National Republicans
The Trust Deficit
It’s bad news for Democrats when only 22 percent of Americans say they trust government. That number comes from a Pew Research Center poll, which found “a perfect storm of conditions associated with distrust of government — a dismal economy, an unhappy public, bitter partisan-based backlash, and epic discontent with Congress and elected officials.” …
Read MoreTea Time
The Tea Party movement may return the Republican Party to power – or ruin it. Whichever, the Tea Party controls the GOP’s future. If Mushmouth Mitch McConnell and Suntan John Boehner become majority leaders in the next Congress, they’ll have no choice but to walk the Tea Party line. That would pretty much…
Read MoreWhy So Angry?
There’s a lot of free-floating anger in America today. We saw it throughout the health-care debate. And Republicans are counting on it to fuel big election wins in November. It’s mostly on the right side of the spectrum. I see it in comments on this blog. Frank Rich wrote recently in The New…
Read MoreWingnuts
Extremism in the defense of liberty may or may not be a vice, but it’s a good way to lose elections. And it may be how Republicans blow their chance at a game-changer in November. Judging from their hysterical reaction, the stories about threats and violence have touched a raw nerve among Republicans. …
Read MoreProtesting Politics
In Washington, Republicans vow to fight on against health-care reform. In WakeCounty, school-diversity supporters vow to fight on against the new board’s reassignment plans. In Washington, reform opponents marched on the Capitol, and some spit on congressmen and called them not-nice names. In WakeCounty, diversity supporters protested, demonstrated and even got arrested.…
Read MoreRevisiting 1994
Fred Heineman’s death takes us back to the Republican tidal year of 1994, when a titanic health-care battle led to a Democratic debacle so huge Heineman temporarily unseated David Price. The big difference this year: Obama succeeded where the Clintons failed. It takes three ingredients to make an electoral revolution: (1) One side…
Read MoreWinning is Good
There hasn’t been a scene like it since LBJ in 1965: Democratic congressional leaders beaming and clapping as a Democratic President signs a big expansion of the social safety net. The question is whether today’s White House ceremony celebrating health-care reform was the last gasp of the Great Society – or a reprise of…
Read MorePolitical Courage
People always say they want politicians to do what’s right, even if it’s unpopular. Of course, they mean: unpopular with somebody else. Still, by that standard, Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi showed a rare level of political guts and perseverance in pushing through health-care reform. Remember two months ago? Scott Brown had just…
Read MoreWas Reagan ‘Whining’?
A reader commented that it would be “whining” for Obama to blame Republicans for the country’s economic mess, as I had suggested. Question: Was Ronald Reagan “whining” all those years? Through the 1984 campaign – four years after he unseated Jimmy Carter – Reagan’s basic message was that he inherited a mess, it…
Read MoreAn Unhealthy Vote?
Public Policy Polling says that – on health care reform – Democratic Congressmen Bob Etheridge and Health Shuler “both have to decide between voting the way that folks in their party would like them to, or voting the way voters in their district as a whole would like them to.” But I’m not convinced…
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