I don’t have a lot to add to the bizarre GruberGate controversy, which is basically an internal discussion among Republicans about whether to use old video of an MIT economist to lather themselves up into another assault on Obamacare that would probably end once it became obvious another government shutdown was the only real weapon they had. It’s bad news for those who hoped Republicans were adjusting to Obamacare’s abiding presence, or would react rationally if the Supreme Court pushes the Affordable Care Act into a highly technical and easily negotiated ditch. But it probably won’t matter in the long run.

It is, however, a reminder that complex public policy initiatives create all sort of political hazards. The Affordable Care Act, with its hybrid public/private structure, is inherently complex on a more basic level than what one chooses to call this or that financing element. That was one of the prices its designers paid for passing up on the more controversial but infinitely easier to understand single-payer model.

It didn’t help, of course, that the ACA was subjected to many tens (and by now hundreds) of billions of dollars of negative propaganda about “death panels” and Medicare and socialized medicine, most of it more or less made up (which makes its purveyors’ complaints about pro-ACA “lies” this week especially rich). But the “managed competition” approach to health care reform has always been complicated to explain, and its the critics, not the proponents, who have most benefited from that reality.

We hear a lot, as we should, about rising student debt levels and the poor records of many colleges in actually improving the life prospects of their students. But in an essay in the new issue of the Washington Monthly, Rachel Fishman of the New America Foundation argues that the single largest contributor to inequality in job access and income among high school graduates is the failure of low-income students to secure the credentials—a two- or four-year degree, or a job training skills certificate—they go into debt to obtain.

The conventional wisdom is that college in America is the great class equalizer. But the truth is increasingly the opposite: higher education is fast becoming yet another perpetuator of inequality. The reason is not that lower-income Americans don’t aspire to college. In 2008, 55 percent of high school graduates from the poorest 20 percent of homes enrolled in college directly from high school, compared to 80 percent of students from the wealthiest 20 percent of homes. While this is a significant gap, it pales in comparison to the difference in college graduation rates. Four out of five twenty-four-year-olds in the upper quarter of the income scale hold four-year college degrees. In the bottom quarter, only one in ten does.

One reason for the difference in graduation rates is not surprising. Kids who grow up in poorer neighborhoods and attend troubled, less rigorous primary and secondary schools tend to start college less academically prepared and are thus more likely to drop out. But another reason is that these students, who have shown their mettle by graduating from the toughest high schools, are repaid for their efforts by getting channeled into the worst-performing colleges—costly for-profits that make false promises of employment in high-wage jobs, or lower-priced but under-resourced community colleges and regional four-year schools with high dropout rates.

Students who don’t earn educational credentials are the most likely to struggle to pay off loans as well.

Fishman finds good models for public universities deciding to and succeeding in quickly lifting graduation rates among relatively low-income and very diverse student populations, notably Atlanta’s Georgia State University and Orlando’s University of Central Florida. But she points to two Obama administration initiatives—its unveiling of a college evaluation system focused on “bang for the buck,” and its proposed new “gainful employment” rules for schools receiving federal assistance, as particularly large opportunities for reform. Moreover, she argues, allowing federal student aid funds to be used for short-term but effective skills certificate programs and “competency-based” skills mastery credentials could help as well.

It’s time to get aggressive with higher ed reforms before the momentum runs out and complacency sets back in, and we lose another cohort of students from low-income backgrounds—and their contributions to the economy—for good.

On November 5 there were quite a few U.S. House seats still hanging fire in California, creating the impression that the Golden State might well yet contribute to GOP congressional gains this year. But now that the dust is settling and the excruciatingly slow count of mail and provisional ballots has resumed, it’s looking more and more likely that Democrats will wind up with a net gain of one U.S. House seat (CA-31, vacated by Rep. Gary Miller). Democrats also swept all eight state constitutional offices.

Yes, Republicans did succeed in ending the very narrow super-majorities Democrats had in the state legislature (less crucial than it used to be before the enactment of 2010’s Proposition 25, which allows for passage of the state budget by a simple majority, and 2012’s Proposition 30, which enacted a major tax measure that Republicans had been blocking in the legislature). But given the very, very low turnout (about 35%, as compared to 72% in 2012 and even 46% in 2010), it’s hard to imagine a better environment for California Republicans, and they didn’t do a whole lot with it. I’d expect what gains they had will be endangered in 2016.

