Obama Leads 2012 Opponents
Taegan Goddard links a Public Policy Polling survey [PDF] showing that President Obama would have beaten the most commonly mentioned Republican hopefuls had the election been held from October 16th to 19th and opened to registered voters. (I hasten to add, it wasn't.) In fact, according to the survey, "Obama leads Mike Huckabee 47-43, Mitt Romney 48-40, Sarah Palin 52-40, and ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 22, 2009 11:58
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
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
Romney For Senate
US News blogger Peter Roff speculates that Mitt Romney will run for the late Ted Kennedy's Senate seat. Such an announcement would likely be embraced immediately by the Republicans, who would like almost nothing more than to deny Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada his new, hard-won, 60-vote, filibuster-proof majority. As a self-funding candidate who has already been elected once ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on August 27, 2009 09:29
Mitt Romney Moving to New Hampshire
Mitt Romney is busy selling off a few of many his mansions and plans to move to his family vacation home in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, Hotline reports. He has also registered his PAC there. This has some people guessing that Romney is contemplating another run for the presidency. "No doubt in my mind that they are doing the necessary maintenance to ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on May 7, 2009 08:03
Greenspan’s Underpants
The economy is not doing well. To be sure, some of you may have already sensed that, what with the bursting of the housing bubble, the bank failures, insurance failures, auto company failures, massive government bailouts, burgeoning unemployment, and whatnot. But now we have something really concrete to go on. HuffPo's Sam Stein reminds us that Alan Greenspan liked to monitor men's ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on April 9, 2009 06:38
One of These Is Not Like the Other
Timothy Sandefur is embarrassed: So I was watching this insane video of Christopher Hitchens and Salman Rushdie discussing the War on Terrorism with Mos Def. And it’s amusing to laugh at the utterly hapless ignorance of "Mr. Def," as he is repeatedly called—until you stop and wonder. Why is the black community not outraged by this? Bill Maher hosts a talk ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on March 31, 2009 11:38
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
On the Conservative Movement
[caption id="attachment_32537" align="alignright" width="225" caption="Actual buttons at CPAC 2009"][/caption] I think that Daniel Larison is dead on right when it comes to describing a disturbingly large portion of the conservative base in this post. Conservatives seem to have spent the last year rapidly regressing from cheering on lame politicians who could at least intelligently recite their platitudes (Romney) to worshipping pseudo-populists who ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on March 3, 2009 12:34
Romney Changes Mind on Auto Bailout
In a NYT op-ed entitled "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt," Mitt Romney argues that Congress should let creative destruction do its job. IF General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye. It won’t go overnight, but its demise will be virtually guaranteed. Without that bailout, Detroit will need ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 19, 2008 09:02
Obama a Terrorist! McCain a Crook!
We've reached the seemingly inevitable part of the campaign where the trailing candidates start hurling charges out of desperation and the leader responds in kind. In the closing days of 1992, President George H.W. Bush, ordinarily among the most decent, genteel fellows you'd ever meet, was running around calling Bill Clinton and Al Gore "bozos." He simply couldn't ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 6, 2008 08:05
Obama Waffles – Racist or Fair Satire?
Attendees at a Family Research Council convention were buying up "Obama Waffles" like hotcakes before organizers decided they contained images that could be deemed racist and suspended sales. Activists at a conservative political forum snapped up boxes of waffle mix depicting Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama as a racial stereotype on its front and wearing Arab-like headdress on its top flap. Values ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on September 14, 2008 08:12
Obama: Sex Before Reading?
A new John McCain ad belittles Barack Obama's legislative achievements on education reform and includes this gem: Obama's one accomplishment? Legislation to teach "comprehensive sex education" to kindergartners. Learning about sex before learning to read? TPM's Greg Sargent finds the charge "false" and "pernicious." He cites this passage from the bill, as circulated by McCain's staff: "Each class or course in comprehensive sex ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on September 10, 2008 09:21
Sarah Palin – John McCain’s VP Choice
BREAKING: Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has been tabbed as John McCain's vice presidential running mate, CNBC reports. ________________________ Earlier this morning, all signs were pointing to Tim Pawlenty as John McCain's running mate. He even had issued the requisite "I'm not the guy" statement. His name has been on the short list all along and, while he's not an exciting choice, ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on August 29, 2008 08:56
Can Hillary Convince Supporters to Back Obama?
Hillary Clinton's speech is the big draw tonight at the Democratic Convention. She's going to have to convince a lot of people -- perhaps starting with herself -- to put aside their grudges and voter for Barack Obama to be the next president. Matt Yglesias echoes my longstanding view that this will happen organically and notes a recent parallel: As you may ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on August 26, 2008 17:59
