Fortunately, no one was hurt, but it appears that someone detonated a small explosive device outside a military recruiting station in Times Square early this morning. Nearly as interesting was how ideologues chose to exploit the incident for political gain. A small explosion damaged a U.S. military recruiting station but caused no injuries in New […]
A house divided against itself can apparently win several primaries
There have been several interesting stories of late offering behind-the-scenes looks at the turmoil inside Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. It’s the ultimate in inside-baseball — the typical voter surely couldn’t care less about staffers’ infighting — but for political observers who follow this stuff, we’ve learned plenty of late about Clinton aides who’ve practically come […]
Thursday’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: * For my money, the biggest problem in Democratic presidential politics isn’t whether Clinton and Obama will destroy one another, but rather, what’s going to happen with Florida and Michigan: “The governors of […]
Military officials worried about McCain’s ‘knee-jerk response factor’
Last night, Bob Dole told Larry King that he recognizes John McCain’s temperament problem, but he “always sort of rationalized that because the poor guy had been locked up” as a prisoner of war during Vietnam. McCain’s temper, Dole said, is “not a problem anymore.” It didn’t sound like a ringing endorsement. There have been […]
CNN praises Ms. McCain for being ‘perfect’ — but leaves out some details
CNN’s Anderson Cooper has an item about John McCain’s wife that doesn’t sound especially objective or neutral. The headline reads, “Can Cindy McCain really be that perfect?” Seriously. (I’m trying to imagine the conservative apoplexy if an on-air CNN personality ran an item with the headline, “Can Michelle Obama really be that perfect?”) She’s always […]
The man McCain is ‘very proud’ to be associated with
OK, I’ve just about given up. John McCain actively sought the support of an anti-Catholic, anti-gay, anti-Muslim, anti-woman, and anti-Semitic televangelist, and despite widespread condemnations from a variety of circles, reporters simply won’t cover the story or push McCain for an explanation. As Andrew Sullivan put it, John Hagee is “a white Farrakhan, but the […]
‘NAFTA-gate’ story takes unexpected turn
Just when I thought I’d gotten a handle on the so-called “NAFTA-gate” story, it takes an unexpected turn. Some Canadian news outlets reported last week that Barack Obama’s campaign had reached out to Canadian officials, telling them to effectively ignore Obama’s concerns about NAFTA, claiming the rhetoric was just political posturing. Those reports turned out […]
McCain starts general election phase at decided disadvantage
Obviously, it’s early March. We’re nowhere near knowing who the Democratic nominee is going to be, and the candidates have barely begun trying to destroy one another. The Republican Attack Machine is still sharpening its fangs. The Republican nominee is just now starting to consolidate his party’s various factions. But with all of those caveats […]
Wednesday’s Mini-Report
Today’s edition of quick hits. * Following up on a point raised by my friend Sarabeth, NBC News crunched the Dems’ popular vote numbers after yesterday’s contests. In DNC-sanctioned contests (sans Florida and Michigan), Obama still leads Clinton by 600,000 votes, 12.9 million to 12.3 million. Even with Florida in the mix, Obama is ahead […]
What might an Obama offensive look like?
We’ve all been hearing talk since this morning that, given yesterday’s primary results, Barack Obama will have no choice but to start going negative (or, in the vernacular, “drawing sharper contrasts”) against Hillary Clinton. But what, exactly, does that mean? There’s a qualitative difference between going negative (hardball) and going hard-negative (dirtyball). What’s Obama prepared […]