[ Posted Wednesday, September 15th, 2010 – 16:49 UTC ]
You can forgive the pragmatic, establishment Republicans who run the national party machinery for feeling a bit besieged this morning. Because the Tea Party keeps continuing to storm the GOP's castle. The party regulars are manning the battlements, but to no avail. They see their stronghold being overrun by a mob over whom they have no control, and they are shaking in their boots at the prospect. You can picture these GOP faithful rushing about the castle's keep, desperately trying to convince the rabble that eating all the seed stores will result in famine next year, but to no avail as the Tea Partiers pillage at will.
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[ Posted Friday, September 10th, 2010 – 16:36 UTC ]
And dominate he did. Monday, he gave a rousing pro-worker Labor Day speech, Wednesday he gave a rousing speech on the economy, and Friday he held the first press conference he's held in months. Finally, the White House seems to have woken up and realized that "overexposure" of a president is a myth propagated by those who oppose him. The "bully pulpit" is there to be used, in other words, not there to gather dust until Fox News decides it is OK for the president to speak to the public.
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[ Posted Wednesday, September 1st, 2010 – 13:25 UTC ]
Augusts, to be frank, are not President Obama's friend. The past month was no different, at least as measured by public opinion polling. Obama was on a downswing heading into the month, and his numbers reflect this in a stark way. In other words, it was a bad month for Obama.
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[ Posted Tuesday, August 31st, 2010 – 18:53 UTC ]
Obama struck a rather humble tone in his remarks, which seemed just about right for the situation. He didn't go out of his way to either claim personal credit, or point the finger of blame. He even included President Bush, by name, in his remarks, after phoning him earlier today.
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[ Posted Friday, August 27th, 2010 – 16:36 UTC ]
The big fight this election season hasn't really dawned yet. And all the issues in the past will likely pale in comparison to the big fight that's just ahead of us. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (to his credit) set up this fight, right before the midterm election's homestretch. The big fight this year is going to be over extending the Bush tax cuts to the wealthiest two percent of American workers, and to the top three percent of American small businesses. On the other side are, respectively, ninety-eight percent of American workers, and ninety-seven percent of American small businesses. Not bad odds, even for Democrats.
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[ Posted Wednesday, August 25th, 2010 – 17:03 UTC ]
The answer, as with all things Tea Party, is (once again): "it's hard to be sure." We won't really know until after the midterm elections, and at that point so much "spin" will be on the airwaves one might (if one grew up in Kansas, for the sake of argument) be excused the immediate impulse to run for the tornado shelter in the backyard. In other words, even after the elections, the answer is going to depend on who is doing the answering.
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[ Posted Tuesday, August 24th, 2010 – 17:53 UTC ]
Yesterday we ran a poll here on why, exactly, Obama has disappointed so many Lefties (and other people who voted for him). Today we present the results of this poll, which (so far) has garnered exactly 100 entries, a statistically nice round number.
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[ Posted Thursday, August 19th, 2010 – 18:30 UTC ]
There's a mini-tizzy in the media world today after a new poll was released which stated that eighteen percent of Americans think President Obama is a Muslim. "Golly gee! How could they think that?" is the overwhelming tone of most of this media tizziness. Only one article I've seen (so far), though, correctly points the finger where it belongs: at the media themselves.
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[ Posted Wednesday, August 18th, 2010 – 17:04 UTC ]
I should say, up front, that I think Democrats are going to lose a few seats in the Senate, but that they will regain control of the chamber after the votes are counted. But while the House remains volatile in this respect, the landscape for the Senate has noticeably improved for the Democrats. So there's a little good news and a little bad news for everyone.
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[ Posted Monday, August 16th, 2010 – 17:21 UTC ]
President Barack Obama, in a White House Ramadan address last Friday, expressed his thoughts on the "Ground Zero mosque" debate, and in doing so not only got it exactly right, but also managed to change the debate in a considerable way which few have noticed yet. Because in his comments Friday (and in his off-the-cuff comment the next day), the president refocused the debate from the notion of "should be allowed" to the question of "should." In doing so, Obama elevated the level of the debate for both him and the project's detractors.
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