Mike Huckabee and the GOP
Daniel Larison is a bit too charitable here in assessing Mike Huckabee's finish in last year's presidential primaries: While Huckabee was officially the second-biggest vote-getter in the primaries last year, he achieved this mostly through perseverance and concentrated support from evangelical voters. Had Romney continued to compete and waste his money on what would still have been a losing bid, it ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 17, 2009 09:18
Jim Jones, Republican Whipping Boy
Michael Goldfarb wrote a piece for the Weekly Standard blog with the provocative title "Rent-a-General Jim Jones," arguing that the man who spent four decades serving his country as an officer in the Marine Corps, rising to Commandant and then Supreme Allied Commander, is a partisan stooge for the Obama administration. A friend emails to point out that Jones is "finally ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 6, 2009 11:58
Republican Party Needs More Votes if it is to Win
Bruce Bartlett explains why he's not a Republican anymore using a time-honored refrain: He didn't leave his party; his party left him. While he now considers himself an "independent," he's more than non-partisan; he's "anti-Republican." Why? I still consider myself to be a Reaganite. But I don’t see any others anywhere in the GOP these days, which is why I consider ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on August 31, 2009 11:58
We’re All Iranians Now!
Amidst the blogospheric solidarity for the Iranian protestors, it's worth pointing to news that has been overshadowed by those events: The UN and OSCE monitors are leaving Georgia. Despite declarations that "we're all Georgians now," the fact of the matter has been from the beginning that neither the United States nor Western Europe had any appetite to go toe-to-toe with the ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on June 16, 2009 16:12
McCain: I Would Have Ordered DADT Review
Ana Marie Cox interviewed John McCain this afternoon and reports via Twitter that "if he were POTUS, he would have already ordered Joint Chiefs of staff to investigate efficacy of DADT." DADT is, of course, the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy on gays in the military that has been in place since the early days of the Clinton administration, replacing the ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on June 11, 2009 15:38
‘Conservatives’ Obama Listens To
Marc Ambinder has compiled a list of "The Six Top Conservatives Obama Listens To." As several of those who saw the link via Twitter have noted, arguably none of them are conservatives: The Mainers, Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe Dick Lugar John McCain David Brooks Harvard Law Professor Jack Goldsmith A perfectly fine list of Republicans to whom I'm perfectly happy the president is ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on June 10, 2009 11:54
Republican Party of Whites?
A Gallup poll released yesterday finds that, "More than 6 in 10 Republicans today are white conservatives, while most of the rest are whites with other ideological leanings; only 11% of Republicans are Hispanics, or are blacks or members of other races. By contrast, only 12% of Democrats are white conservatives, while about half are white moderates or liberals and ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on June 2, 2009 08:14
Republicans on HuffPo
Politico's Mike Calderone has noticed quite a few Republicans blogging at the left-leaning Huffington Post lately. While its namesake founder posits that" is a reflection of our traffic, our brand, and the fact that we are increasingly seen ... as an Internet newspaper, not positioned ideologically in terms of how we cover the news,” a more practical explanation is more ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on May 23, 2009 09:06
Obama Hugs Ensign McCain
I stumbled on these at Daylife whilst looking for a photo to illustrate my “Obama Foreign Policy: Bush 2.0?” post: [caption id="attachment_36460" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="U.S. President Barack Obama (R) hugs graduate John S. McCain IV (L), son of U.S. Sen. John McCain, while attending the 2009 U.S. Naval Academy graduation in Annapolis, Maryland, May 22, 2009."][/caption] It's a nice reminder as ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on May 23, 2009 07:36
Lieberman as McCain’s Running Mate
Ben Smith quotes lawyer A.B. Culvahouse explaining legal obstacles to Joe Lieberman's having been John McCain's running mate. "Five states have sore loser statutes ... [making] it very difficult for someone who's not a member of the Republican Party to become the vice presidential nominee if they only switch parties to become a Republican shortly before the convention,' Culvahouse said in ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on April 18, 2009 06:27
Economist to Obama: ‘Lead, Dammit’
The editorial board at The Economist (which apparently considers itself a "newspaper" despite coming out weekly in magazine format) praises President Obama for having "already done some commendable things" in the foreign policy arena but charges that, domestically, "His performance has been weaker than those who endorsed his candidacy, including this newspaper, had hoped." They note that, after a euphoric ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on March 28, 2009 05:49
Pitching COIN in Afghanistan
In an op-ed in the Washington Post this morning, Sens. John McCain and Joseph Lieberman make the case for pursuing a counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan: Loose rhetoric about a minimal commitment in Afghanistan is counterproductive for another reason: It exacerbates suspicions, already widespread in South Asia, that the United States will tire of this war and retreat. These doubts about our ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on March 19, 2009 07:58
Rush Limbaugh: Not That Influential?
Jonathan Last offers a long retort to the notion that Rush Limbaugh is a significant influencer of American politics, much less the de facto leader of the Republican Party. He rejects, for example, the notion that having a large audience necessarily matters: Consider television. From 1998 to 2005, Everybody Loves Raymond was among the top 15 rated shows on TV. For ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on March 6, 2009 06:51
Kissinger: COIN Won’t Work/McCain: CT Won’t Work
Within the last couple of days both Sen. John McCain and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger have offered contrasting strategies for Afghanistan. John McCain's plan was explained in a speech before the American Enterprise Institute and Henry Kissinger's plan in an op-ed in the Washington Post. There are some points on which the two men agree. Both agree ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on February 27, 2009 06:59
The Mommy Slur
Hilary Bok is rather bent out of shape at a Washington Whispers poll which asks "If you had a choice of four daycare centers run separately by Michelle Obama, Sarah Palin, Hillary Clinton, and Nancy Pelosi, which would you choose for your kids?" She suggests some alternative poll questions: If you needed some yard work done, would you hire Mel Martinez, Henry ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on February 22, 2009 09:16
