Reading the tea leaves, guessing at Clinton’s future

The political world is watching closely for any kind of hints about what Hillary Clinton and her campaign are poised to do, if anything. Drop out? Suspend? Endorse? Drop out and not endorse? Fight on to the convention? There are probably only a handful of people who really know for sure what’s going to happen, […]

Obama seems anxious to drive McCain batty

I used to worry a bit that Barack Obama’s above-the-fray style might not be assertive enough for a rough-and-tumble general election campaign against an aggressive Republican machine. I’m increasingly confident that my concerns were misplaced — Obama seems to enjoy going on the offensive against John McCain. Last week, Obama went after McCain on the […]

‘We are not blinking!’

Retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the onetime commander of U.S. troops in Iraq, in his new book, shares an anecdote about the president that probably won’t surprise anyone, but is nevertheless discomforting. Among the anecdotes in “Wiser in Battle: A Soldier’s Story” is an arresting portrait of Bush after four contractors were killed in […]

Bill Kristol, the gift that keeps on giving

It’s just about reached the point for me that I look forward to Bill Kristol’s NYT columns. What kind of embarrassing mistakes will he make this week? How much more damage can he do to the reputation of the nation’s best newspaper? How similar will his content be to that of random conservative blogs? This […]

Monday’s campaign round-up

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: * On the superdelegate front, there’s been some movement since Friday at noon. If my count is right, Barack Obama has picked up four (Nevada’s Yvonne Gates, Virginia’s Jerome Wiley Segovia, Connecticut’s Nancy […]

A nation full of appeasers

The McCain campaign and its Republican allies really seem to believe Barack Obama’s willingness to talk to rival foreign governments is a serious issue that voters will reject. This seemed to begin in earnest, as a campaign matter, when Still-President Bush went after Obama in a speech to Israel’s Knesset, and it’s been a principal […]

Shifting staff, shifting rationales

There’s been quite a bit of talk this morning about reported changes in the Clinton campaign’s staff. Members of Hillary Clinton’s advance staff received calls and emails this evening from headquarters summoning them to New York City Tuesday night, and telling them their roles on the campaign are ending, two Clinton staffers tell my colleague […]

McCain continues to shift with the wind

Update: This post has been updated, expanded, and broken down by category. It’s been about a month since we last explored John McCain’s many, many policy reversals (a.k.a., flip-flops), but thankfully, the Republican candidate running as a principled, consistent conservative, who refuses to pander or shift with the wind, continues to give us plenty of […]

Why the Democratic race may continue beyond the finish line

By most counts, Barack Obama is about 46 delegates shy of the threshold needed for the Democratic presidential nomination. After tomorrow’s contests in Montana and South Dakota, he’ll probably be around 20 or so delegates shy of the magic number. So, if 20 or so superdelegates endorse Obama once the final primaries are complete, he’ll […]

Clinton cruises to easy win in Puerto Rico

It hardly comes as a surprise, but the Puerto Rico primary was far from a competitive contest. Hillary Rodham Clinton won a lopsided, but largely symbolic victory Sunday in Puerto Rico’s presidential primary, the final act in a weekend of tumult that pushed Barack Obama tantalizingly close to the Democratic presidential nomination. […] With 93 […]