Elizabeth Drew: "Can We Have a Democratic Election?"

A still from King of Bain: When Mitt Romney Came to Town, a video released by Winning Our Future, the Super PAC supporting Newt Gingrich for president, which attacks Romney for firing people from their jobs while he was head of the private equity firm Bain Capital.

Elizabeth Drew:

Beneath the turbulent political spectacle that has captured so much of the nation’s attention lies a more important question than who will get the Republican nomination, or even who will win in November: Will we have a democratic election this year? Will the presidential election reflect the will of the people? Will it be seen as doing so—and if not, what happens? The combination of broadscale, coordinated efforts underway to manipulate the election and the previously banned unlimited amounts of unaccountable money from private or corporate interests involved in those efforts threatens the democratic process for picking a president. The assumptions underlying that process—that there is a right to vote, that the system for nominating and electing a president is essentially fair—are at serious risk. MORE...

"GOP Voter Suppression Plan: Seven Tactics To Block Your Vote in 2012"

Steven Rosenfeld (AlterNet):

If you are a member of a racial minority, student or young voter, working poor, elderly or disabled, your ability to vote may be a lot harder in 2012—especially if you live in states that have a history of racial repression during the Civil Rights Movement. Simply put, the Republican Party knows which segments of society helped to elect President Obama and other Democrats in 2008, knows tens of millions of these people did not vote in the 2010 midterms, and has worked very hard to stop these people from voting again next year.

Their strategy has been simple: raise the barriers by complicating the rules to register to vote, to get a ballot, to vote early, or speedily. What follows are seven major trends that will affect you if you live in a state with new rules. Republicans know that most people do not pay attention to the fine print of election law. They get excited in the final days before presidential votes. But that may not be good enough in 2012.

Whether you are encouraged, discouraged or something in between about the coming presidential season, if you want to vote, look at these trends described below, see if you live in one of these states, and plan ahead: to register, to get the right ID, and to know where you can vote. If you don’t, the Republicans may silence your vote and voice. MORE...

Katrina vanden Heuvel: "99%er Champions"

Katrina vanden Heuvel:

As we head into a presidential election year, I’d wager a lot the mainstream media will focus their attention on the horse race for the White House and other prime time campaigns. But this is a moment—when we are seeing a real shift in our politics, from Wisconsin to Ohio to Occupy—to be recruiting and supporting what I’d call 99 percenter candidates: those who share the core convictions of Occupy Wall Street and the 99 percent movement. MORE...

Greg Sargent: "what the 2012 elections will be all about."

Greg Sargent (linking to E.J. Dionne):

...the choice in 2012, clarified: E.J. Dionne, commenting on the success of Obama’s rescue of the auto companies, deftly ties it to the larger question of whether government can and should act to rectify the unemployment crisis and the damage done by the individual hand of capitalism:

We did not have to accept the collapse of our domestic auto companies, and we do not have to accept that the Federal Reserve is powerless to give the economy the boost it needs. There is no reason to believe that the federal government is incapable of investing more in schools, roads and other public goods to build for the future and get more money into the hands of consumers now. We do not have to rely on giving rich people tax cuts and then confine ourselves to offering fervent prayers that they might invest some of the money in creating jobs.

We can seek to control our fate, or we can turn the invisible hand into a God who commands us to be helpless.

That’s pretty much what the 2012 elections will be all about.

Republicans and the Right: "Making the US Economy Scream"

(Image: Lance Page / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: Terry Feuerborn, Gregory Hauenstein)

Robert Parry (Consortium News):

...these CIA-type techniques can be very seductive, both to U.S. presidents looking for a quick fix to some international problem and to a political party trying to gain a decisive edge for winning. These methods can be especially dangerous when the other side doesn’t organize effectively to counter them.

The hard reality in the United States today is that the Republicans and the Right are now fully organized, armed with a potent propaganda machine and possessing an extraordinary political will. They are well-positioned to roll the U.S. economy off the cliff and blame the catastrophe on Obama. MORE...

GOP leader: "we can’t pass laws unless the president agrees to.”

Washington Wire (Wall Street Journal):

“We as Republicans do not control this federal government—the other party does,” Mr. Cantor said Friday.

Many Republicans believe then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R., Ga.), after taking over the House in 1995, suggested, intentionally or not, he had more power than he did. That helped President Bill Clinton rebound politically, giving Democrats good results in the 1996 and 1998 elections.

“There was a time in 1995 when a lot of people in America seemed to think that we were running the government,” said Mississippi Republican Gov. Haley Barbour, who was attending the House GOP retreat. “In fact, there were some Republicans in Congress who seemed to think we were running the government. I can remember a statement somebody made that Bill Clinton was irrelevant.”

Mr. Barbour made it clear that Republicans did not want to make that mistake this time. He pointedly lowered expectations for the GOP-led House, indirectly laying any blame for the government’s failures over the next two years primarily at the Democrats’ feet.

That could be an important bit of positioning when the 2012 campaign begins.

“The Democrats control the Senate. They control the presidency,” Mr. Barbour said. “House Republicans can try to stop bad things from going through, to limit or eliminate the funding of bad policies. But we can’t pass laws unless the president agrees to.”MORE...

"Will the Afghanistan war break Obama's presidency?"

Simon Tisdall (GuardianUK):

Obama would rather not talk about it unless he cannot avoid it.

This reluctance is political and intellectual. Veteran foreign policy analyst Leslie Gelb, writing in the Daily Beast, said Obama can no longer persuasively answer the basic question: why are 100,000 American troops in Afghanistan, at an annual cost of $113bn?

"Afghanistan is no longer a vital interest of the United States but continuing the war there tears at our own nation's very vitals," Gelb said, arguing that international terrorism now has many bases, including Stockholm and London, and is no longer centred in the Hindu Kush (if it ever was). He added:

"With America drowning under a $1.5tn deficit for next year and an almost $15tn overall debt, we are verging on banana republic-hood... Of course I feel for the Afghans; but I feel far, far more for Americans." MORE...