The thought of three candidate interviews over a four-hour period invariably fills me with dread. The chance of all three congressional hopefuls being thoughtful, reasonable and personable — and having a good chance of winning in the fall — is relatively small. But sometimes the unexpected happens. And on July 16, I had the pleasure […]
New York Sen. Charles E. Schumer laid out his dream for a less partisan Washington recently. But the Democrat’s New York Times op-ed is giving some strategists in his own party nightmares. “Polarization and partisanship are a plague on American politics,” Schumer wrote in the piece — titled, “End Partisan Primaries, Save America” — in […]
As Roll Call was preparing to post my column yesterday on the Montana Senate race and recent Democratic polls showing the contest “closing,” a report surfaced in the New York Times about appointed Senator John Walsh’s plagiarism in his master’s thesis. The Walsh story is a huge one and undoubtedly affects the Democrat’s already uphill […]
Maybe you believe in coincidences. I usually do — but not four months from an election. Almost simultaneously, two different memos appeared from Democratic pollsters insisting the Montana Senate race has closed and the outcome of the contest is very much in doubt. One memo, by North Carolina-based Public Policy Polling, meets existing standards of […]
Having written about House and Senate races for the past 30 years, I’ve seen plenty of press releases, polling memos and campaign strategy emails. But rarely have I received anything as silly as a July 9 press release from New Hampshire Republican Senate hopeful Scott P. Brown’s campaign, which presented the challenger’s alleged “Path To […]
Phil Berger Jr.’s loss in last week's Republican runoff in North Carolina’s 6th District was about more than an establishment favorite getting knocked off by an anti-establishment challenger. He could have been a key player for Republicans in future Roll Call Congressional Baseball Games. According to multiple sources, Berger was expected to infuse the Republican […]
In the game “Would You Rather?” one is usually faced with a choice between two difficult and undesirable options. “If you had a machete, would you rather amputate the feet of two friends or amputate one of your own feet?” asks the site YouRather.com. Or, “Would you rather spend a day with Justin Bieber or […]