Uncategorized
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Brooks wishes away the supply-siders
David Brooks claims today that “continual tax cuts can no longer be the centerpiece of Republican economic policy” due to the fiscal gap: Supply-side economics had a good run, but continual tax cuts can no longer be the centerpiece of Republican economic policy. The demographics have changed. The U.S. is an aging society. We have
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Marshall on “stolen” elections: Then and now
Via Politico’s Ben Smith, Josh Marshall correctly casts doubt on online rumor-mongering about the Democratic primary election in New Hampshire being stolen. But as I pointed out last October, he made a similarly unsupported claim of a stolen election, accusing former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell of “helping steal the 2004 election” — a
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Bloomberg is polling
Even after the Obama surge took the wind out of the stillborn draft-Bloomberg movement, the hype continues. AP reports that the New York City mayor is polling to test the waters for a possible independent candidacy: Adding to the most wide open presidential campaign in a half-century, associates of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg disclosed
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Outdated anti-Hillary propaganda
This Newsmax Google ad appeared in the left sidebar a little while ago: More timely agitprop, please! Update 1/10 10:03 AM: I got an email (PDF) promoting the same Newsmax “poll” on the GOPUSA email list yesterday afternoon. Maybe they think conservatives will say “no” and be motivated to subscribe to Newsmax to get negative
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Experts: Bad at prediction
The Hotline reminds its audience of bloviating insiders that no one knows what’s going to happen in the presidential race: Before we fall into the same trap of trying to crystal ball WH’08, we offer a quick nod to NH Dems, who stuck it to the pundit class 1/8 by doing the wildly unexpected. This
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Fred Thompson is a “wild card”?
Huh? The voting in New Hampshire did little to clarify the muddied Republican field. The McCain, Romney and Huckabee campaigns are all girding for battle, and some political analysts still see Fred D. Thompson of Tennessee as a wild card in Southern primaries. At this point, isn’t Fred Thompson a “wild card” only in the
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What went wrong in NH?
Recriminations — and speculation — have already begun in the wake of Hillary’s unexpected win in New Hampshire last night. The debate centers on why the polls were so wrong. David Kuo and Andrew Sullivan (among others) suggested that it might be the so-called Bradley Effect in which white support for black candidates is lower
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Ron Paul: Worse than nutty
Sadly, it turns out that Ron Paul’s conspiracy-minded direct mail is only the tip of the iceberg. TNR’s Jamie Kirchick dug up a series of newsletters published under Paul’s name since the mid-1970s that were much, much worse: [W]hoever actually wrote them, the newsletters I saw all had one thing in common: They were published
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GOP health care spin continues
Amidst the focus on the intra-party battles in the presidential race, pundits and reporters have given little scrutiny to the candidates’ cheap shots at the other party, which is a bad precedent for the fall campaign. These sorts of falsehoods shouldn’t be allowed to become accepted and no longer “news” (like the claim that tax
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Misogyny v. racism in the Democratic race
Dave Roberts of Grist has written an email to Ezra Klein that perfectly captures my feelings about gender and racial dynamics of the Democratic race: I’ll grant upfront that my thoughts on misogyny and racism in the campaign are somewhat fraught, since as your run-of-the-mill privileged white dude, I hardly have the most direct window