[ Posted Wednesday, July 27th, 2016 – 13:51 UTC ]
Maybe I should have subtitled this "random notes from the whirlwind" -- this is going to be a collection of disjointed observations, at best, so I thought I'd just warn everyone up front not to expect a coherent narrative or anything. What follows are random notes from the Democratic National Convention that I haven't had the time to set down before now. The early portions of tonight's program in the arena are just an affirmation of Tim Kaine's nomination, so I'm going to skip trying to attend (or to even pay attention), as I did for the first day (Bernie supporters challenging rules) or the second day (roll call for presidential nomination). We are now halfway through the convention, after two days and nights. This year is more of a marathon event than the previous convention was in Charlotte, which only lasted three days. So here is everything I've noticed so far, in no particular order.
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[ Posted Tuesday, July 26th, 2016 – 12:25 UTC ]
I conducted the following interview yesterday, before the convention actually started. Denise Merrill is a Connecticut delegate (although not, as she pointed out to me, a superdelegate) and serves Connecticut as their Secretary of State. A recent achievement was the state becoming the first to pass a campaign finance reform law which created a public financing system for elections -- all the other states with such laws created them through ballot initiatives or referenda.
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[ Posted Monday, July 25th, 2016 – 23:37 UTC ]
Day One of the Democratic National Convention is now over, and tonight seemed designed to allow Bernie Sanders supporters to vent their frustrations, given the lineup of speakers. All the most liberal and progressive speakers were lined up for the first night, which only served to concentrate the energy for Bernie Sanders. At first it was announced that Bernie would speak tonight, but not in primetime. Later this was changed to give Bernie the final speaking slot of the night (which was entirely the right move for the convention to make), but instead of getting into all of that I'm just going to jot down my initial reactions to the spectacle of the first night.
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[ Posted Sunday, July 24th, 2016 – 20:48 UTC ]
Greetings from Philadelphia! I have just eaten a Geno's cheesesteak after a busy day getting ready for the Democratic National Convention to start, and I finally have some time to sit down and share a few preliminary thoughts.
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[ Posted Thursday, July 21st, 2016 – 23:05 UTC ]
Donald Trump finally stopped talking, so I can now start writing. His speech went on for almost an hour and a half, which was a bit much for me -- especially after an exhausting week of listening to Republicans talk. But that's the end of the evening, so let's go back to the beginning and see how we got here.
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[ Posted Thursday, July 21st, 2016 – 00:18 UTC ]
Heading into tonight's speechifying, I was convinced that Ted Cruz would emerge afterwards as the heir apparent to the Republican nomination in 2020, should Donald Trump fail to win in November. Now, I'm not so sure.
But before we get to the big story of the night, let's start at the beginning. Today, the realization finally dawned in the Trump camp that they had to do something to stop the bleeding over the plagiarism storyline. A staffer was summarily dragged out who offered to fall on her own sword, and magnanimous Donald pardoned her, saying "everyone makes mistakes." So they likely successfully prevented the story from continuing for another day. But it would have been overshadowed anyway (obviously) by the end of the night.
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[ Posted Tuesday, July 19th, 2016 – 21:47 UTC ]
We are now halfway through the Republican National Convention, and I still have yet to hear a single policy proposal or thing that the Republicans or Donald Trump are for. Well, maybe that's a slight exaggeration, but not by much.
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[ Posted Monday, July 18th, 2016 – 22:22 UTC ]
I'm writing this while watching all of Day One of the Republican National Convention. I apologize in advance for the rather stream-of-consciousness nature of the post, but I also caution that you should get used to it, because we are in for two weeks of convention-palooza.
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[ Posted Friday, July 15th, 2016 – 15:31 UTC ]
We begin today with a warning. Our regularly-scheduled Friday Talking Points are going on hiatus for at least three weeks. Next Friday, we'll be heading to the Democratic National Convention, and the Friday after that we'll be heading back home. For both today and next Friday we're taking a look back (through the lens of our talking points) at the entire 2016 presidential campaign season so far. We have no idea what we're going to do the Friday after that (indeed, we can't even promise that there'll be a column at all on July 29th, at this point). Regular FTP columns will resume the first Friday in August, just in time for the traditional "Silly Season" of American politics.
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[ Posted Wednesday, July 13th, 2016 – 17:06 UTC ]
In 1781, Benjamin Franklin wrote a satirical letter, purporting to be a proposal for a subject for European scientists to study. Franklin, an amateur scientist himself, was making a snide point about what he considered to be rather frivolous research by the Europeans. The equivalent today would be those American politicians who routinely point out some of the more far-fetched research the federal government now funds. This tongue-in-cheek document is now known by the title "Fart Proudly," although Franklin didn't actually use that phrase in his satirical essay.
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