It’s no secret that the U.S. Chamber has had some big policy differences with the administration and Democrat leaders in Congress.  During his current campaign Gov. Manchin has promised to break with his party and administration when necessary to support common sense economic policies that will spur the creation of jobs.  As a nonpartisan organization that supports both Republicans and Democrats based on their support for economic growth and free enterprise, we are proud to join with our partners at the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce and endorse Joe Manchin for U.S. Senate.

Reports filed by the Chamber with the FEC indicate that the group’s issue ads are almost solely going after Democrats. I can’t find any record of the Chamber cutting ads either in favor of Manchin or in opposition to his opponent, Republican businessman John Raese, but maybe the Chamber agreeing to sit the race out is the closest equivalent to an endorsement that a Democrat can hope for these days.

It also appears, however, that Republicans have outmaneuvered their Democratic counterparts since the Citizens United decision. They have taken advantage of Democratic broadsides against the ruling, which have inevitably had an effect on the attitudes of Democratic donors.

Mr. Obama devoted one of his weekly radio addresses this month to the effect he said untamed special interests were having on the midterm election. “We can see for ourselves how destructive to our democracy this can become,” he said. “We see it in the flood of deceptive attack ads sponsored by special interests using front groups with misleading names.”

Several Democratic strategists said the White House’s denunciations had made entreaties to prospective donors trickier.

“You can complain about the rules, or you can respond to them and fight back against the people who welcome those rule changes,” said Craig Varoga, who heads up Patriot Majority, which has been supporting Senator Harry Reid in Nevada and has been one of the most active Democratic-leaning outside groups.

Indeed, attacking the result of Citizens United — the flow of unlimited sums of money from corporations into express advocacy efforts — doesn’t seem like the ideal pitch to big Democratic donors. Democrats may claim the moral high ground (and public opinion) on the issue, but it would seem to dampen their ability to compete. No wonder George Soros and others say they’re focusing more on progressive policy issues than on direct election spending.

“They’re betting on your apathy,” Obama said of his political opponents Tuesday, addressing a sprawling crowd reminiscent of ones he drew on the campaign trail two years ago. “Madison, you’ve got to prove them wrong.”

Getting the governing party’s base out in force for midterm voting is historically an uphill battle, in large part because the president himself will not be on the ballot. If the crowd in Madison is any indication, however, it seems Democrats still have a fighting chance at driving turnout among the youth vote:

Though details for attending the rally were released only days ago, turnout was substantial. Lines for entrance into the rally, interspersed with a handful of protesters, formed early in the day, eventually stretching longer than a mile west across the campus. The UW Police Department estimates that some 26,500 persons attended the event, of which 17,200 were in the gated area around the mall. These numbers rival, and may exceed those tallied in February 2008 for the Obama campaign rally at the Kohl Center.

The first — and most surprising — item concerns Gov. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who a new Public Policy Polling survey shows trailing his GOP opponent John Raese 46 percent to 43 percent in the race to fill the late Sen. Robert Byrd’s (D-W.Va.) Senate seat. Just months before, soon after Manchin signaled his intention to run, most preliminary polls put him up by at least 20 points, but since then his lead has steadily diminished. The poll results are also coming out at the same time as revelations that a federal probe into highways built in West Virginia is being focused, at least in part, on a $150 million road that connects I-79 to to Fairmont, Manchin’s hometown — but any connection to the governor’s office at this stage is circumstantial at best.

Meanwhile, new polls showing former Rep. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) holding a steady 7 point lead over Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) in the race to replace Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) are causing come forecasters to recategorize it from “toss up” to “lean Republican.” But anyone who followed Sestak’s come-from-behind victory over Specter in the primary knows it’s too soon to say anything for sure: “Pat Toomey is in a good place, ahead by 7 points with six weeks to go. But Congressman Joe Sestak has proven himself a tough competitor so it’s too early to order the champagne,” Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, said in a statement.

Finally, a new CNN/Time/Opinion Research poll indicates that Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) is falling behind Weld County DA and tea party–backed candidate, Ken Buck, in Colorado’s Senate race. The difference in the race seems to be all about the enthusiasm gap that’s plaguing Democrats around the country, pundits note: Buck leads Bennet 49 percent to 44 percent among likely voters. When registered voters are polled, however, Bennet takes 47 percent to Buck’s 44 percent. Getting those 2008 Obama voters out to the polls for Bennet, in other words, is a must-do if he hopes to keep his seat.

At least Democrats can still be thankful that Christine O’Donnell is the GOP Senate candidate in Delaware.

Rep. Parker Griffith (R-Ala.)

