The Open Thread for Thursday, August 1, 2013

You don’t realize how dependent, and how addicted, you are to the internet and email and just computer databases in general until the servers crash and you have no access to anything. That was me yesterday at work. No email. No internet. No computers. Well, we could turn on our computer and type something, but our network is set up in such a way that we could not print what we typed. So yesterday, my office was literally back in the 60’s and 70’s. We used an old typewriter for letters that had to go out.

Seriously, how was business conducted back then?

Anyway, thanks for Cass for picking up the ball I dropped.

Here is some polling goodness:

MICHIGAN–GOVERNOR–Denno Research: Gov. Rick Snyder (R) 43, Mark Schauer (D) 37

KENTUCKY–U.S. SENATE–PPP: Alison Lundergan Grimes (D) 45, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R) 44

ALASKA–U.S. SENATE–PPP: Sen. Mark Begich (D) 55, 2010 GOP Nominee Joe Miller (R) 32; Begich 52, former Gov. Sarah Palin (R) 38; Begich 46, Natural Resources Commissioner Dan Sullivan (R) 39; Begich 44, Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell (R) 40.

ALASKA–U.S. SENATE–REPUBLICAN PRIMARY–PPP: Palin 36, Treadwell 26, Sullivan 15, Miller 12

NATIONAL–REPUBLICAN VIEWS ON THE REPUBLICAN PARTY–Pew: By 54% to 40%, Republican and Republican-leaning voters want the party’s leaders to move further to the right. Not surprisingly, conservatives and those who agree with the Tea Party overwhelmingly favor moving in a more conservative direction, while moderates and liberals would like to see the party take more centrist positions. Yet the more moderate wing of the party is a minority generally, and makes up an even smaller share of the likely primary electorate.

Oh, joy.

Noam Scheiber considers whether House Republicans are just plain stupid.

“But there’s another alternative worth considering: What if House members are trying to act in their self-interest; they’re just exceptionally bad at figuring out what that is? What if they’re, you know, kinda dumb? For example, if you’re a House Republican, presumably you have some policy preferences: You’d like to massively cut taxes for the wealthy, you’d like to slash spending for the poor, you’d like to privatize Social Security and voucherize Medicare. In short, you’d like to enact the Ryan plan in its full, Randian glory. But, of course, there’s no way to do that as long as there’s a Democrat in the White House. And, unfortunately, as long as you’re committed to acting crazy–threatening needless government shutdowns; insisting that Obamacare is the greatest assault on freedom since the Nazi march across Europe; failing to fix massive electoral liabilities, like your perceived hostility to Latinos–you may preserve your House majority. But it’s going to be damn-near impossible for a Republican to win the presidency.”.