I have to admit, the Bush administration has been playing the politics of this one better than I expected. Sure, it’s an intellectually dishonest approach, but politically, I think this might work. Shortly after the White House rammed its Medicare bill through Congress, the administration came clean and admitted that its $400 billion program will […]
Any hopes the Dems may have had of winning back the Senate majority looked pretty bleak a few months ago, when five of the six Southern Dems up for re-election this year announced they’re retiring. We were at an inherent disadvantage anyway — 19 of the 34 states with Senate elections this year are currently […]
The Bush campaign unveiled its sixth TV ad of the season yesterday, and like the previous five, BC04 continues to avoid referencing even one Bush accomplishment. And what do you do when you can’t run ads touting your own successes? You tear down the other guy. The funny thing about Bush’s latest spot, called “Troops,” […]
Obviously, the presidential race will generate the lion’s share of political attention this year, but the race for Illinois’ Senate seat will be as captivating as any campaign in the nation. Democrat Barack Obama came from behind in the final month before yesterday’s primary to crush his six rivals, winning the primary with a surprising […]
For a guy who isn’t officially campaigning for president, Roy Moore keeps up an usually busy schedule in several key states. Everyone’s favorite theocrat was in Ohio (20 electoral votes) yesterday, speaking before a packed crowd at the Ashland University Convocation Center. Moore reportedly gave his standard stump speech. “We think an acknowledgment of God […]
Now: “If you’re going to make an accusation in the course of a presidential campaign, you ought to back it up with facts,” Bush told reporters in the Oval Office. Then: On May 3, 2000, Texas Gov. George W. Bush alleged that Vice President Al Gore was once a member of the National Rifle Association. […]
When asked to explain the largest budget deficits in the history of the world, President Bush generally relies on a series of unpersuasive excuses, starting with the economic downturn that turned into a recession shortly after he took office in 2001. The New York Times reported today on a report from nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office […]
It’s too damn easy to run out of adjectives with these guys. Shameless, brazen, callous, offensive, disturbing, nauseating, insulting… Ezra Klein noticed a stunning paragraph in this Time article about the election. Administration sources tell TIME that employees at the Department of Homeland Security have been asked to keep their eyes open for opportunities to […]
Just to follow up on an idea I raised two weeks ago, I’ve noticed that Wesley Clark, unlike other former Kerry rivals, is still being utilized by the Kerry campaign as a key surrogate. For example, Clark is in Ohio today, a critically important state with 20 electoral votes. He’ll be speaking on Kerry’s behalf […]
It’s fun, in an academic sense, to watch the ebb and flows of a White House scandal. As controversies go, the flap over whether Bush actually showed up for National Guard duty during Vietnam followed an unusual trajectory. First of all, it took several years to become a full-blown scandal. Plenty of us knew there […]