On Tuesday morning, Politico broke the news that Rep. Parker Griffith (Ala.) was switching from the Democratic Party to the GOP. For Les Phillip — a Tea Party activist who’d been waging a Republican campaign for Griffith’s seat since August — it was “manna from heaven.”

“This is why we do the things we do,” Phillip told TWI. “This gives us a chance to judge his entire record. If he wants to play on this side of the hall, our voters are very aware of the issues and we hold everyone accountable.”

[GOP1] Before Griffith had even explained his decision in a brief mid-afternoon press conference, Phillip made it clear to TWI that the switch would do nothing to deter his bid. If anything, it gave his insurgent campaign — which has won the support of Mike Huckabee’s HuckPAC — a new argument against the first-term congressman.

“This is an act of desperation to maintain power,” said Phillip. “It’s exactly what people in this district are sick of. When someone lied before, and now says he’s telling the truth, well, was he lying then, or is he lying now?”

Griffith’s switch — the first time a Democratic congressman has made this jump since Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-La.) did in 2004 — has been welcomed by the national GOP. In no time at all, party leaders made the connection between Griffith’s move and the progress of a health care bill that looks set to pass the Senate on partisan lines. (Griffith voted against the House’s version of the legislation.) “When a member of Congress decides to leave a 258-seat majority to join a deep minority,” said Rep. Eric Cantor, the party’s whip, in a statement, “it is a sure sign that the majority party has become completely disconnected from seniors, young workers and families in America.”

At the same time, conservatives in Washington and in Griffith’s district told TWI that they had serious reservations about backing a man who’d spent only 11 months as a House Democrat. In that time, they argue, Griffith’s votes against cap-and-trade, the economic stimulus package and the Lily Ledbetter Act were sullied by his votes for spending and earmarks. Phillip was not alone — all of Griffith’s Republican challengers have announced that they are not dropping out of the race. In a statement on Parker’s switch, National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) notably neglected to swing the committee’s endorsement to the newest member of the House GOP conference.

“We’ve known for a long time that Parker Griffith’s principles are either for sale to the highest bidder or can change depending on how the poll results are looking,” said a spokesman for Mo Brooks, a county commissioner who’d gotten some early support from the NRCC, in an interview with Politico. “He seems to speak out of both sides of his mouth.”

The harsh reactions of Brooks and Phillip were in line with the reactions of activists in Alabama’s fifth congressional district.

“He’s an S.O.B.,” said Dale Jackson, a conservative radio host who’s posted a banner reading “Parker Griffith Cannot Be Trusted” on his Website. “He’s a liar. Michael Steele should be ashamed of himself. The NRCC should be ashamed of itself for not coming out and immediately repudiating this guy. He was unacceptable a year ago and he’s acceptable now? A year ago, they were saying this guy was a murderer.”

The “murder” charge that Jackson referred to came from ads that the NRCC ran in 2008, accusing Griffith of “warehousing” cancer patients and letting them suffer to increase his profits. Other Griffith critics, however, have focused on his voting record as a reason to support some other candidate in the GOP primary. Erick Erickson, editor of the influential RedState.com, posted a link to Griffith’s requested earmarks and challenged fellow conservatives to “pick this guy off and get a real Republican in that seat.” Andy Roth, vice president of government affairs at the Club for Growth, reacted to the Griffith news with a blog post detailing how he’d voted to keep spending items in the stimulus package.

“It was a factual post,” Roth explained to TWI. “It was not stating any opinions, except that he’s not really that conservative for someone who claimed to be a conservative Blue Dog Democrat.” Griffith’s seat, said Roth, was “on the radar” of the fiscally conservative 527 before his decision, and it remained on the radar.

Activists back in Griffith’s district were pleased by the potential support for a challenge to Griffith. “Personally, I do not plan on supporting Parker Griffith,” said Christie Carden, a lead organizer of Huntsville, Alabama’s Tea Party group. “I do not consider him a constitutional conservative, which is the beginning of my criteria for our next congressman. To earn my vote, Parker Griffith would need to start by convincing enough Democrats in the Senate or House to vote against ObamaCare and kill it. If he stops ObamaCare, Cap & Trade and other extreme socialist and detrimental agendas, I will consider voting for him.”

Brooklyn Roberts, an Alabama conservative activist, told TWI that Griffith was falling into a familiar role — that of the “big-government” politician who changes parties without changing stripes.

“I’d expect him to become another [Alabama Sen.] Richard Shelby in terms of bringing pork home and spending,” said Burgess, referring to the senator who left the Democratic Party after the GOP’s 1994 sweep. “I think Griffith will hurt the conservatives who were running for this seat. If he wins I think he’ll become another big-government Republican we can’t get rid of.”

