But after an election in which Democrats rode a wave of minority support to keep the White House and Senate, party activists should wonder about one of the founders for whom that event is named. If branding matters, then the tradition of honoring perhaps the most systematic violator of human rights for America’s nonwhites should finally run its course.

Renowned journalist T.D. Allman’s gripping Finding Florida: The True History of the Sunshine State argues that brutality was a habit of mind for party icon Andrew Jackson long before he laid the groundwork, as President, for the Trail of Tears, the thousand-mile death march that killed 4000 Cherokees in 1838−39.

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McAuliffe is a longtime professional fundraiser for the Democratic Party. The dehumanizing stuff was uncovered by (or provided to) BuzzFeed's Andrew Kaczynski who simply posted some clips from the audiotapes of McAuliffe's autobiography. In these clips McAuliffe abandons his wife as she is giving birth to their daughter to go to a party for former Washington Post gossip columnist Lloyd Grove, and then he forces his wife and his literally newborn son to sit in a car, on the way home from the hospital, while he attends a fundraiser. In the second story it is noted that his wife is crying, but the important detail is that he raises a million dollars for the party.

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First and foremost, if my old boss and friend, the wildly popular former Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D), mounts a Democratic candidacy it means the seat would likely remain in the party's hands. Additionally, and more important for the long-term topography of American politics, Baucus is not just a single Democrat holding a Senate seat in a Republican-leaning state. He is one of the politicians most responsible for the Democratic Party's destructive long-term shift to the right on economic issues. That means his retirement isn't just a 2014 story or a Montana story; it is significant to the whole country.

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So, if you want to support Obama’s agenda, and you want to make the most efficient donation you can, should you send money?

Nope. Here’s the thing. There are basically two reasons to support OFA, and both of them, I’d argue, can be better accomplished by putting your money elsewhere.

The first purpose of OFA would be to directly help the president’s agenda in Congress. It’s not particularly likely, however, that OFA, no matter how much money it can raise, could do that. Political scientists have found very little success for the presidential strategy of going over the heads of Congress in hopes that voters can pressure their representatives to do what the president wants.

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Obama's budget proposal includes a mix of tax increases and benefit cuts in an effort to reduce government borrowing and spark the still-fragile economy. Obama says it is the kind of balanced approach that is necessary to tame runaway budget deficits.

But advocates from across the political spectrum are reminding the president of his past campaign promises.

"Clearly it will be up to members of Congress to set fiscal priorities that actually represent the needs of the average citizens they were elected to represent," said Max Richtman, head of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. "The president's budget is not the balanced plan promised to Americans before November's election."

Obama's budget blueprint would increase taxes by $1 trillion over the next decade. Most of the tax increases would target wealthy households and corporations, though some, including a tax increase on cigarettes, would hit low- and middle-income families, too.

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With President Obama embarked on his second term, and Democrats seeing their future in the alliance of African-Americans, Latinos, Asians, college-educated women and young people he assembled, I sometimes find myself asking “What’s the matter with white people?” in a different way – as in, “don’t they have a place in this new multiracial coalition?” As whites become just one of several American minorities in the near future -- brown babies already outnumber white babies in the nation’s nurseries – I’ve been thinking more about the ways language can ease our transition to a multiracial America. The paperback version of my book comes out April 16 – you can pre-order it here --  and I got to take on a lot of these post-election thoughts in an afterword.

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"We must embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform," says one recommendation in the 100-page report obtained by The Associated Press before its official release. "If we do not, our party's appeal will continue to shrink."

The endorsement is among dozens of recommendations crafted by party leaders following a months-long self-examination prompted by last year's painful election losses. The report also calls on Republicans to take a harder line with corporate America, loosen political fundraising laws in Washington and in state capitals, and cut in half the number of candidate debates in a shortened 2016 presidential primary calendar.

"When Republicans lost in November, it was a wakeup call," Priebus says in prepared remarks to be delivered Monday at the National Press Club.

The Republican National Committee's shift on minority outreach may be the most visible change in the coming months.

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On the one hand, many Republicans who long have chided Obama for failing to engage their party on the nation's biggest problems are applauding his newfound outreach — part of a concerted effort by the president to mend ties with Congress in hopes of reaching a grand compromise on fiscal issues.

On the other hand, neither side is backing down from entrenched positions that have prevented deals in the past — a status quo scenario that Obama acknowledged could preclude any agreement.

"Ultimately, it may be that the differences are just too wide," he said in an interview broadcast Wednesday on ABC's "Good Morning America."

"It may be that, ideologically, if their position is, 'We can't do any revenue,' or 'We can only do revenue if we gut Medicare or gut Social Security or gut Medicaid, if that's the position, then we're probably not going to be able to get a deal," he said.

"That won't create a crisis," Obama said. "It just means that we will have missed an opportunity."

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The president's plan to stump for his party’s congressional candidates in 2014 is a good idea. While some measures have managed to get passed, he's mostly suffered through the first two months of his second term – and far more of his first – frustrated by Republican filibusters, fake crises, fiscal cliffs, debt ceilings, sequesters, and reflexive opposition (to say nothing of a potential government shutdown later this month).

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His impressive rebound, aided by face-the-facts confrontations with colleagues, helped the government avoid a potential default on its financial obligations — for three months, at least.

It also reassured establishment Republicans who feared the House majority was becoming so unpredictable that it endangered the party.

But the patched-up GOP solidarity and Boehner's ability to pass bills without Democrats' help are certain to be tested again.

Surprising news this past week about a late-2012 economic slump might re-energize arguments over tax increases and impending spending cuts. An even bigger challenge will be the immigration overhaul proposals headed toward Congress.

