We’ve heard a lot about labor disassociating itself from the national Democratic Party in a preference to wage battles in the states. Now we’re seeing one of the biggest examples of that. The 2012 Democratic National Convention will happen in Charlotte, North Carolina. There are no union hotels in that city, and North Carolina is a right-to-work state. For unions to participate in the DNC would represent the de facto crossing of a kind of picket line, in support of non-union hotels. The decision has come down – over a dozen unions will sit out the DNC.

I have, and always have had, tremendous respect for Cenk Uygur. His contract with his audience is that he will never put himself in a position where he cannot say what he really thinks. And in turning down MSNBC’s offer to host a weekend show so he could give his audience a fair appraisal of what happened, he honors that contract.

The DNC is focused on the GM and Chrysler headlines, not so much the suppliers, where the bulk of the jobs are. More importantly, the Democrats as a whole don’t seem to be cataloging the many examples where down-ticket Republicans are claiming credit for government investments in new technology that are just now paying off in jobs.

Look, I know it costs a lot of money to mount a national presidential campaign, but this looks absolutely terrible.

Tim Kaine announced he would run for the Virginia Senate seat vacated by Jim Webb, leaving an opening at the Democratic National Committee. President Obama moved swiftly to fill that today by choosing Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

I’d like to follow up on what Jane said this morning. I’ve just got four questions for you.

I don’t know that anything has the potential to galvanize public opinion on the forgotten war in Afghanistan. But if there’s anything out there, the ambush of nine boys collecting firewood would qualify.

This morning the Democratic National Committee announced that its 2012 convention will be held in Charlotte, NC. North Carolina has another distinction: it’s the least union state in the country, with just 3.2% of its workers belonging to a union (coming behind even Arkansas, Georgia, and Mississippi). And the DNC’s host city of Charlotte has exactly 0 (zero) union hotels in which the 15,000+ visitors will stay for the convention. Finally, the host venue in Charlotte, the Time Warner Cable Arena, does not appear to have any union workers.

During the summer of 2006, when Rahm Emanuel and Howard Dean were engaged in a strenuous fight over the future direction of the Democratic Party, I stumbled upon a very astute op-ed in the New York Times by an emerging politician scientist, Daniel Galvin, entitled “How to Grow a Democratic Majority.”

Even Charlie Sheen is embarrassed by the White House communications team.