Many House Democrats apparently figure that November’s elections had nothing to do with them, their agenda or their leadership. Sure, their party lost 63 House seats, with voters more than wiping out the Democratic gains from 2006 and 2008 and rejecting their argument that the election was a choice between going “forward” with Democrats or […]
In the summer of 2000, Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley appeared on the cover of the Democratic Leadership Council’s magazine. A decade later, O’Malley was re-elected to a second term as governor of Maryland and is the new chairman of the Democratic Governors Association. O’Malley was one of the “100 new Democrats who are changing the […]
Every year, I look back and nominate a number of politicians, campaigns and politically related entities as the “best,” “worst” or even “weirdest” of the cycle. I’m doing it again this year, because — let’s be honest — it’s a way of combining political analysis with personal animosity. So here are my finalists for various […]
It has been a dozen years since then-Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Martin Frost (Texas) and then-National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman John Linder (Ga.) agreed to a cease-fire on “personal attacks” by the campaign committees. Yes, you read that correctly — a cease-fire on personal attacks. “The DCCC will not invest its money in campaigns […]
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Russ Feingold’s reputation as a maverick and clever campaign ads were supposed to insulate him from the national wave that swept out dozens of his Democratic colleagues. But after 18 years in office, the shine had worn off the Wisconsin Democrat’s independent image, Feingold’s ads this year were […]
Members of the Republican National Committee will pick a new chairman next month, and the odds are pretty good that it won’t be the current occupant of that position, Michael Steele. Steele, of course, has drawn plenty of criticism over the past two years, and recent revelations about excessive spending by the RNC’s 2012 Committee […]
“In retrospect, the die may have been cast for the November elections on May 19, 2010,” Republican consultant Brad Todd said, pointing to the day after the special election in Pennsylvania’s 12th district. Todd, who is a close adviser to National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Pete Sessions (Texas) and was heavily involved in the NRCC’s […]
For most of the election cycle, Democratic strategists were optimistic they could hold the House because of their arsenal of opposition research. But Democratic attacks failed to bring down enough Republican challengers to keep the majority. Democrats thought GOP challengers were simply too flawed to be acceptable alternatives to voters who wanted change. But as […]