Alas, the National Day of Prayer event was largely anticlimactic. I was hoping for a few scandalous or outrageous comments from Bush before a friendly evangelical audience, but like my friend Darrell, who alerted me to the online broadcast, I didn’t hear many fireworks. As expected, Bush put on his evangelist-in-chief hat and preached to […]
The Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne devoted much of his excellent column today to chastising Rumsfeld, but he bucked the trend by noting that the buck doesn’t stop at the Pentagon. [D]umping Rumsfeld and Myers is not enough. Ultimately the buck stops with President Bush. No, I don’t think for an instant that Bush knew anything […]
OK, one final word about “web videos” and McCain-Feingold. Yesterday, we talked about the loophole that allows campaigns (specifically the Bush campaign) to create ads that look like TV commercials that are broadcast exclusively online. McCain-Feingold mandates all TV and radio campaign ads feature some kind of “I approve this message” tagline, but because these […]
I continue to watch Roy Moore’s every move, hoping (probably in vain) that the lunatic will actually launch a presidential run and siphon a few votes away from Bush on Election Day. With that in mind, there was a small but interesting story in the Alabama AP yesterday. You’d think that Moore’s ultra-conservative ideology would […]
The Washington Post’s Al Kamen found this gem in Iowa. The Dubuque Herald reports that huge crowds waited for hours Monday for a ticket to see President Bush today in that lovely city. But the tickets apparently weren’t given out on a strictly first-come, first-served basis. One ticket-seeker, Bill Ward, said he waited an hour […]
Maybe someone in the Bush administration should get Colin Powell a cell phone. That way, when there’s something important the Secretary of State ought to know, someone at the White House can call him and let him know. Right now, they seem to be having a little trouble communicating with him. We learned last month, […]
As I mentioned earlier, Bush will be hosting a White House event tonight, celebrating the National Day of Prayer with evangelical Christian leaders. As the Washington Post noted, it’ll be broadcasted, but only to a limited TV audience. For Bush, the broadcast is an opportunity to address a sympathetic evangelical audience without the risk of […]
It’s kind of funny to look back at last year and realize that Howard Dean did John Kerry an enormous favor last fall by opting out of the public campaign financing system. It may turn out to be of those critical moments that are more important in retrospect than at the time. Indeed, Dean’s decision […]
For the longest time, Nevada was effectively off the table when it came to presidential campaigns. From 1968 to 1988, the GOP won the state’s electoral votes every time. They weren’t particularly close, either. As the state’s population grew quickly, however, so too did its significance and unpredictability. Now, like most of the country, Nevada […]
Thanks to everyone who wrote in yesterday with comments about the Bush web video that doesn’t include the “I approve this message” tag line. The consensus seems to be that Bush has, indeed, found a legitimate loophole around the “Stand By Your Ad” provision of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. I apparently missed it, but […]