That Joe Lieberman endorsed John McCain didn’t surprise me. That Lieberman would appear alongside McCain on the campaign trail, over and over again, barely raised an eyebrow. There are rumors that Lieberman is entertaining a prominent role at the Republican National Convention in September, which seems consistent with his character. But Lieberman’s appearance on “This […]
That Hillary Clinton intends to stay in the presidential race for the next five months is no longer in doubt; the question now becomes what kind of race she’ll run between now and August. On “Meet the Press” yesterday, David Brooks raised an interesting comparison. “I think she should slow down the campaign, run what […]
The Republican response to the mortgage crisis has been, shall we say, a bit of a joke. John McCain has led the way for the party with a plan that is both ineffective and surprisingly callous. The real core of his speech was his argument against government action to help dig distressed homeowners — or […]
On Friday, John McCain’s campaign unveiled its first general-election TV ad — the one that uses the word “American” one too many times — and the Democratic National Committee did what was expected: it responded by criticizing John McCain. It’s what national parties do. It wasn’t even an especially hard-hitting criticism. The DNC statement quoted […]
With about seven months to go before voters choose the next president, Democrats are not only divided over which candidate should get the nomination, they’re divided about whether the fight for the nomination has gone on long enough. Great. We’ve heard plenty of talk this week about the need to wrap things up relatively soon, […]
The conventional wisdom about the role of the war in Iraq in the presidential campaign now appears to be in its third iteration. In early 2007, we were told Iraq would easily be the most important issue in the ’08 cycle. By early 2008, media coverage of the war had slipped badly, the daily violence […]
There had been some talk in isolated circles that Hillary Clinton should seriously consider gracefully bowing out of the presidential race before this week, but the past several days saw the discussion reach an entirely new level. Leading Dems, most notably Pat Leahy and Chris Dodd, have grown increasingly blunt, while many others have grown […]
For all the jokes and mockery directed at the president for his apparent confusion about, well, pretty much every issue, subject, and controversy anyone can think of, it’s sometimes hard to get over the fact that when it comes to the war in Iraq, Bush seems unusually fond of arguments that don’t make a lick […]
Upon his release from prison yesterday, former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman sounded like a man intent on figuring out why partisanship apparently landed him behind bars for nine months. Speaking by telephone in his first post-prison interview, shortly after he had left the federal penitentiary at Oakdale, La., Mr. Siegelman said there had been “abuse […]
Back in January, John McCain admitted to the Wall Street Journal editorial board he “doesn’t really understand economics.” He told the editors, though, that he was nevertheless reliable because his former Senate colleague, Texas’ Phil Gramm, was his chief economic advisor — McCain had even brought Gramm along for the meeting — and the man […]