[ Posted Tuesday, August 25th, 2015 – 17:02 UTC ]
In the midst of the current eruption of nonsense over American immigration policy from out on the campaign trail, I have a few more targeted questions to ask of all the candidates. They're really just extensions of one basic question, really, which would be: "What will your policy towards Cuba be if you become president?" However, since Republicans and Democrats have different basic viewpoints on the issue, it must be broken down into more specific queries in order to elicit useful answers. Both questions, for different reasons, will be tough for Democrats and Republicans alike.
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[ Posted Monday, August 24th, 2015 – 16:34 UTC ]
Vice President Joe Biden certainly has got the media talking. All it really took was one leak to Maureen Dowd and a meeting with Senator Elizabeth Warren, and the recurring story in the media is now: "Biden's son Beau made a deathbed plea to his father to run for president again, and he's now seriously considering it." That's a compelling political narrative, to be sure. The Wall Street Journal is even reporting that Biden's now leaning towards running. Now, I have no inside sources of my own, so I have no idea what's really going on in Biden's head, but no matter how likely it turns out to be, a Biden candidacy bears political examination beyond the simple question of: "Will he or won't he run?"
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[ Posted Friday, August 21st, 2015 – 17:16 UTC ]
Another week has gone by, and Donald Trump remains the Republican frontrunner in the presidential nomination race. We've noticed that all the inside-the-Beltway pundits who so confidently predicted Trump's imminent and inevitable downfall are now slowly starting to revisit their predictions. This is making them extremely nervous, of course. Some are still finding solace in the "Trump's going to say something any day now that will sink him like a stone" way of thinking, but their numbers are getting smaller as time goes by and Trump defies political gravity once again.
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[ Posted Wednesday, August 19th, 2015 – 17:24 UTC ]
Could the next presidential election be one where both sides get the candidate who inspires the most passion among the base? It would have seemed almost ridiculous to suggest as recently as last month, but the possibility that America could be given the choice of Donald Trump versus Bernie Sanders doesn't seem so far-fetched nowadays. If these are the choices the two major parties coalesce behind, it'll certainly be one of the most unique presidential elections ever.
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[ Posted Friday, August 14th, 2015 – 18:07 UTC ]
We're going to begin today with a wrapup of the week that was in the presidential campaigns, and as befitting his status as the Republican frontrunner, we're going to start with Donald Trump (if you're sick of hearing about Trump, just skip down eight or ten paragraphs and continue reading).
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[ Posted Friday, August 7th, 2015 – 17:10 UTC ]
Well, that was entertaining, wasn't it? We refer, of course, to the grand spectacle of the first Republican presidential debates, held last night on Fox News. Since this is all anyone's talking about in the political world today, we are going to follow suit and devote most of this column (with the exception of the awards) to our reactions to seeing all the Republican candidates under one roof for the first time.
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[ Posted Tuesday, August 4th, 2015 – 17:02 UTC ]
Barack Obama doesn't usually have very good summers, as measured by his public opinion job approval numbers. Last month, he finally broke this curse and posted some solid gains -- the first time he's ever done so in July. The daily polling was a bit of a rollercoaster, though, so he could just as easily go back down in August, but let's focus on the good news for Obama fans first. Take a look at the new chart, for starters.
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[ Posted Monday, August 3rd, 2015 – 20:55 UTC ]
I just finished watching the first "candidates' forum" (don't call it a debate!) of the season, where 14 of the 17 Republicans running for president all appeared on the same stage in New Hampshire. The "one person on the stage at a time" format was an odd one, meant to get around the Republican National Committee's strict rules on how many debates they're going to tolerate this time around (it seems the more the public hears Republicans debate, the more it harms the Republican candidates).
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[ Posted Friday, July 31st, 2015 – 17:21 UTC ]
In normal years, this would be the official kickoff to the political Silly Season -- the dog days of August when Congress scarpers off for five or six weeks to have fun in the sun at taxpayer expense, and the political chattering classes have so little material to work with that they pick one silly issue and just absolutely obsess over it. This year, however, is not normal, as instead we're right at the kickoff of Presidential Debate Season, and the votes are already in -- the silly subject we're all going to obsess over this year is named Donald Trump. Whether this obsession takes the form of crushing depression (headline: "A GOP Led By Donald Trump Will Fail, And Deserve It") or unconcealed glee (headline: "Christmas Comes Early This Year -- Anticipating The Gift Of A Trump-Fueled GOP Debate") depends, of course, on the viewpoint of the pundit.
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[ Posted Friday, July 24th, 2015 – 16:57 UTC ]
Two weeks ago, we kind of went out on a limb (the polling evidence was not all that clear when we wrote it) and subtitled our previous column: "Donald Trump, Frontrunner." Since that time, such a statement has gone from being a wild prediction to becoming an equally-wild reality. The first Republican presidential debate is happening in less than two weeks, and Donald Trump is not only guaranteed one of the ten slots, he will quite likely be at the center of the stage, since his poll numbers currently dwarf all the other GOP contenders.
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