[ Posted Monday, June 27th, 2016 – 16:50 UTC ]
Either Elizabeth Warren just made Hillary Clinton's vice-presidential choice a lot harder or a lot easier, depending on how you see her strategic decision-making process and how much chance you think a Clinton/Warren ticket has of becoming reality. Warren appeared onstage with Clinton today and the Massachusetts senator wowed the Ohio crowd, proving without a shadow of a doubt she is unquestionably the best "attack dog" the Democrats have against Donald Trump. But is this enough for Clinton to select Warren as running mate? Or, perhaps is it too much? In other words, is there a danger that Warren could actually upstage the presidential candidate? And even if Hillary knows Warren is the best anti-Trump weapon around, will Clinton's choice ultimately hinge on this criterion or not?
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[ Posted Friday, June 24th, 2016 – 16:56 UTC ]
Donald Trump's name lends itself to all sorts of mashed-up words, but we find it doesn't really work with the big story of the week. British voters decided to take the so-called "Brexit" (or "British exit") from the European Union. But what should we call the increasing stream of Republicans flowing away from Trump's campaign? Truxit? Trexit? See, it just doesn't work all that well.
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[ Posted Wednesday, June 22nd, 2016 – 16:07 UTC ]
As I write this, a protest is occurring on the floor of the House of Representatives. Democrats, led by John Lewis, Jim Clyburn, Nancy Pelosi (and many others), are staging a "sit-in" to protest Republicans' refusal to even hold a vote on any gun control legislation. Their battle cry is "No vote, no break" -- a veiled threat to keep the protest going right into the next one of those too-frequent vacation weeks Congress regularly awards itself. Whether the protest is ultimately successful or not, it shows a renewed vigor in the Democratic Party to push back against the do-nothing party in the majority. This could bode well for their chances to retake control of both chambers of Congress this fall, in fact.
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[ Posted Monday, June 20th, 2016 – 19:46 UTC ]
Donald Trump is clearly no Adolf Hitler. Trump does not preach Hitler's most hateful domestic policies, and Trump's foreign policy is not imperialist but isolationist. Trump's slogan, "American First," resembles "Deutschland über alles" ("Germany above all else") more in chauvinistic simplicity than evil intent. But it does underscore that Trump is, as Hitler was, a demagogue, appealing to voters' emotions and prejudices in order to win election.
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[ Posted Friday, June 17th, 2016 – 18:16 UTC ]
Before we begin, we should mention that this week's talking points section consists of a few extended excerpts from President Obama's recent speech on fighting the Islamic State. What he had to say was important, and it counters several insidious talking points that have been used against him in the past, so we felt it was worth taking over this week's talking points. Just to warn everyone up front.
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[ Posted Friday, June 10th, 2016 – 17:28 UTC ]
Whither the fabled "Party of Lincoln"? That was the question on the minds of many Republicans this week, at least based on how often they used the phrase. Now, we're used to scathing attacks on character being hurled in the frenzy of a presidential campaign. Indeed, it's woven into the fabric of American politics. It's just that in normal years, these attacks are flung across the aisle, at the other party's nominee. It is extraordinary that all of the vicious attacks we're going to feature in our talking points section this week came from Republicans, all aimed squarely at their own party's presidential nominee. Seriously, when in the past have you ever heard the term "unendorse" used? We haven't checked, but we believe it just got coined and added to the political lexicon. It hasn't existed before because the concept hasn't ever existed before (again, in our own memory, at the very least). But we're going to get to all this in great detail later, so let's just move along for now.
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[ Posted Wednesday, June 8th, 2016 – 15:25 UTC ]
Senator Bernie Sanders, barring extraordinary unforeseen circumstances, is not going to be president. He has fallen short of his goal of winning the nomination of the Democratic Party. No tricky delegate math is going to save him now. His campaign is now over, whether he wants to admit it or not quite yet. But I for one am thankful he ran, and thankful for what he did manage to accomplish. Because though his campaign is done, his political revolution should continue.
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[ Posted Tuesday, June 7th, 2016 – 18:33 UTC ]
For the first time, I am writing a column which is designed to be updated, perhaps later tonight or perhaps even tomorrow. Because today is the end of the primary road for 2016, so while I'd like to take a nostalgic look back at the entire primary season, I'm also going to eventually update my stats to provide the final 2016 numbers on how well I picked all the primary races.
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[ Posted Monday, June 6th, 2016 – 17:04 UTC ]
Welcome back to my final 2016 round of "call the primaries." Although tomorrow night won't actually be the last primary day (Washington D.C. votes next week), it will be the last day where both parties' nominees are not known. So it'll be the last time the game will even be worth playing.
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[ Posted Friday, June 3rd, 2016 – 17:05 UTC ]
Once again, we've got a rather long end section today, so we're going to present our wrap-up of the week's news in rather abbreviated fashion. This is because we are finally (only a few weeks late!) unveiling the finalists in our "come up with a playground taunt for Trump" contest (which initially ran back in FTP [391]), so there's that to look forward to, down in the talking points section.
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