It rained again overnight! I could really get used to this.

Here are some wonderfully soggy midday news/views treats:

* Harry Reid asks Elizabeth Warren to join leadership as liaison to progressives.

* James Inhofe argues that China’s agreement to emissions goals all a ruse aimed at making U.S. dependent on their electricity.

* Ben Carson to keynote annual dinner of Iowa Family Leader, the dominant Christian Right group in the state; ticket sales are boffo.

* At the Prospect, Dana Goldstein examines the foreshadowing of the controversy over Teach for America in the National Teacher Corps.

* At the Atlantic, Peter Beinart discusses the obsession of conservatives with the rhetoric of “restoration.”

And in non-political news:

* Warren Buffet buys Duracell.

As we break for lunch, here’s Steeleye Span at the 1987 Philadelphia Folk Festival performing “King Henry,” an ode to the power of chivalry.

One thing that most definitely will change with the impending GOP takeover of the Senate is the power to bring up or stall floor actions. So the moment that 51st seat slid into the GOP column on November 4, it became a certainty that legislation to force approval of the Keystone XL pipeline would reach the Senate floor early in the next session.

So Harry Reid jumped the gun and decided to bring the thing up himself (in conjunction with simultaneous action in the House), reportedly as a favor to chief sponsor Mary Landrieu, who is struggling to survive a December 3 runoff in her fossil-fuel-energy-producing state.

What no one knows for sure is whether Democratic senators will eventually filibuster the bill, and what Barack Obama will say or do, though the White House dropped a pretty strong hint earlier today that the bill is veto-bait because jump-starts a decision the administration is still considering.

If there is a vote Senate-watchers will carefully watch the Democratic senators who are sticking around in January to see whether the bill could be filibuster-proofed if not veto-proofed when the new GOP senators take office. I doubt anything will change, so maybe it’s all a harmless gesture on behalf of Landrieu. But I do not blame Keystone XL opponents for worrying that in the end, when all the studying is done, the president chooses to make the project a bone thrown to fossil fuel fans in both parties as he’s fighting tooth and nail for EPA climate change regs.

Until oral arguments are held at SCOTUS for King v. Burwell, the challenge to the Affordable Care Act’s subsidies in states that did not create their own insurance purchasing exchanges, we’re probably not going to know any more than we know right now about what the startling acceptance of this case really means. It only requires four Justices to grant cert in a given case, but on something as potentially momentous as this one, it seems unlikely that the four dissenters in the earlier Obamacare case would move so precipitously unless there’s some reason to believe a fifth Justice (presumably the Chief Justice) might be sympathetic. That’s why the New York Times’ veteran Court-watcher Linda Greenhouse is calling this development a potentially greater act of judicial usurpation than Bush v. Gore. And she points to one theory being offered to conservatives by law professor John Yoo (yes, that John Yoo) at National Review this week:

I assume Chief Justice Roberts is with the original four dissenters from Sebelius two years ago in opposing the administration. This gives him the chance to atone for his error in upholding Obamacare as a valid use of the taxing clause in that case. His decision in Sebelius did great violence to the Constitution’s protections for federalism — it will be the mission of his Chief Justiceship to repair the damage.

Greenhouse cites Yoo’s language as significant:

His choice of the words “atone” and “mission,” with their religious resonance addressed to the devoutly Catholic chief justice, is no accident.

Now this sort of highly public lobbying of Roberts could also indicate he’s not yet on board with the other four conservatives. We’ll have to wait and see. And for that matter, it’s not at all clear what the consequences would be of an adverse SCOTUS ruling on subsidies; some experts are convinced the immediate consequences to middle-class policyholders of losing subsidies are so dire and the “fix” is so easy that Republicans in Congress and/or in the affected states could be convinced to take the very small steps necessary to work around the decision. It will be interesting to watch conservatives talk to each other about all this as the Court term proceeds.

Josh Marshall notes on Twitter today that his website Talking Points Memo is fourteen years old today. Wow. I distinctly remember having lunch with Josh at the Dupont Circle Chipotle back about the time he started TPM, and it sounded to me like it was a way for him to promote himself as a free-lance journalist after he left The American Prospect. Little did we know….

