A few years back -- right around the time I started blogging, in fact -- I was also considering doing a writing project that never actually took shape. I wanted to write a book about how Populism was about due for a resurgence in American politics. This was after watching Ralph Nader and Howard Dean, but before John Edwards and (obviously) Bernie Sanders. The disconnect between how the politicians (of both parties) set their priorities and agenda and what the American people actually wanted from their government was growing into a chasm, which is why I began entertaining thoughts of writing about the historical parallels and the possibility of a Populist wave building in the near future.

Read Complete Article »

On Monday, I took a look at the Republican nomination race, so I thought it'd be fair to check in today with the Democratic contest. One obvious reason why I (and others in the political commentary world) have been paying so much more attention to Republicans is the continuing volatility of the GOP campaign, which still has (as of this writing) 14 official candidates running. By comparison, the Democratic race is a lot more calm after half the field has already dropped out, which has left only three candidates still in the contest: Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Martin O'Malley.

Read Complete Article »

What is going to happen to the Republican Party in next year's general election campaign? We could be on the verge of a major shift in the American political system, which is always interesting to speculate about (whether it winds up happening or not). Donald Trump, love him or hate him, has certainly followed through on making this one of the most interesting presidential nomination races of all time. As the saying goes, we're all cursed to be living in interesting times -- at least for the next year or so.

Read Complete Article »

It's been a month since I last took a look at the Republican presidential horserace, and there have been a number of dramatic developments in the meantime. So it's time once again to cast an eye over the Republican field.

Before I begin, a few technical notes are in order. First, data comes from the Real Clear Politics Republican poll-tracking page. The last column I wrote used the data from November 8th, on the RCP graph (every time I say "since last time" below, this is what I'll be referring to). And my own categories, as before, are divided into four levels: those with no chance of winning the nomination, those with a slim or longshot chance, those with a decent shot at winning, and those with a great chance of becoming the nominee. These are fairly arbitrary divisions, but they're what the race has so far seemed to require.

Read Complete Article »

We took last week off for the holidays, so we've got a lot of ground to cover today. Sadly, this included two terrorist attacks in America, one in Colorado and one in Southern California. The truly sad part is that these mass shootings are becoming so common nowadays that within a few months most people will have forgotten them, as we all focus on fresher, more recent tragedies. Welcome to a very grim "new normal," in other words. Sorry to start off on such a heavy note, but such news is impossible to ignore.

Read Complete Article »

President Barack Obama's job approval rating took a dip downwards in November, to hit a new low point for the entire calendar year. Most of this was due to the panicky reaction the political world had to the Paris terrorist attack. President Obama's reaction to the attacks was fairly muted, spread out over an overseas trip which was followed up by a terse statement (rather than, say, a prime-time Oval Office speech) to America on his strategy for fighting terrorism and the Islamic State.

Read Complete Article »

Two interesting campaign articles today both point out a frightening new reality for the Republican Party. Previously considered unthinkable, unconceivable, and downright unimaginable, some Republicans are now struggling to come to grips with the fact that Donald Trump might actually become their party's standard-bearing presidential nominee. The first of these articles, from the New York Times, documents how "irritation is giving way to panic" over Trump-as-GOP-nominee, because many in the party feel that this could "imperil the careers of other Republicans." It continues:

Read Complete Article »

Once again, a gunman has killed people for political reasons. Once again, he is described in the mainstream media using words and phrases such as: deranged, mentally disturbed, homicidal, gunman, shooter, criminal, murderer, and lone wolf. He may have been all of that, but one key descriptive word is conspicuously missing from most of the commentary: terrorist. Killing people who don't believe what you believe in order to further your political aims is, indeed, one of the definitions of terrorism. If the suspect involved had recently arrived here from Syria (or anywhere else in the Middle East, really), would the news networks be so cautious about calling him a "terrorist"? I seriously doubt it. In fact, if that were the case, he'd likely be quickly labelled an "Islamic terrorist."

Read Complete Article »

President Barack Obama, in a recent interview, pointed out one of his own shortcomings in a bit of fairly accurate self-reflection. When asked the hardest lesson he has yet learned while in office, Obama responded: "You can't separate good policy from the need to bring the American people along and make sure that they know why you're doing what you're doing. And that's particularly true now in this new communications era." He went on to say, about his first few years as president: "a certain arrogance crept in, in the sense of thinking as long as we get the policy ready, we didn't have to sell it."

Read Complete Article »

Ben Carson hasn't had a very good couple of weeks. He first exposed his ignorance on what is happening in Syria during a debate, claiming (falsely, he later sheepishly admitted) to have solid proof that China was in the midst of the conflict. This was just before the Paris attacks, so it might have been prominently in voters' minds during the aftermath. Then some of his advisors went public in the New York Times claiming Carson desperately needed to study up on the rest of the world because he knew so little about such things as the Middle East, while the candidate himself was making news by claiming the pyramids were nothing more than grain silos. After the Paris attacks happened, Carson wrote an editorial on what to do about the Islamic State for the Washington Post which was borderline incoherent (read it in full if you think this is an exaggeration). And now it looks like this floundering on foreign policy is beginning to hurt his standing in the polls. Could this be the start of Carson fading into irrelevance in the Republican presidential nomination race?

Read Complete Article »