In every elec­tion cycle a point arrives when polit­i­cal strate­gists begin to per­ceive the shape of things to come. At first it’s just a will-​​o-​​the-​​wisp, a dis­tant rum­ble, a scent on the wind. Grad­u­ally it begins to take on form and sub­stance and become some­thing that can be rec­og­nized, labelled, and turned to advantage.

We are just at the cusp of that process right now…and the emerg­ing impres­sion is not good for the Repub­li­can party. A lot of straws in the wind are not blow­ing their way right now. First, we have the out­right facts about Repub­li­can per­for­mance since the “tsunami” of 2010, and what all those new law­mak­ers have done with the power given them by vot­ers. They cam­paigned on bring­ing jobs to Amer­i­cans, but there is no pub­lic impres­sion that they have been gov­ern­ing with jobs as a goal. Instead the coun­try sees the GOP pre­oc­cu­pied at the state level with things like pre­vent­ing the sin­is­ter threat of Sharia law in the South and the Mid­west, pass­ing “birther laws” requir­ing can­di­dates for pub­lic office to pro­duce birth cer­tifi­cates (or proof of cir­cum­ci­sion), and intro­duc­ing mul­ti­ple bills mak­ing it more dif­fi­cult for women to obtain legal abortions.

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