Most political observers, regardless of ideology, assume that there will be a Democratic House and Senate next year. It’s too soon to know what to expect from the presidential race, but it’s hardly a stretch to think that come January 2009, there will be a Democratic White House and a Democratic Congress for the first […]
First up from the God machine this week is one of the more painful religious stories I’ve seen in a while. I suspect very few people would ever want to interfere with parents’ rights and the religious upbringing of their children, but this does seem criminal. Police [in Weston, Wis.] are investigating an 11-year-old girl’s […]
OK, new rule for Democratic presidential campaigns: unhelpful praise for John McCain should, from now on, be off limits. Sure, the candidates may get along well with McCain, and McCain may be a nice guy to hang out with, but this is a partisan exercise and a zero-sum game. As much as I love the […]
The significance of high-profile endorsements in a presidential race is certainly debatable, but I’m certain that the Obama campaign was thrilled to pick up Sen. Bob Casey’s (D) support yesterday in Pennsylvania. Casey’s a major player in a key state; he may help Obama connect with white, working-class voters who’ve been skeptical about his candidacy; […]
Today’s edition of quick hits. * It’s Friday afternoon, so it must be time for some White House official to resign in the face of scandal: “An aide to President Bush has resigned because of his alleged misuse of grant money from the U.S. Agency for International Development when he worked for a Cuban democracy […]
Sometimes, you can see a meme coming, but you don’t quite know what to do about it. The meme is big and bad, and likely to do some harm, but there’s no real defense to soften the blow. I’m referring, of course, to the notion that Hillary Clinton is a serial exaggerator. We haven’t heard […]
Just this morning, it started to look to me as if the Democratic floodgates were beginning to crack, in earnest, for the first time. Bob Casey, who had professed neutrality, backed Obama. Howard Dean started publicly expressing his overwhelming patience with the status quo, and then Chris Dodd did the same thing, urging the party […]
By any reasonable measure, the over-analysis and parsing of campaign ads effectively jumped the shark earlier this month, when one conservative blogger started pointing to racist messages on children’s pajamas in Hillary Clinton’s “3 a.m.” ad. I’m disinclined to follow in the same direction. That said, John McCain’s campaign released its very first general-election ad […]
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: * Barack Obama picked up a very helpful endorsement today, earning the support of Sen. Bob Casey (D) of Pennsylvania, “a move that could help the presidential candidate make inroads with white working-class […]
The Jeremiah Wright controversy was — and, arguably, still is — a major threat to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. When voters, especially centrist white voters who hoped Obama might be some kind of post-racial candidate, saw an angry Christian pastor making inflammatory remarks from his church pulpit, it caused some concerns. There was, however, an […]