National Democrats
Fight Back
Democrats need to stop wringing their hands and worrying about November. And start fighting back on health care. Here’s the message: This year – over the opposition of every single Republican in Congress – we did something that Americans have needed for 50 years. When the health-care bill passes, every American will be…
Read MorePolitical Cycles
There is a natural rhythm that usually governs politics. And it suggests that 2010 will be a Republican year. But not so fast. Arthur Schlesinger Jr. wrote The Cycles of American History about those political rhythms. In recent years – as both parties have migrated to their political extremes – the cycle…
Read MoreThe Roots of Health Care Reform
As the health-care battle resumes in Washington, some history may be just what the doctor ordered. Most people believe this battle traces back to Bill and Hillary Clinton’s failed effort to reform health care in 1993-1994. Actually, it goes back to 1991 – and a now-forgotten special election for the U.S. Senate in…
Read MoreSuperdelegates Under Attack
A national Democratic Party reform that Jim Hunt pioneered nearly thirty years ago is under attack. And state Senator Dan Blue is defending the reform. There is some irony here. When Hunt was Governor and Blue was House Speaker in 1993-94, the two didn’t always get along. They clashed especially on Hunt’s crime…
Read MoreThe Decade of Obama?
The Teens may come to be Barack Obama’s decade the way the Eighties were Ronald Reagan’s decade. Ideology aside, the two Presidents have much in common. Both were outsiders who ran campaigns that upset conventional wisdom. Both had lives before politics – Reagan as an actor and union leader, Obama as a…
Read MorePolitical Terror
Republicans – including Senator Richard Burr – couldn’t wait to blame the Obama administration for the Christmas Day terrorist scare. In other words, to indulge in the kind of politics they called unpatriotic when Bush and Cheney were in charge. Let’s look at some facts. A. Burr agrees with the President that…
Read MoreOne Year
A year is a long time in politics. One year ago: Barack Obama was a colossus, a superstar who had transformed politics Bev Perdue was about to enjoy a (short) honeymoon The clouds over Mike Easley were just gathering Tony Rand was ready for another turn as second-in-command of the Senate Wake County Democrats were…
Read MoreControlling the Narrative
The cable-TV blabbermouths are all over the Obama administration over the Christmas Day terrorist scare. The know-it-alls proclaim that this is a PR disaster for the White House. The message machine was asleep. Obama was slow on the uptake. Janet Napolitano blew it. Napolitano did blow it. But I’m not so sure Obama…
Read MoreThe Copenhagen Hustle
You know, I thought all this foo-fah over in Copenhagen was about the ice caps melting – but I was dead wrong. Now there’s not much doubt with every bone in his Ivy League educated body President Obama sincerely believes if we don’t do something – now – by 2050 Manhattan Island is going…
Read More31 Million Reasons
President Obama and the Democrats are doing a better job ramming health-care reform through the Senate than explaining it. They should try this message: 31 million. That’s the number of uninsured Americans who will get health insurance over the next decade because of the bill. That’s not Democratic rhetoric. That’s from the nonpartisan…
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