The nation's highest-ranking Republican, who recently confronted open talk of a possible overthrow, has calmed the waters remarkably, for now.

December was a grim time for Boehner. Rank-and-file Republicans forced him to withdraw in embarrassment from White House negotiations over the much-feared "fiscal cliff," the combination of deep spending cuts and end-of-the year tax increases.

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Then they feed the information into a state Democratic Party database that includes nearly every voter in Minnesota.

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Brownstein is identifying a fault line, not creating it, let alone endorsing it. He raises points that are well worth discussing. But I wince at such a catchy depiction of polarization – even though Brownstein is right about the way particularly wealthy white seniors have gobbled up resources for themselves while denying them to others.

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Time magazine named President Obama its 2012 "Person of the Year," and it makes sense. Just two years ago he came out of the 2010 shellacking battered, his chance at a second term diminished. Instead he put together an astonishing coalition of America's future, and became the first president in 75 years to win more than 50 percent of the vote twice. Aware of historic second-term overreach, most notably when George W. Bush tried to privatize Social Security, Obama says he nonetheless has an ambitious agenda for the next four years.

It would be sad if he launched it by doing what Bush never did: cutting Social Security benefits for seniors by agreeing to a change in cost of living calculations called the chained CPI.

Once a topic for only the wonkiest of wonks, now the intricacies of the chained CPI are being debated by the hackiest of hacks. The bottom line is this: The longer you live, the less your benefits would grow. We still don't know how it would work; anonymous White House sources have promised any deal would include protections for the poorest seniors, the disabled and veterans.

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Well, obviously Democrats won the election, holding the White House, increasing their lead in the Senate and picking up seats in the House. But while some Republicans promised to commence soul-searching about why most Americans rejected their message, their right-wing flank, and the plutocrats who fund them, are only getting crazier. That leaves victorious Democrats looking for ways to placate them, instead of looking for ways to exercise their mandate. This seems wrong.

I mean, how do you explain the phenomenon of President Obama winning Michigan by 10 points, and the state GOP's very next political move is passing unpopular right-to-work legislation in a lame duck session, before they concede seats to Democrats (and some less crazy Republicans) in January? That flies in the face of the way the political system is supposed to work. The electorate speaks; their servants listen.

But instead, Gov. Rick Snyder, who once promised not to back right-wing right-to-work legislation, instead backed rushing it through, to applause from his friends at ALEC, Americans for Prosperity and the Koch brothers. The point is to slash wages as well as to defund an institutional pillar of the Democratic Party. No retreat, no surrender.

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I supported Hillary Clinton in 2008. Smarter people than I believe she will run in 2016, despite her protests, and I mostly hope she does. Chances are I would support her again. There is no other strong certain candidate in the field. Vice President Biden and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo are likely to stay out of the race if she runs. Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley probably would, or should, too. He doesn't have the stature to successfully challenge her. And there's no obvious liberal or progressive star to date. Talk about a run by, say, Massachusetts Sen.-elect Elizabeth Warren seems premature to me, as much as I admire her: Let's give her a little time in the Senate to make a difference before pushing her onto the national stage. Of course, it's still quite early, and an inspiring figure may well emerge who could give Clinton an energetic run from the left. Almost nobody was betting on Sen. Barack Obama on Dec. 4, 2005. So we'll see.

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One day, when he was in his teens, he said to himself, “Look here, Skinch Painter, this old world owes you a living, and all you’ve got to do is collect it.” Wandering the Ozarks of Missouri, he inhabited a cave and relied on nature for his food and clothing. He hunted, fished and gathered nuts and berries, wearing only animal skins and going barefoot.

“Labor is a useless sin,” said Skinch. “The time a man spends working is just so much time lost from living.”

We can just about see Fox News sending a camera crew out to interview Skinch, and one of its handsomely paid straight men wrapping up the piece with an offhand, “See, you don’t need government handouts. If you don’t want to work, you can do what this guy does. At least he’s not a taker. The rest of us in this country, we’ll continue to work for a living.”

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“Just to close loopholes is far too little money,” Pelosi said in the interview. “If it’s going to bring in revenue, the president has been very clear that the higher income people have to pay their fair share.”

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Estimates suggest that, between political party spending and super PAC largess around the presidential and congressional races, this past election cost as much as $6 billion.  That is just astonishing.  And astonishingly wasteful.

Karl Rove alone raised and spent upward of $400 million to influence the election.  Instead, Rove and the hidden donors behind his super PAC could have given over $1,500 to every unemployed person in Virginia — that is, he could have actually done something good with the money, and maybe won the state.  Leave aside the fact that Republicans oppose unemployment assistance; the point is, our electoral spending is wildly out of proportion with the realities of voters and even the proportions of the recent past.  In 2004, the record $1 billion in campaign spending made headlines and set records.  Now we’ve eclipsed that sixfold.

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The top priority for Congress as it reconvenes this week is to deal with the so-called fiscal cliff, and progressives are worried that Obama and congressional Democrats may agree to a “grand bargain” that includes cuts to social safety net programs, especially Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, or gives a tax break to the wealthy.

Progressive activists are now preparing to turn the firepower they marshaled to reelect the president against him if he looks like he's backing down on his mandate, as they see it, to preserve the social safety net and raise taxes on the wealthy.

“Our members are really really fired up to fight alongside of him and fight Republicans who are holding the economy hostage,” Ilya Sheyman of MoveOn.org told Salon. “But at the same time, it is also true that we have a very clear bright line from our members on Social Security and Medicare. That’s the top priority for our membership and we’re staying fully mobilized.”

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