Uncategorized
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Two-candidate dynamics in the GOP race
John McCain has won Florida. As a result, Rudy Giuliani apparently dropping out to endorse him (hurray!). Though Mike Huckabee seems to be staying in the race, it should become something of a two-man showdown between Mitt Romney and McCain heading into Super Tuesday. Under these circumstances, we would tend to expect conservative elites and
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SOTU “average” tax cut stat
As Matthew Yglesias notes, the State of the Union (which I skipped) includes yet another misleading “average” statistic about the tax cuts: 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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The missing earmark caveat
Kudos to David Kirkpatrick of the New York Times, who included this disclaimer in his story on President Bush’s quixotic effort to scale back earmarks: As lawmakers know, earmarks, which make up less up than 1 percent of the federal budget, have incalculable political value. Congressional leaders award or withhold them to reward or punish
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Rudy Giuliani flames out
Sad but fitting: The Giuliani campaign chartered a 727 on Monday for a day of barnstorming on the eve of Tuesday’s big primary, but none of the rallies at airports in Sanford, Clearwater, Fort Myers or Fort Lauderdale drew even a hundred supporters. …And Mr. Giuliani — who as mayor once told a man who
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Matt Welch’s anti-McCain primer
If you’ve neglected my recommendation of Matt Welch’s McCain: The Myth of a Maverick make sure to check out Welch’s debunking of the various myths about his unwavering devotion to honesty, principle, and “straight talk” that newspapers have been pushing in their endorsement editorials. Inoculate yourself before Super Tuesday!
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Sheryl Gay Stolberg fails Stat 101
Once again, a journalist has misinformed the public due to a fundamental lack of understanding of basic quantitative data. In today’s New York Times, Sheryl Gay Stolberg writes that President Bush “has spent years presiding over an economic climate of growth that would be the envy of most presidents.” But as Dean Baker points out
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The ironies of dynastic politics
Barack Obama’s campaign against one political dynasty (the Clintons) is endorsed from the descendant of another one (Caroline Kennedy). Why do we care again? Update 1/28 10:06 AM: On the other hand, today’s endorsement from Ted Kennedy is a much bigger deal. In particular, as TNR’s Jonathan Cohn and a commenter below note, it could
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Obama white vote exceeds expectations
Contrary to a previous poll showing him with support from only ten percent of whites in South Carolina, Barack Obama got a quarter of the white vote: About half the voters were black, according to polling place interviews, and four out of five of them supported Obama. Black women turned out in particularly large numbers.
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Bob Herbert quotes random blog comment
Today Bob Herbert questions the nasty attacks on Barack Obama by Clinton surrogates — a fine subject for a column. But then he transitions to a random quotation from the Internet: The Clinton camp knows what it’s doing, and its slimy maneuvers have been working. Bob Kerrey apologized and Andrew Young said at the time
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Obama’s low white support in SC
I’ve been worried about Barack Obama’s relatively low support among whites but these numbers from South Carolina are worse than I expected: But while Mr. Obama seeks to transcend race, his campaign cannot avoid the politics associated with it. A new poll on Friday, conducted by MSNBC/McClatchy Newspapers, showed that Mr. Obama was winning support