TPM made its bones as a player in American politics when Josh just wouldn’t let go of Trent Lott’s suggestion that America would be a better place if Strom Thurmond had been elected president in 1948. What might otherwise have been a one-day story reflecting the MSM’s disinterest in the racist past of Respected Senior Statesmen turned into a firestorm leading to Lott’s resignation as Senate Minority Leader. Similar doggedness from Josh, supplemented by an effort to mobilize readers, played a significant role in the quick demise of George W. Bush’s Social Security “reform” proposal in 2005. And TPM itself, of course, has become a multi-faceted media presence.

I used to be a pretty regular columnist for TPMCafe back when it didn’t pay a dime and I rationalized free work as “exposure,” and am glad to be back writing for them weekly (for a pittance this time, but everything helps). Readers of this blog know how often I link to or quote TPM stories, often fresh news, sometimes good condensations of news first reported elsewhere. Sometimes there’s a bit too much shouting going on for my taste, but then again, perspective on the news is why one should read PA as well as TPM, right?

So I’m glad Josh’s idea to do this blog thing back when it was relatively novel turned out so well, and I hope he’s got the energy for a few more crusades. Something in the air tells me the opportunity will come along.

So an awful lot of post-election analysts are pointing in the same direction at a dilemma for Democrats. I noted yesterday that Harry Enten of FiveThirtyEight thinks Democrats are in danger of falling even more among non-college educated white voters in places like Iowa. At TNR Noam Scheiber is even more pointed:

[I]f there’s one thing the past two midterms have taught us, it’s that it’s not enough to build a coalition that wins the presidency. Democrats need one that also turns out in non-presidential years to have any hope of enacting an agenda (or, for that matter, even staffing their cabinet). And, at this point, it’s far from clear that Hillary Clinton is a candidate built for both 2016 and 2018. In fact, it’s pretty easy to imagine an Obama-like coalition of young people, Latinos, African-Americans, and single women electing Clinton to the White House, then taking a breather two years later.

So Democrats need to find a way to appeal to an older, whiter electorate as well. Specifically, they need to find a better way to appeal to the white working class, which is where they’re getting clobbered. In last week’s midterms, whites without a college degree accounted for 36 percent of voters; Democrats lost them by a 30-point margin. In 2012, the margin was 26 points.

Scheiber observes the usual objection that reaching out to the WWC conflicts with the culture-issue views of other elements of the progressive coalition, but then suggests a reading of Ruy Teixiera and John Halpin’s piece in the June/July/August issue of the Washington Monthly noting generational evolution within the WWC that has reduced that conflict, and examining how to exploit it:

What, if anything, do progressives have in their portfolio that might particularly appeal to the white working class, while also appealing to the base groups of their rising coalition.

There is a burgeoning progressive narrative and policy focus that might be able to fulfill this role. This new narrative is based on the idea that rising inequality actually undermines rather than fuels growth. This “equitable growth” or “middle-out economics” school of thought points to a growing body of evidence that reducing inequality is not merely compatible with growth but also can be a significant contributor to both the quantity and the quality of growth. The broad argument is that the economy grows from the “middle out,” and that the true heroes in our economic drama are not corporations and the wealthy but rather a robust and growing middle class. With such an approach, the economy can work for everyone, not just the wealthy few, as it does today.

If that sounds familiar, it’s probably because this “burgeoning progressive narrative” is the subject of the cover package in the current issue of the Washington Monthly.

Aside from the Halpin/Teixeira piece this summer, we also published an essay by Stan Greenberg—first made famous by his analysis of the “Reagan Democrats” back in the 1980s—arguing that it’s folly for Democrats to concede wage workers who “have not seen a raise in years.” And there’s an associated roundtable over at The Democratic Strategist with brief contributions from a host of voices on the subject of progressivism’s relative appeal to the WWC.

It’s all very timely again.

Since the post-election commentary, ranging from blatant spin and ax-grinding to real analysis from this or that perspective, is getting pretty deep, I figured I’d add some more comprehensive thoughts in one place, mainly aimed at the busting of some instant myths. You probably won’t read anything I haven’t said at some point or another here at PA, but my TPMCafe column does try to put a lot of it together.

