Uncategorized
-
Hillary and the upstate myth
Michael Tomasky plays the upstate card in a Washington Post article on the future of the Democratic Party: Michael Tomasky, executive editor of the liberal American Prospect magazine and the author of a book on Hillary Clinton’s 2000 Senate campaign, said people should not assume she cannot win moderate voters the same way her husband
-
The “party-in-a-laptop” bubble
Mickey Kaus is pushing this phony meme again. Just say no! I suspect that, in the future, millions of potential dollars will be sloshing around with no place to go–at least no place within the existing two party structure. Isn’t it logical that these easily-raisable millions will instead go to create organizations that serve the
-
Yglesias on the “immunization fallacy”
Matthew Yglesias speaks the truth: Someone has to tell Ben Nelson that it’s time to start paying some attention to what’s going on: Some Democrats looking for a ray of light in the election argued that [Senator Harry] Reid’s amiability might make it harder for the White House to demonize him. “When the conservative talk
-
The Perot voter theory
If it wasn’t “moral values” that pushed Bush to victory, what was it? Duke’s Jerry Hough, a political scientist, points to Perot voters as a likely suspect: Thorough analysis of the election will have to wait for final data, but one thing is certain: turnout rose sharply, and this helped the president, not Senator Kerry.
-
Disturbing operative quote of the day
TNR’s Ryan Lizza blogging about his Kerry campaign postmortem: Somehow my favorite quote never made it into the final draft. It’s from a senior Kerry adviser who was discussing Kerry’s inability to connect with the values of everyday Americans. Here it is for posterity: “Clinton went back and executed that retarded guy. That said, ‘I
-
Amend, but not for Arnold
Ads are now running in California supporting a constitutional amendment allowing Arnold Schwarzanegger and other foreign-born citizens to run for President. I’m all for the amendment, but if tied too directly to Schwarzanegger, it will become too political and die. The group running the ads is called Amend for Arnold & Jen, referring to Jennifer
-
What is David Broder talking about?
The alleged dean of the Washington press corps writes this: The exaggerated reaction to the election among many liberals was set off by the belief that Bush owes his victory to a bunch of religious zealots bent on imposing their views on the whole society. That impression was based on exit polls showing that Bush
-
Strategy vs. tactics
Ryan Lizza’s postmortem on John Kerry’s loss reveals the fundamental confusion in the Kerry campaign between strategy and tactics: The largest caucus of recriminators, one that spans ideological boundaries and includes critics from every corner of the party, argues that Kerry failed to offer a compelling message. As Kerry seemed to realize in his speech
-
What is Howard Dean talking about?
This is not only offensive, but wrong. Howard Dean talking to students at Northwestern: Though Dean, a Democrat, complimented President Bush, saying he “ran a great campaign” and was “very disciplined,” he compared the president to former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, at least in one regard. “The truth is the president of the United States
-
Okrent joins the anti-“objectivity” crusade
In today’s New York Times, public editor Daniel Okrent