Republicans Win Big in Local Races
The loss of a Republican seat in NY-23 under highly unusual circumstances notwithstanding, yesterday was a good day for Republicans. After crushing defeats in successive elections, they won back the Virginia governor's office in a blowout and knocked off a billionaire incumbent governor in New Jersey despite having their vote split between two candidates. I would, however, resist the temptation ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 4, 2009 08:43
Obama Overexposed?
President Obama has gone on virtually every network but Fox in a weekend tour de force that continues tonight: The president's week-long media blitz has left no other network behind. The president has appeared on CBS's "60 Minutes," Bloomberg and CNBC and will appear on five public affairs talk shows on Sunday: ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," CBS's "Face the ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on September 21, 2009 08:55
Obama’s Schoolchildren Speech
President Obama is set to address the nation's schoolchildren next week, presumably to propagandize them into his evil agenda of turning the country into Communist Russia (pronounced "roo-shuh") and offing granny to save money on health care just as they do in his native Kenya. There are even instruction manuals to enlist the support of the teachers unions in brainwashing ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on September 3, 2009 12:35
If You’re Gonna Play the White House, There’s Gotta be a Fiddle in the Band
"I know folks think I’m a city boy, but I do appreciate listening to country music. It’s about folks telling their life story the best way they know how." - President Barack Obama Via Norm Geras, I see that the president hosted Alison Krauss, Brad Paisley, and Charley Pride as part of the White House Summer Music series. “They grabbed the contemporary ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on July 22, 2009 14:22
Obama Revamps White House Communications
Danny Glover reports on President Obama's total restructuring of the White House message machine in a piece ominously titled "The Cost of Controlling The Press." Barack Obama's White House is spending more than $80,000 a week to staff its old and new media offices. Add the price of speechwriters and the White House communications tab reaches nearly $100,000 a week, or ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on July 8, 2009 07:21
Conscience of the Conservatives
Mark Tapcott hath a point: [I]n a Beltway Confidential post Tuesday, I asked what is the difference between folks on the Right calling the eight Republican House members who voted for Obama-Waxman-Markey the "cap-and-traitors," and the infamous "General Betrayus" ad bought by the Left's Moveon.org in The New York Times. In no time at all, comments variously described your humble servant as ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on July 2, 2009 11:30
Iran Heats Up, Obama Goes for Ice Cream
On his own blog and at Hot Air, Patrick "Patterico" Frey has the surreal juxtaposition of purported Iranians Twittering the horrors of protesting an evil regime intermixed with CBS White House correspondent Mark Knoller's account of President Obama taking his girls out for ice cream. As Josh Trevino tweets, "Obama going for ice cream has all the symbolism of [Cowboys quarterback ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on June 21, 2009 07:29
Reagan on the Soviet Union vs. Obama on Iran
Daniel Larison makes an excellent point against those critics on the right who feel that Obama's rhetoric on the current Iranian revolt should be more reminiscient of Reagan's comments to "tear down this wall" etc. While we’re at it, let’s remember Reagan had leverage against the Soviets and the Polish government in 1981 because of all that dastardly detente, arms negotiations ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on June 19, 2009 13:12
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
Jerry Brown Next California Governor?
Taegan Goddard passes along a Tulchin Research poll showing that Jerry Brown is the overwhelming favorite to get the Democratic nomination for California governor. Granted, the primary is more than a year away. Still, this is rather amusing. The first time Brown got elected governor, I was in grade school and he was a 37-year-old swinging bachelor who famously dated Linda ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on April 26, 2009 15:37
Ending the Vice Presidency
Sunday's WaPo put together a collection of half-baked ideas by smart folks, designed to generate controversy and discussion more so than shed serious light on policy ideas. Thomas Ricks' suggestion to close the service academies and war colleges got the most attention, overshadowing the abject silliness of Jeremy Lott's column advocating doing away with the vice presidency, an idea not ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on April 22, 2009 09:13
The Pope Picks Our Ambassadors Now?
I glossed over yesterday's news that the Vatican blocked Caroline Kennedy's appointment as U.S. ambassador for a variety of reasons. Regular commenter Tlaloc emailed me, though, making a good point: [T]he Vatican refuses to accept any ambassador who is not explicitly pro-life including anti-ESC research (such as Doug Kmiec). Various voices on the right have praised them for this principled stand. ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on April 12, 2009 07:08
Presidential Powers and Prerogatives
Hilary Bok: I am not, in general, a big fan of saying: Republicans: you lost. Get over it. But in this case, I'm going to make an exception. The Republicans do not seem to be willing to allow the President to do things that are plainly his prerogative: appointing the reasonable, qualified, law-abiding people of his choice, deciding which documents should ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on April 6, 2009 12:01
Democrats Can’t Win for Losing
Matt Yglesias, responding to my statement yesterday that "We’ll always have a strong 'conservative' movement. It’s just that Ronald Reagan and Alex P. Keaton wouldn’t quite recognize it," one-ups me and posits that "American politics in the future will mostly be dominated by a center-right political coalition just as it always has." While he's riding the progressive horse and yelling "Faster! ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on March 18, 2009 12:05
These Kids Today: Conservative Politics Over?
Paul Waldman fleshes out a theme that many observers have made in passing: The young voters who helped propel Barack Obama to the presidency could create a "permanent" realignment in American politics. In 1984, 59 percent of the nation's Alex P. Keatons voted for Reagan, an extraordinary percentage for a Republican (and just over his proportion of the popular vote ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on March 17, 2009 14:51