Steve Gordon, an Alabama conservative activist who worked on former Rep. Bob Barr’s (R-Ga.) Libertarian presidential bid last year, tentatively attacked Griffith, using some of the same language as Burgess. “What seems to be a GOP victory at first may well become another liberal victory in the long term,” Gordon wrote in a post for the Alabama Republican Liberty Caucus. “Unless Parker Griffith starts voting like a true fiscal conservative, Alabama could be stuck with another entrenched big-government Republican congressman.”

Griffith, who never faced an easy road to re-election in 2010, lacks some of the advantages of previous party-switchers. When Alexander switched from the Democratic Party to the GOP in 2004, he waited until hours before the candidate filing deadline to make the change. That deprived the blindsided Democrats of a chance to recruit a strong challenger. When Shelby made his switch in 1994, it was with the knowledge that Republicans were taking over the Senate and in the position to give him more influence. Griffith’s switch not only puts him in the minority; it pits him against an active and demanding Republican base that has made it clear throughout 2009 that candidates and incumbents needed to pass several tests to win their support.

“There’s two great candidates running against Griffith,” said Richard Barry, a conservative activist at the Liberty House, a hub of grassroots activism in Alabama-05. “He’d be my third choice.”

To win the votes of Alabama Republicans, Barry said that Griffith needed to bump up a “50/50″ voting record to a 90-percent conservative record, and to become more “aggressive about stopping the tyranny and the socialism.”

“If he’s out in front fighting the health care bill, I’d put my arms around him,” said Barry. “If he did a Joe Wilson — you know, ‘You Lie!’ — hey, we’d applaud him. If he pulled that we’d consider supporting him.”

The survey found the most dramatic drops in party affiliation, perhaps unsurprisingly, among college students (10 percentage points) and those who seldom or never attend church (nine percentage points). However, the GOP has also suffered a nine-point loss in the Midwest, traditionally a party stronghold.

This graph puts the near-term problems facing the Republican Party into perspective:

With the electorate continuing to trend away from the party after two consecutive drubbings at the polls — and with party leaders seemingly unconcerned about the defection of 30-year Senate veteran Arlen Specter to the Democrats — the GOP’s conservative base appears to be cocooning into itself and running away with the party. The question that remains to be answered is how this strategy can result in a Republican Party that is electorally viable on a national level.

From Bloomberg:

The pledges, made orally or in writing, are viewed by advocates as buttressing federally funded education programs that say avoiding pre-marital sex rather than using protection will curb pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. President George W. Bush’s administration more than doubled the budget for abstinence-only education programs since 1999 to $204 million this fiscal year. More than a dozen states have rejected federal money rather than limit what is taught.

“The results suggest that the virginity pledge does not change sexual behavior,” wrote author Janet Rosenbaum, a postdoctoral fellow in the department of population, family and reproductive health at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. “Clinicians should provide birth control information to all adolescents, especially abstinence-only sex education participants.”

A 2007 congressional study (PDF) found that abstinence-only programs have “no impacts on rates of sexual abstinence,” and students who participate in them become sexually active at the same age and have as many partners as students who participate in more comprehensive sex-ed programs. With Democrats set to control the presidency and both houses of Congress, these studies should spell the end for abstinence-only education.

Ironically, that could be good news for conservatives who are honest about their desire to decrease the number of abortions and curb the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases.

Senate Republicans are following this course for three key reasons — first is payback against a major industrial union; second is payback against states like Michigan and Ohio who have been moving away from the GOP; third is the desire to advantage Japanese auto manufacturers who disproportionately do business in their southern states.

I think the first and second points are key — that the GOP is taking a firm stand against the United Auto Workers, a core Democratic constituency, and in turn, against big-time GM states like Michigan and Ohio.

In recent history, Michigan and Ohio have been reliable swing states. But the actions of prominent Republicans may call into question whether they will retain their status as battleground states in future competitive elections.

As President Lyndon Johnson famously and presciently mused about the impact his signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 would have on his own Democratic Party, “There goes the South for a generation.”

I suspect some forward-thinking Republicans might harbor similar concerns about Michigan and Ohio.

Anyway, in a segment on Friday, a caller raised big questions about how Republicans can possibly seize the change mantle, if that means they’d have to clean up their own mess; while another suggested that the public is partly complicit in supporting a failing press.

Below are excerpts for interested readers:

Michael (Carmel Valley): Thank you, Peter. Hello, Ari. I just wanna make a couple quick comments about the Palin-McCain ticket, which I think, in some ways that’s what it’s become….one of the most important comments made during this campaign has gone almost under the radar, and it happens to be Jon Stewart interviewing Mike Huckabee—do you remember this one, where he [suggested] to Mike Huckabee that his position is basically, quote, “Our party is the only party that can clean up the mess made by our party.” And I think that’s the sort of thing we have got to get our arms around.

