When a presidential campaign gets to the general election, party nominees will often pick running mates whose job it is to aggressively go after the other candidate. There are a few reasons for this, most notably that it helps a ticket go negative while creating some distance between the presidential candidate and the attacks. Obviously, […]
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: * Hillary Clinton’s campaign unveiled its first TV ad of the season, which will hit the Iowa airwaves today. The spot, which is called “Invisible,” is quite good. “If you’re a family that […]
Richard Cohen is often wrong about a great number of things, but this is just silly. In this already dismal presidential campaign, where nary an original idea has been broached, Rudy Giuliani said something remarkable the other day. When asked if he is a “traditional, practicing, Roman Catholic,” the former mayor of New York essentially […]
I finally got around to reading Ron Brownstein’s piece from a couple of days ago, and he subtly points to a political reality that, for reasons that escape me, has gone largely unnoticed. Shays and Graham embody the two forms of dissent from the dominant conservative orthodoxy in the modern Republican Party. In one category […]
For a man who no one seriously believes should be Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales seems to be acquiring more power, not less. Two weeks ago, under the administration’s FISA “fix,” the AG’s office obtained new auditing authority over warrantless surveillance. This week, the AG’s office is poised to get the authority to “fast track” death […]
Human Events, a ridiculously-conservative political magazine, recently reported, “Quietly but systematically, the Bush Administration is advancing the plan to build a huge NAFTA Super Highway, four football-fields-wide, through the heart of the U.S. along Interstate 35, from the Mexican border at Laredo, Tex., to the Canadian border north of Duluth, Minn.” It’s hard to understand […]
Today’s edition of quick hits. * Most of the Democratic presidential campaigns issued statements noting Karl Rove’s resignation from the White House, but John Edwards’ campaign had the shortest, most direct response: “Goodbye, good riddance.” That was literally the entire statement. Nicely played. * PoliticsTV put together a video montage of Rove’s “greatest hits.” It’s […]
From time to time, I’ve taken issue with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews for all kinds of on-air comments, all of them political. But this clip, from Friday’s Hardball, had less to do with politics and more to do with misogyny. (via Melissa McEwan) This is more than just creepy, it’s possibly even sexual harassment. Erin Burnett […]
Back in 2001, Republican activist Linda Chavez was Bush’s first choice to serve as Secretary of Labor, looking out for the interests of working people nationwide. She ran into a little trouble when the White House learned that Chavez failed tell the Bush gang about housing a Guatemalan woman whom she hired illegally to clean […]
I found Howard Kurtz’s WaPo column today quite frustrating. Rudy Giuliani has appeared on only one Sunday talk show this year: “Fox News Sunday.” Fred Thompson has made eight television appearances in 2007, all on Fox News, six of them sit-downs with Sean Hannity, who sometimes campaigns for GOP candidates. Mitt Romney has chatted on […]