting a motion to proceed. And we know what that can mean.

Looking ahead to today:

Aw, who cares? OK, just kidding. (Not really.)

The House takes up H.R. 3463, a bill to end taxpayer funding of presidential election campaigns and party conventions and shutter the Election Assistance Commission, and H.R. 527, the "Regulatory Flexibility Improvements Act." I'm still not entirely sure what H.R. 527 does (though you could try to penetrate the CRS summary for yourself, if you'd like), but consider that this is a bill introduced way back in early February (hence the low bill number, 527) by the Chairman of the committee of jurisdiction, the Judiciary Committee. We know that "regulatory flexibility" is a major boogeyman of the right, and we know that House Republicans don't tend to care a whole lot whether they've got their shit together in a technical sense before blasting a bill through on the floor, provided they've got the votes. Still, after all that, this bill took 'em nine moths to get to the floor. Maybe today's debate and vote will reveal a little bit about why that is.

In the Senate, we anticipate completion of the work on the defense bill, and a vote on final passage. The 30-hour post-cloture clock puts the outside time on that at a little after 5pm, though they could always agree unanimously to bump that up if everyone's feeling chipper.

The next item anticipated for debate and votes would be the payroll tax cut extension, but that still has to clear a cloture vote on a motion to proceed, and that could stretch out into Friday, unless, as I said, everyone's feeling extraordinarily friendly. And there's no reason to anticipate that. Though it's possible that an agreement to allow side-by-side consideration of a Republican alternative to the Middle Class Tax Cut Act could help grease the skids. Maybe. We'll see.

Today's floor and committee schedules appear below the fold.

Visual source: Newseum

NY Times:

Whatever the long-term effects of the Occupy movement, protesters have succeeded in implanting “We are the 99 percent,” referring to the vast majority of Americans (and its implied opposite, “You are the one percent” referring to the tiny proportion of Americans with a vastly disproportionate share of wealth), into the cultural and political lexicon.

WaPo:

All along, everything has gone according to Mitt Romney’s plan. His strategists didn’t believe that Tim Pawlenty would catch on. They were confident that Michele Bachmann would fade. They were prepared for Rick Perry. They never thought Herman Cain would pass the commander in chief test.

But they didn’t count on a late and strong rise by Newt Gingrich.

...

At a time when Romney intended to be showing momentum and closing the deal with voters, his campaign has been on the defensive. The candidate appeared rattled in a Fox News interview Tuesday when he was pressed by host Bret Baier to explain his changing positions on some issues.

Romney remains an empty suit with a flawed business plan. And Gingrich remains a phony baloney politician-for-rent. Some choice.

EJ Dionne:

Two politicians from different countries and with very different political pedigrees made news this week. Both spoke difficult truths and reminded us that we shouldn’t use the word “politician” with routine contempt.

The better-known story is the retirement of Rep. Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat who was never afraid to make people angry — or to make them laugh. But more on Frank in a moment. Far too little attention has been paid on these shores to a remarkable speech in Berlin on Monday by the Polish foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski.

He offered what may be the sound bite of the year: “I will probably be the first Polish foreign minister in history to say so, but here it is: I fear German power less than I am beginning to fear German inactivity.”

Linda Greenhouse:

In the current race to the bottom to see which state can provide the most degraded and dehumanizing environment for undocumented immigrants, Arizona and Alabama have grabbed the headlines. But largely unnoticed, it is Florida, home to nearly one million Cuban refugees and their descendants, that has come up with perhaps the most bizarre and pointless anti-immigrant policy of all.

Beginning last year, the state’s higher education authorities have been treating American citizens born in the United States, including graduates of Florida high schools who have spent their entire lives in the state, as non-residents for tuition purposes if they can’t demonstrate that their parents are in the country legally.

The Fact Checker (different than Politifact) manages to nail Romney's flip flops while still working on a Kathleen Parker rationalization:

Romney admits he changed his mind on this critical social issue. The question is whether you think he did it for political reasons or because he genuinely changed his mind because of what he learned during a debate over stem-cell research.  Our colleague Kathleen Parker looked into the story and concluded “this was at least a flip-flop of the highest order.”  National Public Radio came away with a more skeptical take.

 In any case, this is true and the DNC’s earns a rare Geppetto’s Checkmark.

The entire concept these columns is sketchy and based on subjective interpretation. Nonetheless, the DNC ad attacking Romney's flip-flops gets three self described "rare" Geppetto's Checkmarks for accuracy on nailing him for being for abortion before he was against it, being against Reagan before he was for him, and being against a no-tax pledge before he was for it.

Sigh... Vowing to close an embassy that doesn't exist? Well, that doesn't do much to inspire confidence.

Worse: I suspect Michele Bachmann is counting on closing that imaginary embassy in order to help balance the imaginary budget. Hell, can you imagine how much money we'd save by closing all the imaginary embassies?

Top Comments for today are here.

Reposted from Daily Kos Labor by Laura Clawson

Set aside the question of whether for-profit online schools, a burgeoning industry, are effective. Even if they are (and signs point to "no"), they're still a monumental, profit-driven scam. In Virginia, for instance, a "virtual school" run by K12 Inc. is located in rural Carroll County, and any student is counted as being in Carroll County. But:

State aid varies by school district and follows a formula based on poverty, among other factors. Affluent Fairfax County receives $2,716 per pupil from Richmond, whereas relatively poor Carroll County receives $5,421, according to the state Education Department.

This year, 66 Fairfax students are enrolled in the virtual school. Richmond is paying the virtual school twice as much for those students as it would if they attended neighborhood schools in their own county.

And of course, the teachers at the virtual school are paid less than classroom-based teachers, while K12 isn't paying for the maintenance of a physical school building.

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, who "has received $55,000 in campaign contributions from K12 or its executives since 2009," has blocked efforts to change this to a system in which students are subsidized based on where they live. As a result of deals like this, K12 is making bank:

In the past fiscal year, K12 had revenue of $522 million — a 36 percent increase from the prior year, according to securities filings. Its net income after a series of acquisitions was $12.8 million. [CEO and founder Ronald] Packard earned $2.6 million in total compensation.

And even if your school district escapes sending money to K12 so that it can continue expanding and Packard can keep making millions of dollars a year, that doesn't mean your kids aren't touched by the expanding role of for-profit companies in public education. Take teacher certification. The New York Times reports that for-profit online teacher certification programs taking as little as three months to complete are "booming despite little more than anecdotal evidence of their success." In Texas, alternative certification programs, including the for-profit online ones, now certify 40 percent of new teachers in Texas, and:

For-profit programs dominate that market: in each year since 2007, the two largest companies, A+ Texas Teachers and iteachTexas, have produced far more teachers than any other traditional or alternative program. While virtually all paths to the classroom have seen declines since 2003, according to Mr. Fuller’s analysis, for-profit alternative certification programs have grown by 23 percent. (While the percentage has increased, the actual number of for-profit alternative certificates granted has decreased since the 2009 economic recession.)

There's a lot of money out there pushing school privatization for largely ideological reasons. But there are also just a lot of companies looking to make a profit in the public education system, to see that they get part of any dollar spent to educate kids in this country. If they can get the whole system privatized, they'd be thrilled. But meanwhile they're content to keep whacking off little chunks of a public good and turning it to their own profit.