Ari: I think Michael’s right. I think that is the narrative that the Republicans settled on. But we should be careful here, in this sort of season of discontent, to understand that just as Democrats dislike it when politicians in the party move to the right — out of the perception that they can get votes that way, right or wrong — that worries the left.

Well, there is something positive for Barack Obama here, that after months of “Experience,” [and] “Ready to Lead” and “Country First” from the McCain campaign, they have settled here, in their final hours, on his message of “Change.” Now it’s working — that they’re co-opting part of it — and that Sarah Palin brought, as The New York Times put it, the “stamp of history to the ticket.” That’s not an insignificant thing — apart from ideology and apart from the lies we were discussing earlier.

But it also represents Democrats, for once, defining what is politically palpable and nationally desirable, and the trick for Obama is not to let it be co-opted. But they’re running on change because Obama made change universally desired in this electorate. That is something worth remembering…. they [now] value change over experience in their own politicking.

Pat (Humboldt): Hi Peter B. and Ari. The media will keep lying to us as long as we keep paying them to lie to us. As long as we subscribe to cable, as long as we subscribe to newspapers, they will keep lying to us…

Peter: Well, they’re trying to distract their way to the finish line, and some of it is working, right, Ari?

Ari: Yeah, I think distracting works. I think you’re right that there’s a market here, and if you can get away with it, it’s supported. There are changes–I was on Rachel Maddow’s radio show tonight before this. I think she’s great and I think she’s doing well with a marketable, successful show on television now. And then obviously, I’ll say it out of self-interest but not with any ambivalence, the places that I write for—The Nation, reader-supported since 1865 and not corporate; The Washington Independent, a different model but a non-profit, which allows us to do different things than corporate media. And you can go to those sites and support them any way you can. We appreciate it—it helps.

Today Obama heads to Flint, Mich., for an economic discussion at the regional technology center of a local community college.

Obama at a Chrystler plant on previous MI visit.

As Michael Moore documented almost 20 years ago, Flint is the kind of town that gets sold out by CEOs and neglected by politicians. The major job losses hit decades ago, but Flint’s population is still in free fall — it recently dropped 8 percent, to 114,000 people. Over the past three decades, the deciannual census counts show the population steadily dropped more than 10 percent.

Even as it thins out, this blue-collar base is essential to keeping Michigan blue. In 2004, Sen. John Kerry ran up his numbers to 60 percent in Genesse County, anchored by Flint, and eked by statewide at 51 percent. According to one report, Flint’s voters were rated the 10th most reliably liberal in the country — just behind San Francisco.

But Obama’s Michigan message is not all job losses and mortgage nightmares. The campaign will tap a local worker-turned-student, Jon Terbush, to kick off today’s event. Terbush, using money from a buyout after 12 years with American Axle, now is attending community college to brush up on technology and auto repair, according to a backgrounder from the campaign. Such voters have few reasons to re-up on Republican economics, as The New York Times explained today:

[T]he principal elements of Mr. McCain’s economic agenda on taxes, trade, regulation and health care follow the philosophic outlines of a deeply unpopular Bush administration. In offering new, immediate economic benefits, Mr. Obama has far outbid his Republican adversary… [Obama] has offered an ambitious range of proposals to arrest that decline and help average workers compete in a global economy.

Those proposals include a new tax credit of $500 per worker, or $1,000 for two-worker households; a new mortgage-interest credit, valued at an average of $500, for homeowners who do not itemize their tax deductions, and a college tuition subsidy of $4,000 per year for students who agree to perform community service. Mr. Obama would wipe out income taxes for older Americans earning $50,000 or less, saving some 7 million households an average of $1,400 apiece.

That’s on top of the still-unspecified subsidies Mr. Obama would provide for the purchase of health insurance for those who don’t now have it, the elimination of capital-gains taxes for small start-up businesses and an increase in the existing dependent-care tax credit that could save $1,100 for a single parent of two children who earns $40,000…

The Times reports that McCain, in contrast, is putting far less on the kitchen table:

By comparison, Mr. McCain’s list of proposals on this front is far more modest. He would double the existing child exemption to $7,000 from $3,500, but most tax-filers would not benefit because they have no dependent children or have incomes so modest that they already do not owe income taxes. Mr. McCain, of Arizona, would also offer a summer gas-tax holiday valued at about $30 a month.

Here on Obama’s plane, which is about to make the 40-minute hop from Chicago to Michigan, there’s little economic talk. Early this morning, Obama donned a White Sox cap and dropped off his daughters at their first day of school, then squeezed in a gym visit before boarding “O Force One.”

The schdeule promises a long day, with two events in Michigan and then a trip to Ohio — where Obama will continue to press for blue-collar support.