National Republicans
Better Angels
Trump boasted, ‘I fight for you harder than any president has ever fought for anyone’ – the video flew across the internet, landed in my inbox with a two-line stab: Remember George Washington fighting for eight years during the Revolution – and at Valley Forge? Staring down from the stage at a legion of admirers,…
Read MoreThe Great Debate
Flamboyant, fearless, pounding his chest, Trump punched Biden. Fumbling, dodging, doddery, Biden punched back. Fox swooned, Trump won. CNN hissed, Trump’s a fiend. Who won? Here’s a biblical question: Trump’s bad. But Biden’s worse. We’re in a ditch. Ask yourself: Why is our only choice between ‘bad’ or ‘worse?’
Read MoreA Reliable Sign…amid Polls
Every day, coming face-to-face with ambiguities, seeking answers I study signs but as Christ warned signs, like wolves in sheep’s clothing, can lead us astray. Media polls have Trump down ten, 14, 16 points – but my friends, with fixed certainty, tell me, You can’t trust media polls – they mean nothing. Yet even…
Read MoreAn Ironic Kind of Justice
Trump brags, name-calls, but to his credit he’s candid – what you see is what you get. He’s a rascal but doesn’t dress it up with high sounding talk. Cal Cunningham’s a rascal too but candor’s not among his virtues: He painted a picture of himself as a small-town boy… to trust… who loves North…
Read MoreOne Surprise…
Courtesy allows people who disagree – Liberals, Conservatives, Democrats, Republicans – to go on living together in one country; take it away and you live in a perpetual knife fight – like the one we watched the other night between Trump and Biden. It’s tempting to blame Trump – who’s the world champion name-caller. But…
Read MoreA Backfire…
I woke up this morning, turned on the TV, and there was an ad from Mitch McConnell’s Senate Leadership Fund basically calling Cal Cunningham a no good low-life scumbag – it was immediately followed by an ad for Cal Cunningham with Cunningham in it talking sweet and grinning, saying he disagreed with Thom Tillis about…
Read MoreWho Wins Tonight?
Well, ‘Sleepy Joe’ and ‘Tacky Trump’ go head to head tonight with no holds barred and with courtesy all but gone the ratings of tonight’s debate should shoot through the roof! Every morning my inbox is filled with emails from old friends who say, Trump lies but… and, at the same time, when Biden floats…
Read MoreA Bad Sign?
In a political campaign signs can tell you who’s up or who’s down: A tremor in a candidate’s voice, an evasive campaign manager, and polls (though these days a lot of polls are silly). When one campaign cuts back its media buys, as the other ramps up, that’s another sign. I read a story in…
Read MoreLast Respects
Thirty-five years ago, the morning George Crile – a producer at 60 Minutes who later wrote the book Charlie Wilson’s War – called I thought, An interview with 60 Minutes – what’s the difference between that and sticking your head in a lion’s mouth? I said: ‘I reckon you know the chances of Tom Ellis…
Read MoreWhat a Poll Missed
During Ronald Reagan’s 1976 primary Tom Ellis and I sat in a room listening to Arthur Finkelstein explain his first poll for Reagan in North Carolina – forty years later, sitting in my office across the table from Arthur, I listened to him explain his polls for George Holding. Sadly, a year later, Arthur passed…
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