The Angry Left

I caught a bit of the Republican Convention last evening, including the Ronald Reagan tribute and as much of the Fred Thompson speech as I could take before shutting it off. I TiVo'd Joe Lieberman but it's iffy as to whether I'll get to it. Matt Yglesias points to a sound byte that I first heard on NPR this morning: ...

Sean Hackbarth to Senate Republican Conference

Congratulations to longtime blogger Sean Hackbarth, who starts tomorrow as the Online Communications Specialist for the Senate Republican Conference. Sean worked briefly for the stillborn Fred Thompson presidential campaign and has worked in the PR/politics nexus since. Moving from punditry into flackery is a strange transition, as it necessarily means a loss of independence and the ability to say what's ...

Barack Obama a Lightworker?

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Mark Morford has perhaps the kookiest explanation for Barack Obama's rise that I've yet seen. No, it's not merely his youthful vigor, or handsomeness, or even inspiring rhetoric. It is not fresh ideas or cool charisma or the fact that a black president will be historic and revolutionary in about a thousand different ways. It is ...

The Next Right

Jon Henke, Patrick Ruffini, and Soren Dayton are launching a new initiative they've dubbed "The Next Right." It's apparently yet another attempt to create a right-of-center counterpart of the Netroots. Not yet launched, it purports to be "an online community for change-minded activists and hardcore political junkies in the conservative movement." All three of the founders agree that a ...

Press Not Doing Its Job?

Elizabeth Edwards, who despite no public policy credentials other than having been married to a one-term senator and yet oddly seems to get op-ed space in the major papers whenever she requests it, has a rather strange editorial in today's NYT whining about how the mainstream media is failing in its duty to inform the public. The first several paragraphs make ...

Press Bias and Campaign 2008

Kevin Drum cites several instances of John McCain acting in ways inconsistent with his maverick image and yet surviving with the image more-or-less intact, a situation he ascribes to a fawning press corps. He asks, "And what window do Democrats go to to get the same treatment the press gives McCain?" In reality, all of the remaining major candidates have ...

John McCain’s Vice Presidential Not-So-Short List

John Hawkins lists 24 candidates that John McCain might conceivably pick as his running mate with synopses as to the pros and cons of each. I'm rather sure the eventual choice is on that list, as there's nobody that I've heard of who isn't. Indeed, there are several people I haven't heard of on it. Frankly, the available ...

Fred Thompson Endorses McCain

Fred Thompson has become the latest former 2008 Republican presidential candidate to endorse John McCain. Fred Thompson, the one-time Republican presidential candidate, endorsed Sen. John McCain Friday, calling on the party to "close ranks" behind the presumed nominee. "This is no longer about past preferences or differences. It is about what is best for our country and for me that means ...

George Allen for President

Richard Viguerie, the pioneer of the direct mail fundraising approach and a guiding force in Republican politics since the 1970s, has been campaigning at least since this time last year for the nomination of a Reagan style conservative. He was going around the halls at last year's CPAC convention lamenting the ways in which "Rudy McRomney" fell short ...

Conservatives Against McCain

Judging by the enemies he's making, I'm liking John McCain more with each passing day. Ann Coulter says she'd "campaign for" Hillary Clinton, who she thinks "is more conservative." Meanwhile, Glenn Beck is railing against "Juan McCain" for his outreach to Hispanics. Thankfully, this over-the-top stuff is being rejected by most conservatives. AllahPundit calls Coulter's statement "Madness" and Sean Hackbarth, late ...

The End of 9/11 Politics?

Ben Smith and David Paul Kuhn argue that Rudy Giuliani's poor showing in this campaign "seems also to mark the beginning of the end of a period in Republican politics that began on Sept. 11, 2001." "There's a paradox for Rudy," said former Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey, who was a member of the 9/11 Commission. "One of the things he ...

Florida Primary Postmortem

The victories of John McCain and Hillary Clinton in Florida last night presage what will happen in next week's Super Duper Tuesday contests and have significantly reshaped the race. Polls and Predictions Compared to Final Results The polls finally got one right, correctly predicting the winners and the order of finish of all challengers with uncanny accuracy. The final RealClearPolitics ...

Who Destroyed the Republican Party?

Billy Hollis joins Rush Limbaugh, Peggy Noonan, and other conservative commenters in trying to figure out who is responsible for destroying the Republican Party and which of the potential nominees would destroy it even more. He thinks that nominating Mike Huckabee would likely lead to "a loss of Goldwater-McGovern proportions." I'm inclined to agree, especially if Barack ...

Bainbridge Revises and Extends

Steve Bainbridge has a lengthy post responding to some questions that Steven Taylor and I have put to him vis-a-vis why he's so vehemently against John McCain after having supported his ideological twin, Fred Thompson. He makes some good points about actions McCain has taken that have irritated him but also acknowledges that personality is a part of the ...

Romney Transplants Thompson’s Braintrust

The Romney campaign has forwarded a copy of Thomas Oliphant's post for the Chicago Tribune's Swamp blog entitled, "Romney transplants Thompson's braintrust." I'm not sure why they're bragging about this but I thought it worth passing along.