National Republicans
Clinton-Bush, the Sequel
One score and four years after Bubba beat Poppy, another presidential election could be a showdown between the Republican First Family and Democratic First Family. We shouldn’t be surprised. It’s the money, stupid. Since the 1970s (or earlier), George H.W. Bush has built a vast network of fundraisers and donors. He did it…
Read MoreAnswering Obama
It was a rare feat: Frank Luntz somehow found the twenty maddest-at-Obama people in the country and put them in a ‘focus group’ on Fox News after the President’s State of the Union speech – and they didn’t have one kind word to say. But you have to give the devil his due: Barack…
Read MoreElizabeth Warren
Most of us older white conservatives just naturally see a Democratic Senator from Massachusetts who taught at Harvard and figure – barring a miracle – she’s got to be a liberal so it came as a shock the other night when a young conservative posted a link to one of Elizabeth Warren’s speeches with one…
Read MoreJust a Matter of Time?
Awhile back Ted Cruz got some unusual praise from two odd places. “I think he’s the most talented and fearless Republican politician I’ve seen in the last 30 years,” James Carville said in an interview on ABC. Then, on his TV program, Dick Morris compared Cruz to Ronald Reagan. When Jeb Bush and…
Read MoreThe Comeback Kid
President Obama’s speech last night showed he has a knack for coming back after a setback – and a knack for the comeback quip. Three things about the night: (1) How Obama framed the debate (2) the partisan debate over bipartisanship and (3) the split-screen social media experience of watching political events like what…
Read MoreThey Walk the Line
John Boehner, Jeb Bush and Pat McCrory took their first steps this week along a Republican Party fault line that offers peril for each of them – and peril for Democrats if they succeed. Boehner had to fend off a conservative challenge to his reelection as Speaker. Two dozen right-wing Republicans abandoned him. Lucky…
Read MoreRumors and Fictions
In a realm filled with rumors in the blink of an eye fictions take root in fertile soil and blossom adopting the image of spoken truth like this one you’ve heard a hundred times: ‘Romney lost because he shifted too far to the right during the primaries.’ In fact, the polls told a completely…
Read MoreGive ’em Hell, Harry!
You’ve got to love Harry Reid, especially since Republicans hate him so bad. The Harry-haters were hee-hawing and high-fiving last week after Reid hurt himself exercising. One wrote, “It Couldn’t Happen to a Nastier Guy.” Another speculated that Reid is into kinky sex. Here’s hoping that Harry will get well and keep giving…
Read MoreA Little Nuance
A reporter at The Hill newspaper up in Washington let Jeb Bush have it right between the eyes, reporting there’s ‘no love lost’ between Bush and the Republican base and that in Iowa the Tea Party activists are torching Bush’s conservative credentials. “Jeb Bush,” he quoted a radio talk show host as saying, “is…
Read MoreWhat on Earth is Next?
Obama may be aloof but he’s also soft-spoken and temperate and if he’s unpopular (due to his failures) beyond his failures he’s a genial man – a traditional liberal who believes government should help people out by providing healthcare and school lunches and so on. But now and then, standing at a podium, the…
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