Month: February 2008
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Yglesias reads McCain’s mind again
Matthew Yglesias, who backed off the last time he claimed to read John McCain’s mind, is again stretching it with the claim that McCain “doesn’t even care about the economic challenges facing the country”: If reporters start judging McCain by their usual rules, then he’ll have to turn himself into in just another carefully-hedging pol.
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NYT admits perceptions of bias
One interesting aspect of the controversy over John McCain’s possible/alleged affair with a lobbyist is that it’s forced the New York Times to admit that the newspaper is loathed by many conservatives: Later in the day, one of Mr. McCain’s senior advisers directed strong criticism at The Times in what appeared to be a deliberate
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Frank Luntz’s “make love” comment
The Republican pollster Frank Luntz needs to keep his weird fantasies to himself: On Hannity & Colmes, while conducting a focus group analysis of the February 21 Democratic presidential debate, Frank Luntz asked the focus group participants: “How many of you want [Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton] to really argue? Raise your hands.” Luntz
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Mark Penn: Still absurd
The Politico’s Ben Smith quotes more silly Mark Penn spin: “It would be hard to imagine a nominee from this party who didn’t win” any of a series of big states — New York, Massachusetts, Michigan, Florida, Texas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. (I’m not sure whether he mentioned California, but obviously that’s on the list.) But
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Bill Richardson’s campaign debt
Can Bill Richardson possibly expect to raise much money with this email? I am writing to you today because we still have a substantial debt left from the campaign. It is my firm intention to meet every obligation we incurred. But I need your help. Will you make one more contribution to help us zero
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My friends are talented
You should know that “The Hollywoody Show,” a satirical online video series about entertainment co-produced by my friend (and former Spinsanity co-editor) Ben Fritz, is now featured on the newly launched Comedy.com. (Woody first appeared on Dateline Hollywood, the satirical entertainment news site that Ben co-edits.) Also, Julie Buxbaum, one of my wife’s best friends
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NY Post’s “Clinton Alamo” graphic
Via Angus at Kids Prefer Cheese, a fantastic New York Post photo composite of your favorite dynastic couple: Amusing, and much classier than their offensive “surrender monkeys” cover from 2006:
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New Obama support graphs
Following up on my post on where Obama is winning and losing, here are some updated graphs breaking down his support at the state level. First, here’s a plot of a flexible polynomial fitted to state two-candidate vote totals by date — you can see the upward trajectory in Obama’s support levels, though the line
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Ron Paul: The elephant in the room
I’m usually a hater when it comes to people floating third-party scenarios, but why isn’t anyone talking about a Ron Paul third-party run? What is he going to do with all that money? He can’t possibly spend it all on his lame ads, can he?
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Return of “Taliban wing” jargon
Josh Marshall resuscitates an unwelcome bit of liberal jargon by referring to the so-called “Taliban wing” of the Republican party: The truth is that there’s little apparent difference between Obama’s position [on Israel] and Hillary’s or, for that matter, anyone else in the mainstream of the Democratic party or most of the non-Taliban wing of