My basic conclusion is that the 2014 midterms were to a considerable extent a slightly less decisive (in the overall vote, that is, not necessarily in the consequences) replay of 2010, and that the “two electorates” hypothesis is now the dominant reality of U.S. electoral politics and will remain so until one party or the other “breaks serve.” It’s possible something else is going on under the surface, and both parties would be wise to accelerate efforts to reach beyond their current base. But Democratic prospects for the immediate future went up rapidly the moment this election ended, just as Republican prospects went up rapidly right after Mitt Romney’s 2012 defeat, as I noted here on November 9, 2012.

Writing at Bloomberg View, Christopher Flavelle makes a simple but important point about the political import of the U.S.-China climate change agreement:

Republicans’ best argument against regulating carbon emissions from U.S. coal plants has always been this: If China won’t act, what use is it? Why risk harming the U.S. economy if the resulting drop in emissions isn’t enough to slow the worst effects of climate change?

The U.S.-China climate agreement announced last night turns that argument on its head. Under the deal, China will aim to begin reducing its carbon emissions by 2030, and the U.S. will reduce its emissions by as much as 28 percent by 2025, compared with 2005 levels — “reductions achievable under existing law.”

Translation: The U.S. can only honor its commitment if proposed regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency, which aim to reduce power-plant emissions 30 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, are allowed to proceed.

So if Republicans in Congress block those rules, they risk tanking the agreement with China, which in turn gives China a reason to back out of the deal. The EPA rules that previously looked senseless in the absence of Chinese emissions reductions are now, arguably, the single most important thing the U.S. can do to ensure those reductions.

I dunno. I heard Mitch McConnell on the radio last night complaining that Obama had gotten too little out of the Chinese in exchange for the terrible things he plans to do to the Great Coal Idol Mitch worships (along with the Golden Calf of political money). And if there’s anything latterday Republicans hold in contempt almost as much as climate science it’s diplomatic agreements that bind the proud wolf of America’s freedom of action. I suspect the idea that Obama has sold out to the godless Chicomms is going to be a common theme going forward as Republicans gird up their loins to smite EPA. But Flavelle’s argument will indeed be compelling to climate action skeptics who are open to persuasion.

For no reason other than its morning theme, here are those darlings of the electric folk movement, Steeleye Span, performing an abbreviated version of the traditional tune “Lark in the Morning” in 1971.

I’ve never been quite sure why it was Neil Young who became the iconic 70s rocker for all those bands in the 1990s. But his stuff has aged pretty well.

Here are some remains of the day:

* Uh-Oh, Huck: Fox News indicates it’s reviewing Mike Huckabee’s status on the network after publicity of his plans for a presidential campaign.

* Jon Tester looking at becoming DSCC chair for ‘16 cycle. Definitely a better gig than the one Michael Bennet suffered through for ‘14.

* At the Atlantic, Uri Friedman offers a fiscal and military evaluation of the fight against IS so far.

* House Progressive Caucus sets benchmark of 7 million undocumented people it wants Obama to protect via expanded DACA.

* At Ten Miles Square, Martin Longman has an even harsher assessment of Josh Kraushaar’s “Republican pragmatists” fable than I did.

And in non-political news:

* TCU passes Alabama in College Football Playoff rankings.

That’s it for Wednesday. We’ll close with an electric version of “Pocahontas” performed with Crazy Horse in 1996.

Selah.

Since Rand Paul is meeting today with his brain trust to plot a probable presidential campaign, it’s worth noting that bitter enemy Lindsey Graham is moving to isolate the Kentuckian on the volatile issue of sanctions on Iran, one foreign policy area where “realism” has yet to make a comeback within the GOP. Dave Weigel has the story:

“Each candidate on the Republican side embraced a bold foreign policy,” Graham said. “They rejected leading from behind. So, from my point of view, the Republican conference is going to made up of more traditional national security Republicans, and this era of flirting with isolationism, I think, has passed.”

