Be prepared to hear about this, over and over again, for quite a while. If Barack Obama wins the Democratic nomination, it will be the staple of every Republican stump speech between now and Election Day. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., was the most liberal senator in 2007, according to National Journal’s 27th annual vote ratings. […]
In Bush’s Bubble, we’re ‘absolutely’ stronger
The very first question at last night’s debate for the remaining Republican presidential candidates was actually kind of interesting. Borrowing a Reagan line from 1980, Anderson Cooper asked, “[A]re Americans better off than they were eight years ago?” Not surprisingly, the GOP hopefuls didn’t seem anxious to talk about it. White House Press Secretary Dana […]
No, Clinton does not want to ‘slow down our economy’
ABC News’ Jake Tapper has caused quite a stir with an item this morning about a speech Bill Clinton delivered yesterday in Denver. In a long, and interesting speech, he characterized what the U.S. and other industrialized nations need to do to combat global warming this way: “We just have to slow down our economy […]
Homeless veterans bringing their fight to Bill O’Reilly — directly
Following up on an item from a couple of weeks ago, Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly told his television audience recently that John Edwards was wrong to assert that there are 200,000 homeless U.S. military veterans. He told his viewers “there’s not many of them out there,” and said he would intervene to help veterans sleeping […]
Unsafe in any election
Following up on a brief item from yesterday, it’s probably worth noting that a certain third party candidate is moving forward with plans for a fourth presidential campaign. (Apparently, the results of the first three weren’t quite clear enough.) Ralph Nader, the consumer advocate who ran for president in 2000 and 2004, said he is […]
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: * California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has said he expected to stay neutral in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, but apparently made a decision after Rudy Giuliani withdrew: “Schwarzenegger will endorse John […]
An Attorney General with a high tolerance for law-breaking
When Alberto Gonzales would periodically stop by the Senate Judiciary Committee for oversight hearings, it was extraordinarily painful. The bulk of the poor schmo’s answers, when he wasn’t feigning a faulty memory, were so breathtakingly dishonest, it was almost comical. Michael Mukasey, in this sense, is a breath of fresh air. His callous disregard for […]
Making the case for a McCain match-up
Now that Democrats feel pretty confident about which Republican they’re going to face in November, the race for the Democratic nomination appears poised to enter a slightly different phase: Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will probably start making the case that they can beat John McCain in a general election, and their rival can’t. To […]
Maybe McCain is struggling to remember Bush’s first term
In 2001 and 2003, Bush pushed two massive tax-cut packages through Congress, with near-universal Republican support. Indeed, it was something akin to a GOP fealty test — to vote for the White House tax cuts was to be a good Republican. In the Senate, two GOP lawmakers balked — Lincoln Chafee, who later left the […]
I watch the debates, so you don’t have to
After skipping a couple of Republican presidential candidate debates lately, I thought it was time to get back in the game. After all, the field is down to just four candidates, which led me to believe that last night’s event, at the Reagan Library in California, might be a little more substantive than most. Indeed, […]