Things to remember while watching the morning shows.

First of all they’re preening pits of political hackery dominated by Radical Racist Republicans and Moronic Teleprompter Readers none of whom have any idea what it is to be a “real” American because they’re privileged pampered  assholes.

And also we will have “insightful analysis” like this, helpfully telegraphed by Jon Walker at Firedog Lake–

I find this memo from Third Way (PDF) to be comically poorly timed. No surprise they mine any and all data points to claim the need for Democrats to move to the right, but they also claim the path to victory this November is not rallying the liberal base, but winning over the moderates-despite the fact that Democrats have already won over moderates:

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The irony is that, right now, Democrats are facing massive losses this November and they are actually doing extremely well with self-described moderates. According to Tom Jensen at Public Policy Polling, Democrats are winning over moderates by a two-to-one margin:

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Winning over moderates has not saved the Democratic party this year. Despite the false narrative that is almost assured to follow this election, the problem is not that the Democratic party has moved too far to the left. Voters who consider themselves moderates overwhelming prefer Democrats. The problem is that voters that support Republicans are extremely excited to vote while the Democratic party has not made the moderates and liberals that support them excited about keeping them in.

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(O)n a policy front, the country is dramatically to the left of what dominates Washington, DC, thinking. A health insurance public option, prescription drug re-importation, ending “don’t ask, don’t tell,” closing the hedge fund managers’ tax loophole-and more-all have the support of huge majorities of the American people despite the idea that these are supposedly “too leftist” to get passed by the Democratic party in Washington. Hell, a plurality of the country actually wants a distribution of wealth resembling socialist Sweden.

Almost every economist will now admit that progressives were right when they said the stimulus was too small. With 9.6 percent unemployment and jobs being the top issue for almost all voters, there should be little doubt that Democrats would be better off politically if they had been more liberal and pursued a larger stimulus. Democrats are not being punished this election for ideology, they are being punished for incompetence in the face of a economic crisis.

This Third Way memo is just the first in what is sure to be a wave of advice from corporatists about how midterms prove Democrats suffered from liberal overreach, and so need to move to the right (i.e. more tax cuts for the rich). Just remember this: moderates actually prefer Democrats to Republicans. The problem this election year is that Democrats didn’t give their supporters, regardless of ideology, a strong reason vote for them.