Month: February 2008
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John McCain: Problem solver
I love John McCain’s take on how to solve the deadlock in Congress on warrantless wiretaps: Senator John McCain of Arizona, the Republican presidential hopeful, weighed in on the debate. When Mr. McCain learned that the House had voted down a 21-day extension and that the powers were likely to lapse at midnight Friday, he
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Penn: Obama hasn’t won “significant” states
Via Josh Marshall, Mark Penn is spinning again — check out this silly quote: “Could we possibly have a nominee who hasn’t won any of the significant states — outside of Illinois?” Chief Strategist Mark Penn said. “That raises some serious questions about Sen. Obama.” As I’ve shown, it’s true that Obama has not done
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What is Mark Penn talking about?
Mark Penn, the pollster who serves as Hillary Clinton’s chief strategist, is a notorious spinner, but does he really expect us to accept the sort of claims he’s making to justify Hillary’s electability? In a memo touting Clinton’s electoral strength, Penn claimed that “Hillary Clinton has withstood the full brunt of [the “GOP attack machine”]
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Ron Paul’s “NAFTA superhighway” myth
Factcheck.org debunks one of Ron Paul’s pet conspiracy theories: Paul claims that a secret conspiracy composed of the Security and Prosperity Partnership and a cabal of foreign companies is behind plans to build a NAFTA Superhighway as the first step toward creating a North American Union. But the NAFTA Superhighway that Paul describes is a
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The incoherence of John McCain
For those of you who haven’t yet read Matt Welch’s McCain: The Myth of a Maverick, Jon Chait’s new TNR story on the ideological incoherence of the supposed “straight talker” is well worth a read. (See also Welch’s critique of various endorsements of McCain by newspaper editorial boards.)
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“Obama Proof Stocks” ad
This Google ad just showed up in my sidebar: Lovely. I expect we’ll be seeing more of this if Obama takes the Democratic nomination. (To be fair, however, the website for the shady newsletter the ad is promoting actually says “Whether Democrat or Republican – Clinton or Romney – Huckabee or Obama – if you
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Obama support post updated
Though it looks like there isn’t new content, I actually updated the post on Obama’s support below several times today so please check out the new material.
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Where Obama is winning and losing
There’s been some debate among pundits about where Barack Obama has been successful and why. To try to make some sense of what’s going on, I decided to actually look at the data. (My pundit card will soon be revoked.) One issue is how to compare across states given the change in the number of
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Unlikely Huckabee third-party speculation
With John McCain’s lock on the GOP nomination deflating elite interest in Michael Bloomberg, pundits have to look elsewhere to engage in pointless speculation about third-party presidential candidacies. Bizarrely, Robert Wright suggested on Bloggingheads that Mike Huckabee might run — an unlikely idea that was immediately squashed by Huckabee’s statement today on “Meet the Press”
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Romney’s “surrender” quote
As others have noted, Mitt Romney justified his exit from the Republican presidential race yesterday by smearing advocates of withdrawal from Iraq as wanting to “surrender to terror”: If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely