The Cure For Bluster?

Trump called Kim Jong Un ‘Rocket Man on a suicide mission.’ Kim called Trump ‘a dotard’ and ‘mentally deranged.’ Trump called Kim ‘a madman’ and Kim called Trump ‘a frightened dog.’ The Chinese stepped in and said everybody ought to take a deep breath and calm down and, of all people, the Russians said the…

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Why Hillary lost, continued

Bill Clinton’s old pollster Stanley Greenberg joins the pile piling onto Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. Greenberg’s most striking point is the campaign’s overreliance on “data analytics” and under-reliance on polls, focus groups and good old political gut. In other words, the campaign abandoned the very same techniques that made Bill Clinton a winner in 1992…

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A Chess Game

When a politician takes a poll most folks figure he means to figure out how he can bamboozle people and there’s truth in that but a poll’s also a picture of the powers – like fear, revenge, blindness and rage – shaking the political world and even through a poll won’t show you angels and…

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The Crossfire

It’s the crossfire dozens of Republican Senators and Congressmen are facing – it happened to a Congresswoman in Alabama like this: The Republican State Legislator challenging her in the primary said, ‘It’s a choice between me, the first guy to endorse Trump, or a Congresswoman who said Trump was unfit to serve’ and make no…

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Trump Versus the Base?

Down in Alabama there’s an election – a Republican runoff – today and the Washington Republicans led by Mitch McConnell have moved heaven and earth to elect Luther Strange (who was appointed to Jeff Session’s Senate seat) while the Anti-Establishment-Trump-Populist Republicans (from Steve Bannon to Sean Hannity) want to elect Judge Roy Moore but there’s…

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Divided we stand. Or kneel

Last night’s installment of Ken Burns’s “The Vietnam War” recalled how divided our country was 50 years ago. Today we’re just as divided. Thanks to Trump. Apparently, the Divider-in-Chief doesn’t have enough on his plate with North Korea, Russia, Obamacare and hurricane relief. So he goes to Alabama and (surprise!) attacks athletes who happen to…

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Tweet back

Stop saying Trump should stop Tweeting. Why should he? It works for him. He has 38.8 million Twitter followers, and he can talk directly to them. That’s real communication power. Instead of whining, Democrats need to get tweeting better. And there’s no better role model than 91-year-old former congressman John Dingell of Michigan. Mashable wrote…

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Doggy Bag: Char-Grill

We need a break from politics. So today’s blog comes from our dog Ringo. It’s the first in a series of Doggy Bag restaurant reviews for dogs and their owners. Sometimes I go out to eat with my people. (Note to Gary: dogs, like divas and big-time CEOs, have “people.” Not “owners.”) This week, we…

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Bad signs

For a brief moment, I thought my campaign against yard signs was gaining ground. One big-name candidate in Charlotte joined the cause. Her campaign manager said, “As part of our commitment to a more sustainable Charlotte, we’ve decided not to pollute Charlotte’s roads, our right-of-ways, and our green spaces with yard signs, and we’re calling…

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What happened? One word: Race

Hillary Clinton’s book scrolls through a long list of reasons why she lost. But the real reason may boil down to one simple fact: race. Specifically, the fact that the President she wanted to succeed – the President who endorsed her and enthusiastically campaigned for her – was black. Plus the fact that her opponent…

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