Last week, I canceled my room reservation for the week of the Iowa straw poll. I am not going to Ames. With Mitt Romney, Rick Perry and Jon Huntsman not participating in what is already an event of dubious predictive value, the Ames event became little more than an opportunity to consume large amounts of […]
Anyone with kids has spent a lot of time reading books with fewer than 10 words on a page. But as the political environment heats up, what looks like a harmless bedtime story can turn into a hidden political message or even astute political analysis. At least, if you’re like me and have elections on […]
Well, that was fast. Just days after Congress raised the debt ceiling and finalized a deficit reduction deal, reality slapped the nation in the face in the form of a 500-point drop in the Dow Jones industrial average. Thank you. We needed that. The economic news isn’t good. Europe’s debt problems have given Wall Street […]
Though Yogi Berra is most often associated with the phrase “it ain’t over till it’s over,” it is Republicans in Wisconsin who are now uttering the phrase, hoping that their party can limit its losses to only a seat or two in next week’s state Senate recall elections. Following the GOP-controlled Legislature’s passage of a […]
Congress, we hear from voters of all stripes on television and in print, is a disaster, unable even to address important questions let alone find good answers. Even with the deal to raise the debt limit and avoid a default, voters surely will punish all incumbents next November, won’t they? Don’t bet on it. In […]
After months of posturing, promising and threatening, the endgame on raising the debt ceiling and shrinking the deficit is approaching. But after talking during the past few days with a variety of participants and observers, I can find no consensus on exactly what the final result will be. Some argue that the proposals offered by […]
A veteran Democratic consultant once told me something very wise: 90 percent of what happens in a campaign has little to do with determining who wins and who loses. The problem is that we don’t know exactly what the important 10 percent is. I think of this comment often, but particularly during the dog days […]
It wasn’t that long ago that any talks leading to a possible major bipartisan deal would include names like former Sens. John Breaux (D-La.) and Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), former Rep. John Spratt (D-S.C.), Sens. Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and, yes, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). But Breaux, a three-term Senator, retired in […]
With key redistricting decisions still pending in a number of large states — including Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, California, New York, Minnesota and Washington — there are plenty of questions yet to be answered about the playing field for next year’s Congressional elections. Still, we are starting to get more than an inkling about how the […]