James Carville has been all over the news lashing out at Obama for not being strong enough in his response to the BP oil disaster. And with the news that the oil geyser will continue spewing its stuff until August, I don't blame the man. He is, after all, from Louisiana.
But for some reason I'm not convinced he's being completely sincere. In fact, Colombia held a presidential election yesterday and (this may seem somewhat bizarre if you don't know much about him) Carville actually helped the establishment candidate who wants to encourage "foreign investment," at a time when BP is considering offshore drilling in Colombia's waters.
A political guru, frequent CNN pundit and a personality who was featured in the well known documentary The War Room, Carville moves in powerful circles in the U.S. What's less commonly known, however, is that Carville is also a virtual kingmaker in Latin America --- indeed, his professional contacts have ranged from Mexico's Ernesto Zedillo to Brazil's Fernando Enrique Cardoso to many others.
Democracy Corps released a new Youth for the Win poll analysis today. As in previous surveys, youth engagement continues to increase and is now higher than ever, particularly among young African Americans and non-college youth:
A 70 percent majority of young people agree they are more involved in this election than in previous elections, up from 54 percent two months ago. Among Democrats, this number jumped from 63 percent to 75 percent. As dramatic as the rise among African Americans (from 59 percent to 77 percent). Nearly a third of young people say they plan on getting involved, urging people to vote on Election Day. No doubt, this is overstated, but it is an important indicator of young people's commitment. It is also striking exactly who makes this commitment. The number is higher among community college students than four-year college students (33 percent and 27 percent, respectively). The number jumps to 41 percent among African Americans and 30 percent among Hispanic voters.
As the poll analysis goes on to state, it's no longer a question of whether or not young people will turnout in record numbers. They will. The question we all need to examine now is how far down the ballot will that engagement carry?
I just want to do a brief review here of some of the recent signs pointing to an ever-more-likely landslide victory scenario this November, with special emphasis on the House.
I'm combining information from three sources: Rasmussen, Democracy Corps and Cook Political Report.
First, there's the latest information on Partisan ID from Rasmussen, based on their daily tracking polls. Here's the chart I generated from their data. It shows how Democratic Party identification jumped sharply from the beginning of the primary season, after falling into the doldrums during 2007, when the Democratic Congress basically failed to deliver much of anything. It's remained fairly steady the last few months, but at record high levels:
A bit explanation and the table the chart is based on can be found on the flip, along the goods from Democracy Corps and Cook Political Report.
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