[ Posted Friday, August 7th, 2015 – 17:10 UTC ]
Well, that was entertaining, wasn't it? We refer, of course, to the grand spectacle of the first Republican presidential debates, held last night on Fox News. Since this is all anyone's talking about in the political world today, we are going to follow suit and devote most of this column (with the exception of the awards) to our reactions to seeing all the Republican candidates under one roof for the first time.
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[ Posted Wednesday, August 5th, 2015 – 17:48 UTC ]
I have to begin by immediately offering my apologies to Rodgers and Hammerstein for that title, but the lyrics from The Sound Of Music's "Maria" have indeed been running through my head -- as I contemplate what all the other Republican candidates are going to do in the debate tomorrow night to differentiate themselves from their party's frontrunner, Donald Trump. Especially the ever-so descriptive line: "A flibbertigibbet... A will o' the wisp... A clown."
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[ Posted Tuesday, August 4th, 2015 – 17:02 UTC ]
Barack Obama doesn't usually have very good summers, as measured by his public opinion job approval numbers. Last month, he finally broke this curse and posted some solid gains -- the first time he's ever done so in July. The daily polling was a bit of a rollercoaster, though, so he could just as easily go back down in August, but let's focus on the good news for Obama fans first. Take a look at the new chart, for starters.
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[ Posted Monday, August 3rd, 2015 – 20:55 UTC ]
I just finished watching the first "candidates' forum" (don't call it a debate!) of the season, where 14 of the 17 Republicans running for president all appeared on the same stage in New Hampshire. The "one person on the stage at a time" format was an odd one, meant to get around the Republican National Committee's strict rules on how many debates they're going to tolerate this time around (it seems the more the public hears Republicans debate, the more it harms the Republican candidates).
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[ Posted Friday, July 31st, 2015 – 17:21 UTC ]
In normal years, this would be the official kickoff to the political Silly Season -- the dog days of August when Congress scarpers off for five or six weeks to have fun in the sun at taxpayer expense, and the political chattering classes have so little material to work with that they pick one silly issue and just absolutely obsess over it. This year, however, is not normal, as instead we're right at the kickoff of Presidential Debate Season, and the votes are already in -- the silly subject we're all going to obsess over this year is named Donald Trump. Whether this obsession takes the form of crushing depression (headline: "A GOP Led By Donald Trump Will Fail, And Deserve It") or unconcealed glee (headline: "Christmas Comes Early This Year -- Anticipating The Gift Of A Trump-Fueled GOP Debate") depends, of course, on the viewpoint of the pundit.
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[ Posted Wednesday, July 29th, 2015 – 16:54 UTC ]
It's time to think about what has previously been in the realm of the unthinkable: Donald Trump might just become the Republican nominee for president. Two months ago, that statement would have elicited nothing but a big old belly laugh from just about anyone who pays any attention to politics. Nowadays, though, nobody's laughing. The very concept has moved from the surreal to the possible. So it's time to actually think about what it would mean for the country and for the Republican Party.
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[ Posted Monday, July 27th, 2015 – 17:09 UTC ]
As I've been predicting for a while now, the fight for the final two slots in the first primetime Republican presidential debate has begun to heat up. When Fox News announced that they would be limiting the number of candidates invited to their debate to only the top ten in polling, it was inevitable that there would be a struggle to get on the main stage. But there will also be a "consolation prize" debate (better known as the "kids' table" debate) earlier in the day, which will feature those who didn't make the cut -- and it could wind up being even more interesting and quotable than the main event.
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[ Posted Friday, July 24th, 2015 – 16:57 UTC ]
Two weeks ago, we kind of went out on a limb (the polling evidence was not all that clear when we wrote it) and subtitled our previous column: "Donald Trump, Frontrunner." Since that time, such a statement has gone from being a wild prediction to becoming an equally-wild reality. The first Republican presidential debate is happening in less than two weeks, and Donald Trump is not only guaranteed one of the ten slots, he will quite likely be at the center of the stage, since his poll numbers currently dwarf all the other GOP contenders.
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[ Posted Wednesday, July 22nd, 2015 – 16:47 UTC ]
Yes, it's true. This past weekend, I joined 11,000 other people in Phoenix to "feel the Bern," as the supporters of Bernie Sanders would put it. Sanders held a rally in the city immediately after the Netroots Nation conference concluded, which made it pretty easy for me to attend (and take a few photos). Netroots routinely draws a crowd of around 3,000, so even if everyone from the conference went to the Bernie rally (actually, not everyone did), the conference crowd could only roughly have been about a quarter of the people there to see Bernie. The rest were locals from a very red state. All there to feel the Bern, as it were.
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[ Posted Tuesday, July 21st, 2015 – 14:34 UTC ]
It's time once again to take a look at the vastness of the Republican field of candidates for president. The last time I devoted an article to the Republican primary race was back in May, so like it or not, the time has come again.
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