Not only is there a road to Democratic victory, there are roads – plural. For Republicans, there’s only one road: Trump’s way – or the highway. Democrats took many paths to winning Tuesday – from a democratic socialist in New York City (a Muslim) to an ex-Navy officer in New Jersey (a woman) to an…
The Defense Department turned into the War Department and now every day we’re bombing boats in the Caribbean – killing, Trump says, terrorists and drug smugglers. Senator Rand Paul asked a straightforward question: Show us proof they’re terrorists. Trump ignored him. Paul added a president can’t just, on his own, order the army to kill…
The best overnight analysis I’ve read is by Stephen Clermont, a pollster with Change Research in Washington. I’ve known Stephen since he worked with Harrison Hickman on polls for Governor Jim Hunt in the 1990s. We recently worked together on a poll of rural voters in North Carolina. Here’s his take on Tuesday: Last night…
Much alike, both talking in circles, voices flat, Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries landed in a fight but not with a Republican – holding rallies Bernie Saunders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez set out to break Washington insiders’ iron grip on the Democratic Party. Fingers crossed Republicans – not Republican voters but the Republicans who go to…
Years rolled by, presidents tried to unite us – often fell short. But at least tried. Trump doesn’t try. A practical New Yorker he understands division tightens his grip on MAGA. So he uses division as a tool. And it works. But division sows seeds: People stop seeing their opponents as fellow Americans. They see…
The New York City mayor’s race is a preview of the 2028 Democratic presidential race: an aging, center-left establishment figure scarred by past battles, challenged by a fresh but unproven champion of young, more-left progressives. That could mean a civil war in 2028, like what led to Donald Trump in 2016. Or a new leader…
The shutdown’s rolling along – voice dry, flat, tedious, Chuck Shumer lays the blame on Trump. Defending himself, hitting back, Trump’s heaping scorn on Schumer. Over at the Department of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem’s been spending taxpayers’ money airing TV ads praising Trump. Using the internet the Department of Agriculture’s spending taxpayers’ money to lay…
Reagan ran against Ford, then ran against Jimmy Carter, Jesse Helms ran against Jim Hunt: Those were tough hard-fought battles where each side hammered the other but, tough as they were, back in those days no one called his opponent a ‘scumbag.’ Because, if he did, shaking their heads people would vote against him for…
A reader sent these “random thoughts on a rainy day.” I thought they’re worth sharing: Watching the homes on Hatteras Island collapse into an angry Atlantic is sad. But the scene is also a microcosm of today’s paradoxical conflict between the responsibilities of individual citizens and their government. These are private homes whose owners and…
Recent Articles
Carter Wrenn and I are moving to Substack. That’s where you’ll find our blogs in the…
The political sniping began even as chaos still reigned at the White House Correspondents Dinner. My…
A new nationwide poll shows that, if they could run against each other in 2028, Barack…