Traditionally, for pundits, this is the last week in what might be called "timely football metaphor season." With the Super Bowl right around the corner, and (this year) the Winter Olympics close behind, it would normally be the time to get some final football metaphors into the political conversation, before wordsmiths everywhere scratch their heads over ice skating and snowboarding terminology, in an attempt to remain relevant to the sports-hungry American public. You can almost see the wheels turning inside pundits' brains: "David Axelrod? Isn't an 'axel' some sort of skating jump? Hmmm...."

But we are going to eschew both football and winter sports in our metaphor toolbox today, and instead speak in more generic (team) sporting terms of the concept of "offense" and "defense."

Because Democrats need to realize that they still have the biggest majority in both houses of Congress that they are likely to see in their lifetimes -- and if they can't get things done with this overwhelming power, then they really should consider just folding up their tents and calling it a day as a political party.

Continue Reading »

The issue of gay rights has long been a contentious one in American politics. The Republican Party has used being against gay rights as a successful "wedge issue" or "hot button" issue for decades now -- pretty much since when the gay rights movement truly gained a political foothold. So some Republicans are likely quite gleeful over the prospect of holding a debate on the "Don't Ask/Don't Tell" (DADT) policy, which forbids openly gay people from serving in the U.S. military. They think -- and one cannot really fault them for thinking this -- that the issue will be a winner for them politically, as it has so often in the recent past. Especially, they reason, if the Democrats are suicidal enough to bring it up in an election year.

But what these Republicans haven't really come to grips with is the fact that it is 2010, and not 1993. And in the intervening seventeen years, counting from when DADT was enacted into law and signed by President Clinton, American public attitudes have changed dramatically on the issue. Republicans ignore this at their peril.

Continue Reading »

Flat Lines

I admit that "flat lines" sounds pretty bad, so allow me to clarify. In a hospital, when the beepy machine flatlines, you are dead. But in the world of polling, flat lines mean a zero slope -- neither changing for the worse or for the better. A more accurate way to say it might be "stuck in neutral" or "spinning your wheels," I guess. But the lines on the chart are what they are, and so we're stuck with a bad metaphor to open with this month, for which I apologize.

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.

Continue Reading »

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.

Today, instead, we're going to pose a few stylistic grammatical questions to our readers, in order to see if our standards here are in need of adjustment or not. If that sort of thing is not your cup of tea, then you can check out this rampant speculation over who is jockeying to take over Harry Reid's leadership position in the Senate, should he fail to be re-elected this November, as it is about as wonkily fascinating as you can get.

Continue Reading »

President Obama seems to have recently discarded the advice of timid advisors who bought into the media's "overexposed" myth last summer, and has hit the ground running in the past few weeks. Perhaps it is due to the re-emergence of David Plouffe, but for whatever reason, Obama has been out there talking to people again. He held a few town hall events surrounding his high-profile State Of The Union address last week, and then delighted many Democrats by entering the lions' den of the House Republican retreat on Friday, where he answered questions for over an hour -- with the television cameras rolling. He needs to cap off this recent communications strategy shift with something that has been missing for months -- a real press conference.

This doesn't (as a sop to the "overexposed" crowd) necessarily have to be a primetime event, either. It can be a little more informal than that, without the pomp of an evening press conference broadcast nationally on all channels. But it should be at least an hour long, and it should be held soon.

Continue Reading »

As I sit down to write today's column... oh, excuse me... someone's at the door.

Phone problems? No, we're not having any phone problems, sorry. Tests? Well, OK, I guess you can run a test or two.

Sorry, where was I? Oh, right, today's column. Well, I have to say Obama's first State Of The Union address to a joint session of... what's that?

The punchdown block? You want to examine my phone system's main control box? But the phones are working perfectly... hey, wait a minute... can I see some identification?

Boy, that got rid of them quick!

Ahem. Where was I? Oh, right, last week. Last week, when conservative "journalists" weren't pulling fratboy pranks on federal property -- and getting arrested for such -- here's a tip to conservative "gotcha journalism" types: if you're going to do something this risky, might I suggest not doing it in a federal building where the F.B.I. probably has an office on the next floor? I mean, you're making it too easy, guys, really.

Continue Reading »

The question on every political junkie's lips today is: "What did you think of Obama's first State Of The Union speech?" I don't have a single answer to that question, personally. I have some random reactions to different parts of the speech, so you'll have to forgive me for offering up such a mixed bag -- but then in my defense, I have to say the speech itself was a rather mixed bag.

Every president tries to pre-spin their speeches as "not a laundry list," and then winds up reading a laundry list anyway. I'm not sure what the point of this game is, but both sides do it equally. I'm not even sure why a laundry list is supposed to be a bad thing, unless it has to do with connotations of being boring. When you get right down to it, it's actually not even a "laundry list," for a couple reasons. One, nobody uses laundry lists these days. I've gone my entire life without ever laying eyes on a piece of paper that could be called a "laundry" list. When doing the laundry, who really needs a list? And secondly, a presidential State Of The Union is simply not akin to a laundry list, since the president is not exactly "airing his dirty laundry in public" or giving Congress instructions on how much starch to use when cleaning his legislative laundry.

The real term we should all be using is a "grocery shopping list," when you think about it. The president is going to the Congressional store with a list of what he would like on America's table. He reads the list, and then Congress attempts to put some of it in his shopping cart. This metaphor has a lot more going for it, is much more versatile, and everybody's used a shopping list at some point or another.

Continue Reading »

The news from the White House for the past week, post-Massachusetts and pre-State-Of-The-Union, has had a decidedly Populist bent to it. So, when thinking about how to cover President Obama's first official yearly address to a joint session of Congress (last year's didn't count, officially), I thought it would be appropriate to check in with the Populist Caucus once again.

I first interviewed the Chairman of the Populist Caucus last year (Democratic Representative Bruce Braley, from Iowa) soon after their formation. He was graciously willing to talk to me today, and even suggested doing two interviews -- one before and one after the speech. So we will be presenting this article in two parts, which isn't exactly "liveblogging," but is about as close as you can get with someone who will actually be sitting in the room listening to President Obama speak tonight. I encourage everyone to check back here after the speech is over, to read Braley's immediate reactions to what Obama had to say.

Continue Reading »

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.

It was hard to choose which speech to run, because I found a treasure trove of speech transcripts online (all the way back to George Washington in 1790), and therefore spent a few hours digging through many of them. I almost ran a speech from Teddy Roosevelt, just because of all the trust-busting language, but anyone who thinks Bill Clinton gave long speeches should check out one of Teddy's (if you think you've got the stamina for it).

Continue Reading »

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.

Allow me to explain, because I'm about to stake out a position here that may not make me many friends. The Tea Party movement is currently hard to define and hard to pin down on the issues, but last month there was an extraordinary Wall Street Journal / NBC News poll which showed the Tea Party was seen more favorably than either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party. Meaning that the sentiments driving the Tea Party movement are a lot broader than anyone in Washington may fully realize.

Continue Reading »