Thursday Open Thread [1.23.14]

I always hate it when the self righteous beltway pundit and the uninformed morally superior Independent voter lament how horrible partisan politics and why can’t both parties forget about their legion of irreconcilable policy differences and govern nicely. As if partisan politics and polarization and political nastiness was a new invention. Partisan politics and political fights are as old, if not older, than the Republic:

[I]n Pasley’s telling, it was in 1796 that many of the metaphors and symbols we still recognize as integral to our politics first took root. Thomas Jefferson was taken to task for his lack of “manly” virtues—being often thought of as (in Pasley’s words) “an effete dilettante and annoying smarty-pants”—and for his sympathy for revolutionary France. John Adams and even George Washington himself took brickbats for their monarchical bearing and British-like formality. Symbolic language about a “man of the people” and the “father of the state” vied with each other for the first time. And for the first time, too, foreign policy penetrated deeply into the presidential campaign. […]

In 1795 and 1796, people argued about Jefferson’s and Adams’s characters. In bravura displays of negative campaigning, they tore down the candidates’ motivations, dredged up their previous writings, and had at their earlier careers. It was in every way what today we call a cultural war—Pasley calls it precisely that—as they battled over religion and other values and beliefs. In Pennsylvania, the state that even then was a battleground and a sure thing for neither Democrat-Republicans nor Federalists, local politicians engaged in “voter suppression” as partisan and purposeful as any we see today. … For we can now see that the election portended much that was to follow: its boisterousness; the engagement of state legislators, local voters, newspaper editors, and opinion makers; the permeation of questions about the candidates’ characters and their previously written convictions—by such developments the election contributed to what would prove to be the emergence, however slow, of American political democracy.

POLLING

FLORIDA–GOVERNOR–Public Policy Polling: Charlie Crist (D) 43, Gov. Rick Scott (R), 41

MASSACHUSETTS–GOVERNOR–WBUR: Attorney General Martha Coakley (D) 39, Charlie Baker (R) 29.

Said pollster Steve Koczela: “She is doing very well among, particularly, women over the age of 50. They really are responding to what she has to say and have a very positive view of her so far.” However, Baker “leads among women — and leads overall — in head-to-head matchups with four other Democrats vying for the governor’s chair.”

NEW JERSEY–CHRISTIE APPROVAL–Rutgers-Eagleton: Gov. Chris Christie’s (R) favorability rating is now at 46%, down 22 points from a survey taken just before his landslide re-election victory last year.

Said pollster David Redlawsk: “Other polls taken immediately after the bridge scandal broke showed relatively small effects. But with another week of revelations, damage appears to have been done. The good will the governor built up among Democrats with his handling of the Sandy aftermath is gone, at least for now.”