[ Posted Wednesday, April 11th, 2012 – 14:47 UTC ]
President Barack Obama is using the week before income taxes are due to make a full-court press for the vote next week in the Senate on the so-called "Buffett Rule" (which would force people making a million bucks a year to pay higher taxes than their secretaries). Today, he mentioned what could turn out to be the biggest weapon in this fight, and made a joke about what it should be called instead. Obama shouldn't be treating it as a joke, though. He should take his own advice and publicly rename the idea the "Reagan Rule" -- and then run a television ad explaining why to the country.
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[ Posted Monday, April 9th, 2012 – 16:38 UTC ]
The movement that Occupy Wall Street began is at another crossroads, it seems. It isn't the first such fork in the road, and it certainly won't be the last. What happens next is anyone's guess. Is the Occupy movement poised for a comeback? Or is it about to be co-opted altogether? Can both, in fact, happen simultaneously, and would that be a good thing or not?
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[ Posted Friday, April 6th, 2012 – 16:09 UTC ]
We'll get to that provocative title in the Talking Points section, never fear. I felt the need for a sort of a rant this week, as well as a little humor to open it up with. Truth be told, I've been in a humorous mood all week, as evidenced by my column casting the Republican primary race so far as a climb up the polling mountain range. I think it's the spring weather or something. Since we're on the subject, though, Republican candidates seem like a good place to start today.
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[ Posted Tuesday, April 3rd, 2012 – 16:00 UTC ]
In the last primary race, back in 2008, three political entities clustered around the Potomac River all voted on the same day, and thus was born "Crab Cake Tuesday." This year, for some inexplicable reason, Virginia has decided not to vote on the same day as Maryland and the District of Columbia, and (again, inexplicably) Wisconsin replaced Virginia. Linking these three in a cute label has become much tougher as a direct result. The only thing we could come up with was "Crabby Badger Tuesday," which... well, we admit it, it's just too downright bizarre to be considered cute.
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[ Posted Monday, April 2nd, 2012 – 15:30 UTC ]
President Obama had a fairly flat month of March in the polls. His approval rating slipped back a half a point, and his disapproval rating stayed unchanged from last month. While his approval stayed above his disapproval for the month, the gap between the two is smaller than it's ever been. All month long he teetered back and forth in terms of being "above water" but showed signs of at least stabilizing by month's end. This brought an end to five straight months of good news in the polls for the president, the longest streak he's ever managed to post.
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[ Posted Friday, March 30th, 2012 – 17:11 UTC ]
This week, the punditocracy had no Republican primary contest to distract their attention ("The upcoming primary/caucus in some state I've never traveled through because it's a flyover state could be the crucial turning point in the entire race... details at 11:00..."), and so the political pontificators and prognosticators had nothing else to talk about (one would think) except the serious business before the Supreme Court this week -- Obamacare.
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[ Posted Monday, March 26th, 2012 – 13:08 UTC ]
To put it in plain English rather than mathematical figures, the Republican Party's plan of creating a more competitive race by awarding proportional delegates is simply not working, at least between the two frontrunners. If none of the Republican state contests were proportional, Rick Santorum would be a lot closer to Mitt Romney right now. Proportionality has made for a less competitive race between the two.
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[ Posted Friday, March 23rd, 2012 – 16:36 UTC ]
Two years ago, Joe Biden was famously quoted for saying to Barack Obama upon the occasion of health care reform legislation finally passing: "This is a big [expletive deleted] deal." In the past week or so, the White House has rolled out a big media push to support Obama's signature legislation. Next week, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on the subject of whether the law, as written, passes constitutional muster or not.
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[ Posted Thursday, March 22nd, 2012 – 15:47 UTC ]
Mitt Romney's campaign has entered a sketchy phase. Or, more precisely, an etchy-sketchy phase.
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[ Posted Friday, March 16th, 2012 – 17:46 UTC ]
Sometimes I'm just astonished at the inability of political campaigns to do a simple web search. Case in point: the story about Mitt Romney's dog Seamus.
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