[ Posted Friday, April 25th, 2008 – 15:47 UTC ]
It was a telling sign that neither Democratic candidate saw fit to visit Punxsutawney before the Pennsylvania primary. Nobody wanted the press to remember Bill Murray's Groundhog Day in any way, shape or form. But even without stump speeches next to Punxsutawney Phil, it's hard not to think of living the same day over and over and over again when looking ahead to the nine contests that remain. Because nothing much is likely to be decided by them.
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[ Posted Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008 – 15:15 UTC ]
It's rare (in an election year) that the opposition hands you an issue that is just begging to be exploited politically. Democrats shouldn't drop the ball on this one, and should use it as an enormous lever in the Senate to get the bill actually passed. Overturning a Bush veto would reap all kinds of rewards in November, and Democrats would be fools to pass this chance up.
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[ Posted Monday, April 21st, 2008 – 13:50 UTC ]
It's been a long six weeks since we last played this game, and I'm just relieved that in the intervening time, the media and both campaigns had enough time to accurately identify and portray the relative positions of each candidate on a range of important issues on which they have honest differences; issues that everyday Americans actually care about as being relevant to their lives.
Ha! (Belated) April Fool!
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[ Posted Wednesday, April 9th, 2008 – 15:04 UTC ]
Call him a scapegoat, lightning rod, whipping boy, or even sacrificial lamb (choose your own metaphor, in other words), but no matter who the nominee is, will he give sufficient cover so this eventual nominee can unite Democratic voters to produce a win in November?
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[ Posted Friday, April 4th, 2008 – 15:26 UTC ]
Since the campaigns of both Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama have seemingly taken my advice earlier this week, and are both concentrating on attacking Senator John McCain rather than each other, we have the luxury of getting away from the campaign trail this week and focusing on a few other things -- the biggest of which is the upcoming testimony before Congress by General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker on the situation in Iraq. More on that in a moment.
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[ Posted Monday, March 31st, 2008 – 11:39 UTC ]
That is the "prize" they're both fighting for, remember -- the chance to face off against McCain in the general election. So why not compete with each other on who is the best candidate to do so? And why shouldn't this competition show each candidate's strategy for doing so now, instead of later?
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[ Posted Friday, March 7th, 2008 – 16:04 UTC ]
The first was the fact that (although few noticed it) she blew the opening line on her appearance on Saturday Night Live. For the almost the entire 82-year history of the show (ahem), the opener has been the very-easy-to-pronounce: "Live, from New York, it's Saturday Night!" Hillary went all Ivy League on us, changing it to "it is Saturday Night." Sheesh. Luckily for her, nobody in the media noticed the gaffe, and it went largely unremarked. But some things are sacred, which is why I feel duty-bound to point it out here.
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[ Posted Friday, February 15th, 2008 – 15:41 UTC ]
It's been a busy week for Democrats, with a lot to cover. There has been good news and bad, but on a whole I'd have to judge the week a success for Democrats in general. Led by what the Washington Post reports as a "rare uprising" of House Democrats. But before I get to that, I'd like to offer one observation from the campaign trail.
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[ Posted Friday, February 1st, 2008 – 17:18 UTC ]
This column is dedicated to the idea that Democrats can learn to use talking points as effectively as Republicans often do. This idea annoys many who feel that Democrats using talking points is degrading, and stoops to Republican tactics; a position I don't agree with, but still respect. But sometimes even I have to take Democrats to task for not backing up such talking points with action, or at the very least a plan of action.
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[ Posted Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008 – 15:20 UTC ]
Either Karl Rove has joined the Clinton campaign as their advisor, or somebody over there has learned a lot from his standard campaign playbook. Because they're successfully using Rove's signature (and quite bizarrely effective) political tactic: attack your opponent not on his weak points, but on your weak points. This throws your opponent on defense, when he should be strongly playing offense.
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