It wasn't the biggest or most important political news of the week, we admit, but the one story that definitely caught our attention was the earthquake which reverberated outward from the Democratic National Committee. This Wednesday, the D.N.C.'s Rules and Bylaws Committee voted to upset the early-primary applecart to allow for the possibility of a complete shakeup of the roster of early-voting states (currently: Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina). For the 2024 presidential race, all the states have now been encouraged to apply for a spot on the early calendar -- with no guarantees for the four states that have previously enjoyed the privilege of going first.

Read Complete Article »

There's a new poll out on the subject of what the American public thinks about schools that shows how wide an opening there is for Democrats to exhibit some leadership on the issue, especially considering how much political hay Republicans are planning on making over it all in the midterm elections. As a Washington Post article about the poll puts it, there is a "silent majority" that simply does not agree with the Republican position on things like banning books from school libraries and curricula, teaching sex and sexuality, or mentioning race and racism. But while a majority of the public can afford to stay silent on these issues, Democrats cannot. Which led me to an idea -- one I haven't heard anyone else put forward yet. Why not have a Democratic point person on education and educational issues that can articulate a clear position and back it up against the slings and arrows of the right? And who better to step into such a role than First Lady Dr. Jill Biden?

Read Complete Article »

There are two major political storms on the horizon that will both break long before the midterm congressional elections, but as it looks now there is one overriding issue in domestic politics that will likely be one of the core issues in the race no matter what. Yes, it's time once again to dust off the 30-year old quip from James Carville: "It's the economy, stupid." This time around, it could be narrowed to: "It's the inflation, stupid."

Read Complete Article »

President Barack Obama returned to the White House yesterday, for the first time in five years. He was there to support President Joe Biden in a signing ceremony, although it wasn't for a bill but merely for an executive order. This directive will provide a fix for some people who had fallen through the cracks of the Affordable Care Act, and will wind up helping many American families afford health insurance for their whole family. So it's easy to see why Obama was invited, to help usher in a technical fix for his greatest achievement as president.

But I have to say, while it was good to see Obama give a short speech and crack a few jokes with Biden, it did kind of draw attention to how much he's kept himself in the background ever since he left office. And if Biden and the rest of the Democrats are smart, they'd be all but begging Obama to take a much more active role in his party heading into the midterm election season.

Read Complete Article »

Donald Trump's Big Lie continues to reverberate through American politics. The latest iteration of this is a growing Republican push to ban all machines used in the elections process and instead hand-count all the ballots. They've even got a snappy slogan: "Vote Amish!" I suppose that's better than "Vote Luddite," since it has a distinctly American flavor. But the entire concept is so unworkable and ridiculous (and downright dangerous) that it would be a near-guarantee of more election chaos, longer waits before the counts are complete, and lots and lots of new opportunities for challenging vote results that Republicans don't like (when Republicans lose, in other words). Which could be the entire point, of course.

Read Complete Article »

Iowa's prominence among the states that hold early voting in the Democratic presidential primaries seems to now be in some jeopardy. Party officials are openly discussing whether to revamp the process of selecting which states get to hold the earliest votes, which continues a reform effort that has been ongoing for quite a while now. Once the primary system replaced the "smoke-filled back rooms" in the party's selection of a nominee in the 1970s, there have been efforts to tinker with who goes first. Iowa and New Hampshire fended off most of these reform efforts and held their position as, respectively, the first caucus state and the first primary state to vote in the nation. More recently, the party acknowledged the dearth of minorities in these two states by adding South Carolina (with a high percentage of Black voters) and Nevada (with many Latino voters) to balance things out a bit.

Read Complete Article »

Let's start with some good news this week, because we could all use some, right? Two years ago today Tom Hanks announced to the world he had contracted COVID-19, on the same day that the virus people were then largely calling "the novel coronavirus" was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization. This was when it all hit home for many -- that this could quite possibly be a very big deal indeed, even though the president of the United States was desperately trying to get the American public to believe otherwise. Salon provides a good rundown of what we all went through next:

Read Complete Article »

President Joe Biden announced today that he was banning Russian oil and gas from the American marketplace. This is a wildly popular position to take and is supported not only by politicians across the political spectrum but also by an overwhelming majority of the American public. We all see the horrific scenes of death and destruction caused by Vladimir Putin and the thought that we are funding that in any small way when we fill up our cars is abhorrent to many. At least, that's the case right now.

Read Complete Article »

This week, President Joe Biden gave his first State Of The Union speech to the United States Congress, to the American people, and to the rest of world. This speech had to be hastily rewritten at the last minute, obviously, due to intervening events. Russia's Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine at the end of last week, which was obviously a lot more important than any political points or laundry lists of proposed legislation. So the speech got a quick makeover.

Read Complete Article »

Is President Joe Biden poised on the brink of a resurgence in the polls? Well... maybe. It's no sure thing, but the conditions do seem to be improving for him so it wouldn't come as a complete surprise. The next two months will be key.

Presidents used to routinely get a bump just after their State Of The Union speeches to Congress, but these events have become less and less impactful over the past decade or so. Fewer people watch, being instead content to read or hear what someone else thought about the speech. But by at least one measure, Biden's speech last night was well-received by the people who did watch it -- a CBS insta-poll showed an astonishing 78 percent of those polled approved of his remarks while only 22 percent disapproved. Will that translate into better job approval ratings for Biden overall? It's certainly possible.

Read Complete Article »