Right about now, John McCain is wrapping up a discussion on energy and economic policy in Springfield, Missouri, in which the Republican presidential hopeful pushed for expanding oil drilling. In his opening remarks, McCain, predictably, went after Barack Obama, saying, “Instead of new energy production, he wants new energy taxes. And he’s against any tax […]
In at least one sense, I’m glad we’re in the midst of a debate over energy policy. It’s a serious issue, which people really care about, and which has nothing to do with gaffes, symbols, the culture war, or pitting one group of Americans against another. As policy discussions go, this is a good one […]
I have to admit, I found Rudy Giuliani’s presidential campaign enormously entertaining. From the moment he announced I was pretty confident his chances of winning the GOP nomination were about as good as my chances, but he offered humble bloggers like me a seemingly endless supply of mockery material. I was almost sorry to see […]
MSNBC’s political blog featured an item with this headline: “Would bin Laden get habeas rights?” And with that in mind, you can feel pretty confident that the news gets worse from there. In a question posed toward the end of the call by Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard, the McCain campaign might have found […]
Just a few weeks ago, Barack Obama’s critics insisted that he “has a problem with the Latino community,” a charge bolstered by exit polls showing him trailing Hillary Clinton among Hispanic-American voters. Indeed, one of Clinton’s top aides said John McCain has a “very favorable standing with Hispanics because of his position on the immigration […]
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 was some evidence during the Democratic primaries that Barack Obama would struggle in the three biggest swing states — Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. This morning, Quinnipiac released polls from each of […]
I can think of exactly one instance in which a high-profile Democrat tried to make John McCain’s age a political issue. It was in April, when Rep. Jack Murtha (D-Pa.) said the demands of the presidency would be too great for a septuagenarian. “[T]his one guy running is about as old as me,” Murtha said. […]
Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson, Bush’s former chief speechwriter, has spent most of the year devoting his columns to bashing Barack Obama. Today, he mixes things up a bit by bashing a different Democrat he doesn’t like: Senate candidate Al Franken. Consider his article in Playboy magazine titled “Porn-O-Rama!” in which he enthuses that it […]
For those still concerned about U.S. torture policy, yesterday was not an encouraging day. A senior CIA lawyer advised Pentagon officials about the use of harsh interrogation techniques on detainees at Guantanamo Bay in a meeting in late 2002, defending waterboarding and other methods as permissible despite U.S. and international laws banning torture, according to […]
NPR noted in February, “Many Republican voters seem to believe, incorrectly, that the current Republican front-runner, Arizona Senator John McCain, supports abortion rights.” It’s not just Republican voters. McCain has been hailed for so long, by so many news outlets, as a “moderate” willing to break with GOP orthodoxy, a lot of voters just assume […]