Joe Klein: “The Democrats have a serious problem. It is a problem that stems from the party’s greatest strength: its long-term support for inclusion and equal rights for all, its support of racial integration and equal rights for women and homosexuals and its humane stand on immigration reform. Those heroic positions, which I celebrate, cost the Democrats more than a few elections in the past…. If the Democratic Party truly wants to be a party of inclusion, it must reach out to those who are currently excluded from its identity politics. It needs to disband its caucuses. It needs to say, We are proud of our racial and ethnic backgrounds, our different religions, our lifestyle differences. But the things that unite us are more important than the things that divide us. We have only one caucus– the American caucus.”

Jonathan Martin notes that populism — “with its rowdy zeal to brawl against economic elites on behalf of the working classes” — was for decades the Democratic party’s defining cause but it’s now largely been abandoned.

“The recent convergence of setbacks on the left has activists and historians alike pondering anew how the modern Democratic Party has severed its connection to its own history — a tradition that many liberals wrongly imagined was about to spring back to life in the Obama years… These days, it’s possible to count on one hand the number of unapologetic populists in the U.S. Senate and, besides Elizabeth Warren, there are few more on the horizon.”

“For the fighting left, it is a frustrating puzzle. If ever there was a moment for a good, old-fashioned class war, at first blush it seems now should be the time. Yet even after the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression, there are few politicians preaching, or practicing, the old-time religion.”

Democrats are “considering canceling their political convention’s kick-off event at the Charlotte Motor Speedway, as party planners grapple with a roughly $27 million fundraising deficit,” Bloomberg reports.

Earlier this year, Democrats announced they were shortening their convention from four days to three, “to make room for a day to organize and celebrate the Carolinas, Virginia and the South and kick off the convention at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Labor Day,” Sept. 3.

Blue Dog Democrats representing the conservative wing of the Democratic Party are close to extinction, reports Politico, as the 2012 election season promises to further thin their ranks.

“Of
the 24 remaining Blue Dogs, five are not seeking reelection. More than a
half-dozen others are facing treacherous contests in which their
reelection hopes are in jeopardy. It’s a rough time to occupy the right
wing of the Democratic Party… Redistricting is at the root of the Blue
Dog problem. The once-in-a-decade line-drawing has forced some of them
to compete for seats that have become even less friendly to Democrats —
and those seats weren’t very friendly to begin with. Utah Rep. Jim
Matheson, Georgia Rep. John Barrow and North Carolina Rep. Mike McIntyre
are among those who have been thrust into deeply Republican territory
after being targeted in GOP-led redistricting efforts in their home
states.”

“For Pennsylvania Rep. Tim Holden, another Blue Dog,
redistricting has created another kind of problem. When Republicans
redrew his central Pennsylvania seat, they created a district far more
liberal than Holden’s old one — one at odds with the conservative record
he has compiled during his two decades in the House… For a few Blue
Dogs, the problems presented by redistricting are compounded by the
challenges of running in conservative Southern states during a
presidential election year. Kentucky Rep. Ben Chandler, McIntyre and
Barrow must run in states where President Barack Obama’s unpopularity
threatens to trickle down the ballot and damage their reelection bids.”

Just published: The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt.

Boston Globe: “In recent years, Haidt has emerged as one of the country’s best-known psychology researchers, using a combination of psychology and anthropology to understand how we arrive at our moral attitudes. One of his key insights is that we are much less rational than we think we are. We tend to make moral judgments intuitively and immediately… When Haidt looks at American politics, he doesn’t see a free-flowing, open-minded exchange of ideas. Instead, he sees a conflict between two profoundly different moral mind-sets — a conservative mind-set and a liberal one — that dictate where people stand on issues, and are unlikely to change.”

Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D), chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, recently told Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee (I) that he should become a Democrat, WPRI reports.

Asked if he is seriously considering the idea, Chafee said through a spokeswoman: “I’m happy where I am for now.”

Jonathan Chait: “Liberals are dissatisfied with Obama because liberals, on the whole, are incapable of feeling satisfied with a Democratic president. They can be happy with the idea of a Democratic president — indeed, dancing-in-the-streets delirious — but not with the real thing.”

“For almost all of the past 60 years, liberals have been in a near-constant emotional state of despair, punctuated only by brief moments of euphoria and occasional rage. When they’re not in charge, things are so bleak they threaten to move to Canada; it’s almost more excruciating when they do win elections, and their presidents fail in essentially the same ways: He is too accommodating, too timid, too unwilling or unable to inspire the populace. (Except for Johnson, who was a bloodthirsty warmonger.)”

The Hill
reports that congressional Democrats, feeling burned after making
repeated concessions to Republicans over extending the Bush tax cuts and
raising the debt ceiling without new revenues, are determined to play
hardball in the next fight: approval of the supercommittee’s deficit
reduction proposal, to be released later this month.

“Leaders have
demanded that Republicans on the supercommittee agree to substantial tax
increases and are refusing to back down. At the same time, they are
pounding Republicans on the issue of jobs. Senate Majority Leader Harry
Reid (D-Nev.) has forced Republicans to vote several times on jobs
legislation — including funding for teachers, first responders and
infrastructure — paid for by slightly increasing the tax rate on income
over $1 million… The argument is this: Republicans have much less
leverage now than earlier.”

A new Washington Post-ABC News survey finds that 50% of Americans think President Obama is “making a good faith effort to deal with the country’s economic problems,” but Republicans are “playing politics by blocking his proposals and programs.”

Meanwhile, 44% think Obama is at fault and “has not provided leadership on the economy.”

Independents blame Republicans by a 54% to 40% margin, while moderate voters favor blame Republicans by 57% to 37%.

Greg Sargent: “For all their very real disapproval of Obama, they think one party is
acting in good faith to fix the economy, and the other isn’t. So when is
the national political press going to start seriously covering this
aspect of the debate?”