Read Stuff, You Should

Happy Birthday to Mark Hamill, 61. His performance in the first movie is highly underrated, for some reason; he's excellent, in my view. And fine in the other two, too.

The good stuff:

1. Whether you like a policy or not could depend on whether it's described as a Republican (or Democratic) plan. John Sides reports.

2. Good polling overview, focused on the Gallup/Rassmussen issue, from Mark Blumenthal.

3. Brendan Nyhan is right about feel-good phony rhetoric from Barack Obama.

4. I suppose I'll link to Abby Rapoport on non-partisan solutions to administering elections, although my usual anti-Goo Goo instinct is to pretty much oppose that sort of thing.

5. Sabl's Law appears to be safe for now.

6. And no one should care about Bud Selig; the real question was how Sean Forman would handle the Melkman "problem," and of course he's being sensible about it.

Sunday Question for Liberals

The Occupy folks: any lasting effect?

Sunday Question for Conservatives

Liberals have been bashing Mitt Romney and Republicans for some time for having no specific economic program tailored to current conditions -- Romney does have an economic program (free trade agreements, low taxes, etc.), but none of it, liberals say, is anything different than what Romney would be advocating if unemployment was a 5%. What about that? Do you think government policy should react to current conditions (as liberals certainly do, at least in part), or is the current conservative position that there's a set of objectively good policies regardless of current context, and the best thing to do is to attempt to implement those policies whenever you can?

Rand Paul...Matt Bai Follow-Up

By the way: when I was looking into the Matt Bai article earlier today, I wound up running into a terrific reported piece by Cokie and Steven Roberts on voter unrest.  In 1980; mid-June, 1980, actually, post-primaries, pre-conventions.  It's from the NYT Magazine (pdf), and I enjoyed reading it quite a bit.  Lots of interviews with lifelong Dems, many 2nd and 3rd generation Dems, ready to jump, as of course many of them would later that year.  Also, it's fun to read quotations from early-career Barbara Mikulski and Chris Dodd, plus a bonus appearance by a certain Baltimore pol who is mostly known to us now for his daughter, not his own career.

Oh, and you'll be glad to know that without an internet to blame for everything, it's that newfangled television that's disrupting traditional ties, including party ties.  Yup, at least as late as 1980, TV was still the newish thing that was destroying traditional politics.  Which means that we'll be seeing "the internet is changing everything" stories until Ezra Klein is drawing social security.  At least.

(Yes, I know: sometimes, the technology really does change things.  It isn't destroying political parties now, however.  And it doesn't change the fundamental formula: it's tougher to be the in-party during bad times than during good times).