[ Posted Monday, March 29th, 2010 – 16:36 UTC ]
A question which is causing no small degree of fear among Republican leaders in Washington right now is whether the Tea Parties are going to turn out to be a good thing or a bad thing for the Republican Party. Republican party wonks are torn between welcoming the enthusiasm the Tea Party folks bring into their "big tent," all the while worrying that this very vocal group is going to be dictating what is and what is not acceptable in Republicanism from this point on. Which, the seasoned politicians and party hacks know, may prove to provoke a backlash among independent voters, and lead to losing elections Republicans should have won.
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[ Posted Monday, March 1st, 2010 – 17:01 UTC ]
Both parties are facing a strong anti-incumbency feeling in this year's election. Or even "anti-Washington." The central party machine on each side has left many in the electorate fed up with politics-as-usual (however they define the term). Both parties will go through a period of redefinition and rededication throughout the course of the election.
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[ Posted Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 – 15:44 UTC ]
When taken as a whole, President Barack Obama's poll numbers last month moved the least amount of any month of his presidency so far. His approval rating continued its trend of moving downwards, but only by two-tenths of a percent. His disapproval rating continued upwards, but only by four-tenths of one percent. Meaning January was a pretty stable month for Obama.
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[ Posted Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010 – 15:06 UTC ]
Today's column is a short interlude, or perhaps even intermission, from our usual political wonkery. This is due mostly to the fact that we're busy around ChrisWeigant.com Central preparing charts for tomorrow's "Obama Poll Watch" column.
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[ Posted Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 – 15:03 UTC ]
I would like to hear President Obama outline a clear agenda, like the Populist Caucus' Blueprint for Recovery, to create good-paying jobs that can't be outsourced for America's middle class families. A "jobless recovery" isn't a recovery for middle class families and the President and his Administration need to understand that.
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[ Posted Tuesday, January 26th, 2010 – 17:31 UTC ]
Today we are turning the column over to a State Of The Union speech from the past, to get everyone in the spirit for President Obama's first official State Of The Union speech tomorrow night.
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[ Posted Monday, January 25th, 2010 – 18:54 UTC ]
There has been an interesting alignment which has slowly happened over the past year, between two groups not normally in agreement -- inside-the-Beltway mainstream media types, and the bloggy Left. This alignment has occurred not in favor of some issue or another, but rather against a certain movement: the Tea Parties. Both the Serious Persons in the media, and pretty much the entire Left, have agreed that the proper thing to do with the Tea Partiers is to mock them, in the hopes that they'll go away soon. This, I fear, is a mistake, and it could be a costly one indeed for the Democratic Party.
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[ Posted Friday, January 22nd, 2010 – 17:26 UTC ]
Here's a bit of news you may have missed: Democrats still control the Senate. Really! This seems to have escaped a lot of people, leading the Village Voice to run the hilarious tongue-in-cheek blog headline: "Scott Brown Wins Mass. Race, Giving GOP 41-59 Majority in the Senate."
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[ Posted Thursday, January 21st, 2010 – 17:30 UTC ]
It's about time to start fighting for the little guy and against the fat cats. It's about time to start fighting, when it comes right down to it.
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[ Posted Tuesday, January 19th, 2010 – 15:31 UTC ]
It is significant, to me at least, that President Barack Obama's true first anniversary in office is about to be overshadowed by a special election to fill a Senate seat in Massachusetts. Think about it for a minute -- Obama's milestones have been obsessively tracked by the media, with countless stories about his "first 100 days" in office (and even quite a few on his "first 50 days"), lots of followup "second 100 days" articles, and then a truly bizarre paroxysm of stories on the anniversary of his election night. But as we approach the real milestone, tomorrow at noon (East Coast time), any "first year" stories are likely to be buried beneath microscopic analysis of whatever happens tonight in the Bay State. This is a stunning turnaround from not just a year ago, but from a few months ago. And, as I said, it is significant, because many are now left wondering: how did we get here? How did Obama get to the point he occupies now, from where he was a year ago?
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