The Washington Post’s Suzy Khimm quotes Will Marshall on Jack Kemp and Empower America:
“What the Empower America folks wanted to do is move beyond the green eyeshade, balance-the-budget message of traditional conservatism. They didn’t want to have simply a negative narrative about government,” said Will Marshall, who headed a similar policy shop for Clinton’s New Democrats.
Marshall also pointed out that Kemp went out of his way to advocate for new ways of helping low-income Americans. He proposed creating specially targeted business and income-tax breaks in designated “enterprise zones” of high poverty as an alternative to direct government handouts.
It’s a rare event when a Senate contest affects a presidential campaign—or indeed, an entire election cycle. But for the moment, that’s what seems to have happened in Missouri, thanks to freshly minted GOP nominee Todd Akin’s witless talk about abortion and rape, and his determination (so far) to stay in the race despite threats and importuning from practically the entire Republican Party and conservative movement (with the exception of a few Christian Right colleagues). Most immediately, Akin’s big mistake has demolished what Republicans thought to be their most promising Senate takeover opportunity this year. Shortly after his primary win over two other major conservative opponents earlier this month, Akin, long considered the weakest of the available candidates, had already opened up a big lead over Sen. Claire McCaskill, and was beginning to consolidate conservative support very rapidly. Now a new 
Without question, the big election-related event of the last week was the surprising announcement—both its content and its timing, before the Summer Olympics had ended—of Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney’s running-mate. I cannot recall any such event that (a) had so pervasive an immediate impact on the party in question’s general election strategy, and (b) was welcomed with such joy by activists in both parties.
There were two state primaries on July 31, in Georgia and Texas (actually a runoff for candidates failing to secure a majority in May). The latter got the lion’s share of national attention, with the predictable if not universally predicted victory of former state solicitor general Ted Cruz over Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst for the GOP Senate nomination.
PPI’s Will Marshall detailed Mitt Romney’s recent adventure in the world of foreign policy over at The American Interest. Romney was able to stumble his way through a trip to Britain, Israel, and Poland all while offering very little in the form of substantive policies focusing more on criticisms of President Obama’s foreign policy.
The last week has continued the earlier pattern of daily fireworks in the presidential contest (excepting a brief pause in hostilities immediately after the Aurora massacre), but little if any significant movement in the polls. As anyone near a battleground state television can attest, the Obama campaign (and the Priorities USA super PAC) has continued harsh personal attacks on Mitt Romney as an out-of-touch rich man with no emotional connection with the middle class or interest in its aspirations, who is furthermore determined to cut taxes for people like him. The Romney campaign (which is now beginning to get advertising reinforcement from the very deep pockets of conservative super PACs) has responded harshly with a battery of ads and campaign speeches focusing on a clip from an Obama speech in Roanoke wherein he supposedly disrespected the personal contributions to the economy of entrepreneurs (in fact he was paraphrasing a well-known litany by Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren about the reliance of private businesses on public services and investments). It’s not entirely clear whether this intense barrage is intended simply to reinforce the general and long-standing Republican critique of Obama as someone who does not understand how the economy works and believes government is the source of all good things, or is more narrowly targeted at undermining Obama’s relatively strong standing with upscale, college-educated voters.
Despite the languorous weather and the decamping of many Americans to Vacationland, the election season is staying lively, and will probably remain so at least until the Olympics begin on July 27.
Will Marshall compiled four positive economic stories for Real Clear Politics that President Obama should be making better use of in his campaign for re-election. From farming to exports there are positive signs in the economy according to Marshall.
Editor’s note: This item is cross-posted from 
The presidential nominating contest officially came to a close on Tuesday with Utah’s primary—a reminder that this winner-take-all state was Mitt Romney’s ultimate fallback had the last real competitor standing, Rick Santorum, been able to make the Midwestern breakthrough he was so close to achieving.
PPI Senior Fellow Anne Kim writes for The Hill on the record number of women running for Congress and their potential impact on Capitol Hill:
This week’s skirmishing in the presidential campaign revolved around the president’s immigration initiative and preparations for the Supreme Court’s decision on the Affordable Care Act, due to be handed down next week.
explains how to de-polarize Congress over at Roll Call: