The gruesome tale of abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell is a good example of why Republicans are losing the battle for the hearts and minds of American voters. Gosnell is on trial for the alleged murder of a woman and seven babies in a clinic in which sanitary standards were apparently an afterthought. It is the […]
Every political reporter, campaign professional and political junkie should read Charlie Cook’s most recent National Journal column on the decline of swing congressional districts and the rise of partisanship. (I am certain some credit for the analysis also goes to David Wasserman over at the Cook Political Report.) Cook documents how the number of competitive […]
A few observations on the new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll: This is the first time the president’s job approval numbers have been “upside down” — more people disapproving than approving — since June 2012. After spiking around the election, the right direction/wrong track numbers have slipped back to where they were last June. More […]
Last week, I wrote a short item about reports that former Massachusetts GOP Sen. Scott P. Brown was not ruling out a run for the Senate in 2014 — in New Hampshire. I argued that the idea was a bad one and that running in the Granite State after passing on the 2013 Senate special […]
Philadelphia Democratic Rep. Allyson Schwartz recently confirmed what everyone had already suspected: She is seeking the Democratic nomination for governor in Pennsylvania. The big question is whether someone from southeastern Pennsylvania can get nominated, let alone win the governorship. During the past 35 years, only one politician from the southeastern corner of the state, former […]
Who is the most vulnerable senator seeking re-election next year? Georgia Republican Saxby Chambliss might have won the distinction because of his vulnerability to a conservative primary challenger, but he has already announced he won’t seek another term. The same goes for West Virginia Democrat Jay Rockefeller and South Dakota Democrat Tim Johnson, both of […]
On one level, Maine’s lone Republican in Congress, Sen. Susan Collins, looks like a defeat waiting to happen. She is a Republican from a state that went comfortably for Democrat Barack Obama twice. And she is from New England, a part of the country where the GOP is all but extinct in federal office. Collins […]
Not long ago, Democrats and organized labor were railing against Wal-mart as the arch nemesis of organized labor. Now, President Barack Obama has tapped a high-level Wal-Mart official to be a member of his Cabinet and put her at the forefront of one of the most important issues of the day. What happened? Last month, […]
Multiple media outlets are reporting that former Massachusetts Sen. Scott P. Brown, a Republican, hasn’t ruled out a bid for the Senate next year in New Hampshire. I haven’t ruled out lots of things in my life that I don’t intend to do and am pretty sure I won’t do, and if that’s all that […]
The jobs numbers just reported for March — an increase of only 88,000 jobs — are horrendous, especially coming after February’s strong job surge (236,000 new jobs revised up to 268,000). Forget the unemployment rate sliding from 7.7 percent to 7.6 percent. As The Associated Press noted, that drop resulted “only because more people stopped […]