Brendan Nyhan

Month: February 2008

  • Hillary campaign references “Hussein”

    In a rapid response blog post this morning, Hillary’s campaign refers to Barack Obama, whose middle name is Hussein, as “BHO” in a transcript of an Obama appearance on CNN that is rendered as follows: ROBERTS: Senator, she suggests that you’re falling short here by mandating coverage for children but not mandating it for their

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  • Obama music: An overlooked gem

    Everyone is talking about the “Yes We Can” music video supporting Barack Obama, but we shouldn’t forget an early classic of the genre — Jin’s “Open Letter 2 Obama”. As I said back in June, I bet you’ve never heard “higher fuel-efficiency standards” in a rap song before… Update 2/5 1:07 PM: Via my brother-in-law,

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  • Strange Mitt Romney banter

    I don’t trust stories from the campaign bus/plane, but this anecdote about Mitt Romney trying to make small talk with a Star Wars reference is bizarre: Mr. Romney has been making more of an effort to cultivate the news media as part of his refashioned candidacy. When he sauntered back onto a flight on Saturday,

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  • Projecting the 2008 election

    In the New York Times today, Edmund Andrews mentions that the firm Global Insight is predicting the GOP will only get 46 percent of the presidential vote: “From a political point of view, the job market is not going to provide a lot of comfort at election time, especially for Republicans,” said Nariman Behravesh, chief

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  • Luntz exaggerates SOTU tax cut “average”

    Oh, the echo chamber. During the State of the Union, President Bush offered one of his trademark misleading “average” tax cut statistics: Unless Congress acts, most of the tax relief we’ve delivered over the past seven years will be taken away. Some in Washington argue that letting tax relief expire is not a tax increase.

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  • Bill Kristol: McCain responsible for surge

    Bill Kristol — who backed McCain strongly in 1999-2000 — overplays his hand, claiming “no McCain, no surge”: One might add a special reason that conservatives — and the nation — owe John McCain at least a respectful hearing. Only a year ago, we were headed toward defeat in Iraq. Without McCain’s public advocacy and

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  • John McCain: Old

    This is like a “yo mama” joke: John McCain is so old that his campaign had to take out a special life insurance policy on him to secure a loan from a bank last November.

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  • Another dynastic Obama endorsement

    Following in Caroline Kennedy’s footsteps, Susan Eisenhower has endorsed Barack Obama in a Washington Post op-ed. Fascinating! Who’s going to find out what Tricia Nixon and Amy Carter think? Or maybe Harry Truman has a great-grandson who wants to share his views…

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  • New myths about Obama and Clinton

    1. Barack Obama is the most liberal senator according to National Journal. However, the far more sophisticated ranking produced by Keith Poole and Jeff Lewis, which takes into account all the votes in a given Congress, places him as the tenth most liberal — see here, here, here, and here for more. (We wrote about

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