Over the weekend, John McCain hosted an event at his home, ostensibly as a social occasion, but what actually appeared to be something of an audition opportunity for three possible Republican running mates — Gov. Charlie Crist of Florida, Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, and former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts. By some estimations, Crist […]
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: * There’s been some movement on the superdelegate front over the last 24 hours. If my count is right, Barack Obama has picked up four new supporters, worth 3.5 superdelegate votes — Colorado’s […]
After having first endorsed the decision to strip Florida and Michigan of its convention delegates, the Clinton campaign reversed course and insisted that the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee seat the full delegations from both states, even though voters in the states were told in advance that their votes wouldn’t count, and even though the […]
John Harris noted the other day, “The signature defect of modern political journalism is that it has shredded the ideal of proportionality.” Important stories, resulting after extensive journalistic work, go by unnoticed, while trivial stories — “the kind that are tailor-made for forwarding to your brother-in-law or college roommate with a wisecracking note at the […]
I honestly thought the McCain campaign’s reliance on high-priced corporate lobbyists couldn’t be any more ridiculous. I obviously underestimated the McCain campaign’s propensity for wrongdoing. Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain’s national campaign general co-chair was being paid by a Swiss bank to lobby Congress about the U.S. mortgage crisis at the same time he […]
About two years ago, on the South Lawn of the White House, Bush and Scott McClellan appeared together to announce the press secretary’s departure. After thanking him for his service, the president said, “One of these days he and I are going to be rocking on chairs in Texas, talking about the good old days […]
Today’s edition of quick hits. * Reuters: “Newly diagnosed cases of post-traumatic stress disorder among U.S. troops sent to Iraq and Afghanistan surged 46.4 percent in 2007, bringing the five-year total to more than 38,000, according to U.S. military data released on Tuesday. The statistics, released by the Army, showed the number of new PTSD […]
It’s almost amusing. John McCain’s presidential campaign distributes a daily email to reporters, letting journalists know about the senator’s schedule. The big event, obviously, for McCain today is his event alongside the president of the United States, with whom he has not appeared publicly for months. In this morning’s email, “McCain’s campaign made no mention […]
One of the more glaring and obvious flaws in John McCain’s pitch to voters is that he’s fundamentally running on a more-of-the-same platform when voters are desperate for a change. It appears that McCain has realized it’s to his advantage to break with the president more than he has been. Unfortunately, in this case, McCain […]
Way back last October, Barack Obama tackled the issue of nuclear proliferation, and explained why the U.S. should drastically reduce its stockpiles to lower the threat of nuclear terrorism. The Obama policy was largely in line with the bipartisan approach taken a few months earlier by George Shultz, secretary of state in the Reagan administration; […]