Kerry’s outreach to the military may reap political rewards

Longtime readers know that I’m optimistic that John Kerry can reverse recent trends and improve the Dems’ standing with military voters. In fact, especially after the Dems’ convention, I think this is quietly becoming a key national trend. The men and women of the military are assumed to be Republicans. They’re not. They’re assumed to […]

The Bush campaign’s new plan to deal with job anxiety

We all know Bush’s job creation record has been abysmal and that Bush is poised to be the first president in 70 years to experience a net job loss for his presidency. Unemployment is high, millions of other workers have taken worse jobs than they had before Bush took office, and millions more are worried […]

What is it with Bush and Timken?

Bush was in Ohio (20 electoral votes) again over the weekend, emphasizing his new “turn the corner” campaign theme that he seems so excited about. The interesting thing about the appearance to me — aside from the fact that Bush’s rhetoric sounds a lot like Herbert Hoover’s 70 years ago — was yet another campaign […]

Did Kerry get a bump in the polls? That depends on whom you ask

This year, there were far more reasons that not to believe Kerry’s post-convention “bounce” would be minimal. The Dem base has been with him for months, the number of undecided voters left is relatively small, he announced his running mate well before the convention itself, etc. Most of us thought it’d be great if Kerry […]

What an interesting choice of songs

Dick Cheney was in Colorado today to visit NORAD in Colorado Springs. As part of the appearance, an Air Force band played some music and, in helping to welcome the VP, played Billy Joel’s “You May Be Right.” Considering some of the lyrics, I thought it was an interesting choice: “You may be right, I […]

More coverage of the convention meant better ratings

With what seems to be increased interest in political affairs lately, I was hoping to see television ratings up for the Dem convention this year. Early reports indicated the opposite — ratings were down for the major networks when compared to 2000. But it turns out, the lesson isn’t that Americans were less interested in […]

Mike German, aka, the sequel to Sibel Edmonds

The New York Times had a fascinating/disturbing report today about Mike German, a former FBI agent who sounded like he was key crime-fighting asset, right up until he was forced out of his job for pointing out the agency’s shortcomings. In the early 1990’s, [German] infiltrated a group of white supremacist skinheads plotting to blow […]

Powell joins list of those who spoke to Plame Game investigators

With all that’s going on in the world, it’s sometimes easy to forget the Bush White House is still under a criminal investigation. And while we’ll soon find out if any indictments will be forthcoming — Matt Yglesias seems to think there won’t be — I certainly won’t be able to complain about Patrick Fitzgerald’s […]

In this case, the numbers don’t lie

In case you missed it yesterday, the incomparable Michael Kinsley had a valuable observation in the Washington Post yesterday. Apparently, after realizing that the Dems’ convention wasn’t going to offer him a lot of fodder for his column, Kinsley decided to take a close look at the charts attached to the President’s Economic Report — […]

Bush embraces racial profiling — for journalists

In the 2000 campaign, Bush said, in a rather confusing way, that he’s opposed to racial profiling. “One of the problems I have with oftentimes what’s happening in Washington, D.C., there’s too much group thought; there’s too much attempt to lump people in groups and pit one group of people against another. And that leads […]