Obama's Iraq Spotlight By Robert Novak
I asked one of the Republican Party's smartest, most candid heavy hitters this week whether John McCain really has a chance to defeat Barack Obama in this season of Republican discontent.
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July 21, 2008
July 19, 2008
Obama's CEOs By Robert Novak
Sen. Barack Obama has been meeting secretly with heavy industry CEOs in Washington to discuss issues that he would face as president.
July 19, 2008
Ghosts of 1976 in Today's Campaign By Michael Barone
Looking back over the last 40 years, the presidential campaign that most closely resembles this year's is the contest between Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter in 1976. The Republicans were the incumbent presidential party that year, as they are now, but the Democrats had a big advantage in party identification -- on the order of 49 percent to 26 percent then, far more than today.
July 18, 2008
What to Say by Susan Estrich
When my father died, so many years ago, my heart was broken. And then it got broken again. In the hours and days after his death, I was comforted by family and friends. But I couldn't help but notice who was missing, people I cared about, people I thought cared about me, who didn't call, didn't come, weren't there. Later, much later, I asked a few of those people why: Where had they been? Why didn't they come? And the answer was always the same.
July 18, 2008
Does Obama Have a Problem with White Voters? by Alan I. Abramowitz
"Poll Finds Obama's Run Isn't Closing Divide on Race," reads the headline on the front page of the July 16th New York Times.
July 18, 2008
A New Electorate In The Making? By Rhodes Cook
Speculation abounds these days about whether this fall's presidential election will produce a dramatically different electoral map than the virtually static one of the last two contests.
July 17, 2008
The Way to Box in Barack in Iraq By Dick Morris
The shadow of the Iraq War still hovers over the 2008 presidential race. Indeed, though it's the issue that made Barack Obama (giving him his running room to Hillary Clinton's left), it may now become his chief vulnerability.
July 17, 2008
The High Cost of Healthy People by Froma Harrop
The word "prevention" has a nice ring in any health-care discussion. Thus, many politicians argue that programs to stop smoking, improve diets and otherwise promote wholesome living save money in the long run. A healthier population at less cost --sounds like a win-win situation.
July 17, 2008
The Saga of Fannie and Freddie by Lawrence Kudlow
"Too big to fail" was the verdict in the U.S. Treasury decision to backstop mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But is the taxpayer risk of moral hazard still as big as ever?
July 17, 2008
They Must Be Joking By Joe Conason
An expression of outrage is the highest compliment that politicians can bestow upon a satirist. So when spokesmen for Barack Obama and John McCain echo each other and many another stuffed shirt in complaining about the current cover of The New Yorker, the magazine's editors and cartoonist Barry Blitt should accept such remarks in precisely that spirit.
July 17, 2008
Cost of Cronyism By Robert Novak
As financial storm signals appeared the last 18 months, there were Bush officials who urged drastic reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But, according to internal government sources, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson objected because it would look "too political."
July 17, 2008
Why the Race is Tied By Dick Morris
After almost six weeks of a constant Obama lead, generally in the five to seven-point range, Scott Rasmussen’s daily tracking poll records two consecutive days of a tie race (July 12-13) and a one-point Obama lead on July 14. What happened to the Democrat’s lead?
July 16, 2008
Goodbye, Tony Snow: Writer, Father, Friend By Laura Mazer
Before he was a radio host, or a network news anchor, or the White House Press secretary, Tony Snow was a writer. He started his career as an editorial writer and editor for newspapers such as The Virginian-Pilot, The Washington Times and The Detroit News, eventually becoming a nationally syndicated op-ed columnist, with more than 200 newspapers publishing his commentary every week.
July 15, 2008
Mortgage Scandal a Bipartisan Affair By Froma Harrop
To borrow a Barack Obama line, "There's not a liberal America and a conservative America, there's a United States of America." That's true -- and everyone in it tried to make a quick buck off the housing bubble.
July 14, 2008
Oil Paranoia By Robert Novak
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, back from the Fourth of July break, last week delivered a typical harangue on Republican obstructionism and Democratic virtue that included a promise: By week's end, he would show Republicans his proposal to deal with "this speculation thing" that he calls the root cause of $4-a-gallon gasoline.
July 12, 2008
Goodbye, Joe? By Robert Novak
Despite assurances to the contrary from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Democratic insiders are certain Sen. Joseph Lieberman next year will be kicked out of the party's caucus and lose his Senate chairmanship if he addresses the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., as planned.
July 12, 2008
We're Not Leaving By Michael Barone
Sixty years ago this month, the top story in campaign year 1948 was not the big poll lead of Republican nominee Thomas Dewey or the plight of President Harry Truman. It was the Berlin airlift.
July 11, 2008
Time to Change the Unit Rule By Larry Sabato
Want to fix an election? No, I'm not proposing any Election Day shenanigans, but rather some preventive maintenance for a very old machine.
July 11, 2008
Is Time on John McCain's Side? By Alan I. Abramowitz
In a recent Crystal Ball article , Michael Baudinet of the University of Virginia Center for Politics argued that despite a very difficult national political environment for Republicans, John McCain has a good chance of winning the 2008 presidential election because he enjoys one key advantage over his Democratic rival, Barack Obama: McCain clinched his party's nomination three months earlier than Obama.
July 10, 2008
The Map By Larry Sabato
Nobody now knows the exact contours of the November 4th Electoral College map. Nobody will know it until after the polls have closed. But except for the guessing game about the vice presidential nominations, there's no greater fun to be had in July.