If that was too subtle, Graham found a better way of putting it when he talked to Washington Post reporter-blogger Jennifer Rubin. “The cavalry is coming over the hill,” he said. He would move this week to advance the Iran sanctions bill, the Iran Nuclear Negotiations Act of 2014. “If we get it marked up, there will be a lot of bipartisan support….”

Iowa Senator-elect Joni Ernst favored sanctions during her campaign. So did Colorado Senator-elect Cory Gardner, South Dakota Senator-elect Mike Rounds, and West Virginia Senator-elect Shelley Moore Capito. Come January, there’s a clear Senate supermajority in favor of sanctions. Graham, knowing that, wants to move before the November 24 expiration of the current agreement with Iran.

That leaves Senator Rand Paul in the position to challenge Graham’s theory. Paul never has co-sponsored the sanctions. Before the midterms, in a speech at the Center for the National Interest, Paul mentioned Iran only once. “In light of the new threat posed by ISIS,” he said, “I believe it is even more imperative that Tehran and Washington find an effective diplomatic solution for limiting the Iranian enrichment program. A nuclear-armed Iran would only further destabilize a region in turmoil.” Paul was not bending-he was waiting for the administration’s process to work.

On Wednesday, Paul is meeting with his brain trust to talk 2016. On Thursday, he’ll face the choice of bucking almost everyone in his party on Iran sanctions. Next year, he may find himself even more isolated on foreign policy in a resurgent GOP.

I wouldn’t be real shocked if Paul flip-flops on this issue as he has on Middle East policy and a number of other foreign policy matters. But if so I bet his old man—who spent a good part of his 2012 campaign arguing with other Republicans about Iran—pitches a fit or bites his tongue.

Harry Enten puts his finger on something today that has intrigued Iowa-watchers (and hey! who isn’t?) the last few years: the state’s love affair with Barack Obama definitely seems to have cooled.

There are a lot of factors that went into Joni Ernst’s victory last week, most notably the terrible gaffe committed by Bruce Braley in front of an audience of out-of-state trial lawyers concerning Chuck Grassley the “Iowa farmer,” which violated multiple Iowa taboos. But as Enten notes, Obama’s approval rating had been significantly sagging in Iowa—and running below his national average—since the state gave him a 2012 win by a bit under six percent of the vote.

Arguably Obama’s high popularity in Iowa in his two election years led us all to forget this was the most marginal of purple states before then, being carried by Al Gore by just over 4,000 votes in 2000 and by George W. Bush by 10,000 votes in 2004. The 2008 Iowa Caucuses launched Obama’s presidential campaign, and he never forgot that, constantly returning to the state to thank its voters for the special role they played in his career. That mutual regard is obviously fading. But Enten has a theory that it reflects something of particular danger to Democrats:

Here’s one explanation: White voters in Iowa without a college degree have shifted away from the Democratic Party. And if that shift persists, it could have a big effect on the presidential race in 2016, altering the White House math by eliminating the Democratic edge in the electoral college.

There are a lot of white voters in Iowa without a college degree, and they have differed politically from their demographic counterparts nationally. In 2008, President Obama won non-college whites in Iowa by 6 percentage points; he lost them nationally by 18 points. In 2012, college-educated and non-college-educated whites both broke by about 6 percentage points for Obama. That’s very different from nationwide, where Mitt Romney won non-college whites by 25 percentage points while winning college-educated whites by 14 points.

In the run-up to this year’s midterm elections, polls showed Iowa’s white voters behaving normally — well, normally abnormal — favoring the Democrat more than their demographic kin nationally. Last month, two Marist polls showed Braley trailing by 5 percentage points among Iowans with a college degree and down an average of just 1.5 points among those without a college education.1 Overall, Braley was down by only 2.5 percentage points, on average, in Marist’s October surveys.

According to the exit polls, however, Braley lost non-college-educated voters of all races by 10 percentage points. His performance among the college-educated matched pre-election polls. But among non-college whites, Braley lost by 14 points.

Now that could mean Braley-the-Trial-Lawyer-and-Disser-of-Iowa-Farmers was particularly distasteful to the white working class, or that an unusual affection for Obama among Iowans in the past had propped up Democratic margins. The latter possibility could definitely matter in 2016, and if it also reflects a general downward trend of Democratic support among non-southern non-college-educated whites, that’s a bigger problem.