I remember the good ol’ days, sometimes called “2005,” when Mike Huckabee was fairly reasonable on immigration. He supported in-state college tuition for children of illegal immigrants and opposed an immigration raid of a poultry plant that led to the deportation of illegal immigrants. More recently, he endorsed Bush’s immigration policy, denounced in right-wing circles […]
The NYT’s David Brooks has an interesting column today comparing and contrasting Barack Obama and John McCain. I’m not entirely sure if it’s a good column, but it’s interesting. Obama emphasizes the connections between people, the networks and the webs of influence. These sorts of links are invisible to some of his rivals, but Obama […]
Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers: * Final Rasmussen numbers out of New Hampshire for the GOP: McCain 32%, Romney 31%, Huckabee 10%. Final Zogby: McCain 36%, Romney 27%, Huckabee 10%. * Final Rasmussen numbers out of New Hampshire […]
It’s fair to say that most neutral observers, looking at the state of the Democratic race objectively, would agree that Barack Obama has become the front runner for the nomination. It’s hardly a done deal, but given the circumstances, the smart money is on the senator from Illinois. That said, I think the talk about […]
One gets the sense, listening to the far-right lately, that they’re gearing up to attack Barack Obama with gusto, but they haven’t quite figured out what the message is. I don’t doubt they’ll settle on something ugly, but at this point, while the race on both sides is still in flux, we seem to have […]
After generating a limited amount of interest — probably a small fraction of what organizers had hoped for — New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg led a group discussion in Oklahoma yesterday with elders from the Democratic and Republican parties. The purpose of the forum, apparently, was to “denounce the extreme partisanship of Washington and […]
The Brookings Institution’s Michael O’Hanlon, a supporter of Bush’s Iraq policy who was advising Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, has been wrong about the war pretty consistently since, well, the beginning. But that doesn’t seem to stop him from weighing in on the issue at every available opportunity. In his latest salvo, O’Hanlon takes on Barack […]
Once the interest in Hillary Clinton’s tears had run its course, the political world quickly shifted its attention late yesterday to some odd remarks about Clinton, Obama, LBJ, and Martin Luther King. First, a little context. At Saturday night’s debate, Clinton warned of the dangers associated with “false hope.” Yesterday, Obama told a New Hampshire […]
Today’s edition of quick hits. * I wonder what the whole story is here: “Iran’s Foreign Ministry said Monday that a confrontation between Iranian boats and U.S. Navy ships in the Persian Gulf over the weekend was ‘something normal’ and was resolved. It suggested the Iranian boats had not recognized the U.S. vessels. The Pentagon […]
Following up on an item from a few weeks ago, crying has come a long way in politics. In 1972, Ed Muskie wept outside the offices of the New Hampshire Union Leader, and it was, at the time, a political disaster. Americans just weren’t ready to tolerate grown men in leadership positions emoting like this […]