While some are calling yesterday’s change of policy with regard to contraception coverage a win-win for both the Catholic church and the Obama administration, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops does not see this as a win. Instead, they see it as one small little step, and they are pressing for much, much more.

The first amendment’s protection of religious liberty is not a license for religious organizations or individuals to disregard any law or regulation they don’t like. If the White House wants to end this fight, that’s the argument they’re going to have to make to the public. Instead, they have allowed the USCCB to set the terms of the debate, and the USCCB is quite happy to continue doing so.

This isn’t over, folks. Not by a long shot.

James Dobson’s slam on Newt Gingrich at the recent behind-closed-doors meeting of evangelical Christian leaders grabbed a lot of attention in the press, but no one seems to remember that these two have a past. In 2007, Gingrich went on Dobson’s radio program to confess his history of marital infidelity, and received the blessing of numerous TheoCon leaders for doing so.

Now, though, Dobson appears to have led the charge against Gingrich in that meeting of religious conservatives. Is Dobson repenting for having given Gingrich a platform to try to rebuild in image back in 2007?

Not since 1972 has generation played such a significant role in voter preferences as it has in recent elections. Younger people have voted substantially more Democratic in each election since 2004, while older voters have cast more ballots for Republican candidates in each election since 2006.

A new Pew Research Center study suggests this pattern may well continue in 2012.

A new poll by Demos on young adults finds a strong majority say it’s harder now to make ends meet than four years ago. It even worse for Latinos. That large majorities say they’re worse off indicates Obama will find it difficult to convince these young adults to work on ensuring his reelection.

Because of that failure to finger, and a striking lack of proactive ideas in general, Obama’s Monday White House matinee served up a nothing-burger deluxe—not at all rare these days, I’m afraid, and also not well done. He wasn’t selling the steak, he wasn’t selling the sizzle, and he wasn’t telling a very good story in structural terms, either.

But the president very much needs to tell a story—to construct a narrative—because he very much needs to sell something: himself.

As Obama buys into the deficit hysteria of the GOP, he is endangering not only the social safety net on which millions depend, but also his own particular job. One aspect of the 2012 election calculus that I don’t think Team Obama realizes is that a deal like this will throw away any hope he has of holding onto the Catholic voters that supported him in 2008.

In states like Wisconsin, Illinois, Pennsylvania, New York, Missouri, Ohio, and Florida, Catholics are a sizable chunk of the electorate, and Obama cannot afford to alienate them. If he caves to the GOP on the debt ceiling negotiations and sacrifices Social Security and Medicare to protect the tax gimmicks so beloved by the MOTUs and banksters, these voters will not be happy.

Just let those states sink in: Wisconsin, Illinois, Pennsylvania, New York, Missouri, Ohio, and Florida. Obama’s not going to win them without significant Catholic support, and cutting the social safety net is NOT going to help get those votes.

I’ve spent much of the past twenty-four hours dealing with local Democratic Party functionaries who were trying to shout me and a few other folks down over this issue. Instead of wasting time trying to get people like me to say that the yellow liquid being trickled on us all is just rain and not urine, they would be better served trying to figure out how they can convince the vast apolitical majority of Americans to get into the voting booth — you know, the people who don’t follow the politics of Supreme Court justices but care mightily about their pensions — without being able to honestly deploy the “we’ll save Medicare and Medicaid” hole card.

This week, I am at Netroots Nation #6 in Minneapolis, and I had planned to bring you a video all about one of the themes I saw running through the first day of panels, speeches and briefings. . . I had planned to bring you video, but I am only here through Sunday and that is probably not enough time to upload my usual eight-or-so minutes because the speed of the internet connection here is pre-millennial. . . again.

With increasing and annoying frequency, I’m seeing lazy pieces like this.

The decision by former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee not to seek the Republican nomination is a good sign for President Obama’s re-election prospects, and not simply because it removes one proven politician from the field.