James Webb, a Vietnam veteran and the secretary of the Navy during the Reagan administration, wrote an op-ed for USA Today that’s getting a lot of attention. It deserves it. The point of Webb’s essay is pondering how the “military vote,” particularly that of veterans, will go in 2004. It’s no trivial matter. Republicans have […]
Ralph Nader will officially announce his intentions for the election on Sunday’s Meet the Press. Of course, potential candidates rarely go on the show to announce they’re not running, so the smart money is on him declaring his candidacy.
Roll Call’s Stu Rothenberg has been enjoying the same parlor game I have: picking Dems for Kerry’s ticket. He recognizes the three most obvious names — Edwards, Clark, and Gephardt — but concludes that there’s already plenty of speculation about them, so “there’s not much point wasting time on them.” Fair enough. And Rothenberg completely […]
The widely-respected Pew Research Center released a very interesting survey yesterday, reinforcing what many of us have been saying for months: the nominating process is helping the Dems, not hurting them. So far, the presidential primary campaign has been very good for the Democratic Party. Public interest in the race has been relatively high. Nearly […]
I’m inclined to agree with Sens. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) on extremely rare occasions, but I happen to like their proposal to alter the current line of presidential succession. I know; I can’t believe it either. Lott and Cornyn are arguing that the current line suffers from serious flaws, most notably including […]
I noticed that three blog heavyweights — Mark Kleiman, Eugene Volokh, and Glenn Reynolds — have commented on the comparison between Roy Moore’s Ten Commandments crusade in Alabama and Gavin Newsom’s gay marriage initiative in San Francisco. In light of my ongoing interest in Moore, I wanted to weigh in. At first blush, the comparison […]
Every couple of years, we hear about a new demographic that will be critical in the next election. Soccer moms and office-park dads were all-the-rage, but lately, NASCAR dads have been enjoying plenty of attention. The whole point of labeling these groups is to isolate constituencies that are willing to back either party’s candidates. You’ll […]
It’s as if the network wants to be humiliated. There’s no other way to explain it. Earlier this month, we learned that the Bush administration was launching a massive taxpayer-funded television ad campaign to promote its Medicare bill. Instead of using $9.5 million from the Health and Human Services budget to provide health care for […]
I remember when Howard Dean first started running for president in 2002, his support for Vermont’s civil unions law was supposed to be an almost disqualifying part of his record. Dean refused to back gay marriage, but his signature on the state’s civil unions bill — which came, effectively, under court order — allegedly put […]
The AWOL scandal has obviously faded a bit. That’s a shame, because there are key questions that remain unanswered. Realistically, though, it’s hard not to notice that the controversy isn’t dominating the way it was just a week ago at this time. I think there are probably at least three reasons for this. One, the […]