National Republicans
Moore’s Health Care Offensive
One of our loyal blogger/readers passed along a link to Richard Moore’s website about George Bush denying health care to kids. He also noted that Moore ran a banner ad on the N&O’s webpage drawing visitors to the site. And he observes: “This is a hard-hitting site about denying healthcare to kids. Looks like Moore…
Read MoreThompson Dramatized GOP Weakness
Fred Thompson is a big, imposing guy with a big, authoritative voice. Too bad he doesn’t have anything to say. All his voice is booming so far is empty platitudes. If he’s the Republicans’ next Ronald Reagan, they are in more trouble than I thought. Reagan had a message: Strengthen America. Tear down this wall.…
Read MoreBush’s Political Surge
The military surge may or may not be working in Iraq. But George Bush’s political surge appears to be working at home. His surprise Labor Day visit demonstrates the power of the President – even a poll-ravaged lame-duck President – to command the political heights on foreign affairs. How can this be? How can a…
Read MoreHelping Fred Thompson
Say you are a candidate and need to get in step with Republican voters on immigration, because your record wasn’t quite what it should be. There’s one tried and true political strategy: Find an opponent whose record is worse than yours and attack him. That’s what Mitt Romney is doing – accusing Rudy Giuliani of…
Read MoreGilding the Lily Can Be Risky?
Rudy Giuliani has done a little lily gilding of his own, declaring in a campaign appearance he’d “been in the ruins of the World Trade Center Towers as often, if not more than the cleanup workers.” Unfortunately for the Mayor that wasn’t how the workers remembered it. They complained. And the New York Times did…
Read MoreRove’s Legacy
Back in the days when Ronald Reagan was first running for president, trying to dethrone the Republican Establishment in the primaries in 1976 and 1980, Karl Rove – along with Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld – was working the other side of the street. Of course Reagan won and the Establishment, ever practical, promptly changed…
Read MoreNew York, New York
It’s been 60 years since both parties nominated New Yorkers for President (FDR vs. Dewey). But today, New Yorkers lead the race for both parties (Clinton vs. Giuliani). I already hear the quibbling that Hillary’s no New Yorker. My position is, if they elected her to the Senate twice, she’s a New Yorker. In fact,…
Read MoreWiretaps
There’s been a big flap in Washington about wiretaps. The Bush Administration wants to listen in on ‘foreign communications’ it suspects may be tied to terrorism without court orders (The New York Times, 8-4-07). That sounded reasonable even to a fair amount of Democrats (who voted for it). But a lot didn’t and the usual…
Read MoreThe Bush Who Cried Wolf
President Bush now claims that intelligence shows we’re fighting Osama’s Al-Qaeda in Iraq. It’s his latest justification for the war: We either fight them in Iraq or in Illinois. But who believes him? Bush and his cronies cooked the intelligence to get us into Iraq in the first place. Does he think we’ll believe him…
Read MorePhony Politics
You have to say this for the Internet: It’s making life more dangerous for politicians. The whole foundation for Rudy Giuliani’s campaign for President is his record on 9-11. In that vein he recently boasted New York’s Firefighters “have no greater friend” than Giuliani (Cox News Service, 7-15-07). It turns out the Firefighters don’t agree.…
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