Thursday, January 17, 2013

Riding a populist wave toward 2014

Outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hands the speaker's gavel to incoming House Speaker John Boehner after Boehner was elected Speaker on the opening day of the 112th United States Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, January 5, 2011. Republicans are t We want that back. It's clear that Republicans have given up on trying to do popular things. But there is a corollary to that'Democrats may now be on the right side of every single relevant issue.

I used to say that the American people were with us (liberals) on every issue except for gay marriage. Well, that's obviously no longer true.

Chart showing opposition to gay marriage plummeting, with latest numbers from October 2012 showing support at 48-43. In 1996, 65 opposed, and just 27 supported. Now whether it's Obamacare, or women's rights, or even guns, the very things that used to hurt Democrats are now working in their favor. It's a stunning turnaround not just from a decade ago, but from three years ago.

Yet it's not enough for Republicans to be wrong and Democrats to be right. Our party has squandered myriad opportunities to press their advantage in the court of public opinion. Rather than rehash many of those failures, let's head below the fold and take stock of what's happening today:

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