[ Posted Monday, November 2nd, 2015 – 17:09 UTC ]
The Republican presidential candidates don't seem to realize it, but they're in the process of seriously undermining their own "tough guy" brand. Republicans have always seen themselves as "the Daddy party" (as opposed to Democrats' "Mommy party," of course), which has always meant no-nonsense toughness in the face of any opposition to their agenda. But how can American voters square this with the collective hissy fit the GOP candidates are now throwing over debate moderators? To put it the most obvious way, why should any voter believe that any of these folks will be able to get tough with (for example) Vladimir Putin, when they can't even handle snarky questions from journalists? Republicans seem to have now embraced what was (ironically) a major political problem for Jeb Bush's father -- the wimp factor.
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[ Posted Friday, September 18th, 2015 – 17:27 UTC ]
This was one of those weeks when one event overshadowed pretty much everything else that was going on in the political world. The event, of course, was the second round of Republican presidential debates, which lasted for a grueling five-plus hours.
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[ Posted Wednesday, August 26th, 2015 – 16:31 UTC ]
The Republican Party is now the party of Donald Trump. That's a pretty astounding statement, but as Trump continues to not only lead in all the primary polls but also to drive the debate for all the other contenders, it would be hard to make the case that Trump hasn't completed what might be called a hostile takeover of the Republican Party brand. This could always change, of course -- nothing is ever set in stone in a presidential race. But for the time being, Trump's not only the party frontrunner, he is actually defining the race for everyone else.
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[ Posted Monday, July 20th, 2015 – 17:20 UTC ]
As for the Netroots Nation convention itself, the most notable thing was that two Democratic candidates for president showed up, and three did not. Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley were both on hand to court Lefties, but I had to wonder where Hillary Clinton was. Lincoln Chafee seems to barely be running, so it's easy to see why he might not have had the cash on hand for a plane ticket. Jim Webb seems to only be courting Southern white voters, so he may have made a conscious decision to snub Netroots. But Hillary's absence was indeed notable.
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[ Posted Tuesday, June 23rd, 2015 – 17:04 UTC ]
Large corporations are getting more involved in politics. Whether that is seen as a good thing or a bad thing depends upon the political issue involved and the side the corporation takes (and, of course, the side you're personally on). Conservatives cheer when corporations take a stand on abortion, liberals cheer when a corporation stands up for gay or civil rights. But it does seem like we're entering into a new era of corporate political behavior, or (since they're apparently people now) perhaps "corporate citizenship" might be a better term.
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[ Posted Friday, June 19th, 2015 – 17:30 UTC ]
It's been a rollercoaster week in the political world, beginning with Hillary Clinton shifting the gears of her campaign by holding her first big rally, which was immediately followed by the man we're going to call "Jeb! Bush!" finally officially announcing his own candidacy.
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[ Posted Thursday, June 18th, 2015 – 17:13 UTC ]
The Supreme Court handed down two decisions today on free speech cases, both of which did some hair-splitting on the role government has in regulating certain types of speech. What's interesting is that they seemed a bit contradictory at first glance, since one was decided in favor of government regulation of free speech and one was not, but these are awfully fine hairs to be split and in reality the cases are only superficially similar.
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[ Posted Friday, June 5th, 2015 – 21:05 UTC ]
We really wanted to use a different subtitle for today's column, one we are actually astonished that more news organizations didn't go with, given Rick Perry's announcement of his second run for the White House. That headline, of course, would have been: "Oops, He Did It Again!" Now, we do realize that the Britney Spears album is actually 15 years old (how time flies, eh?), but even so, with "Oops" being so central to defining Perry on the national stage, it certainly seemed like an obvious choice.
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[ Posted Wednesday, June 3rd, 2015 – 18:03 UTC ]
We continue our running series of taking a serious look at all the announced candidates for president with two new entries this week, one from each side of the aisle. Republican Lindsey Graham made his formal announcement earlier in the week, and today Democrat Lincoln Chafee is also set to announce his candidacy.
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[ Posted Thursday, May 7th, 2015 – 15:57 UTC ]
I write today not to defend Pamela Geller, or to defend anything she has ever said or done. Much of what she says and does I consider rather indefensible, in fact. Instead, I write today in defense of Pamela Geller's absolute right to freely say and do what she wants. I write in defense of her rights, but that in no way means I would even attempt to defend her words or ideas, which I find odious in the extreme.
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