I have posted dozens of ads on Swampland over the last several months, but I can’t think of any that do as many things so effectively as this spot from California gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown. First, some background: Meg Whitman is running as the non-politician CEO against Brown, who she has tried to paint as [...]
Well, all of a sudden, the Senate races are getting closer. The reason for this is obvious: it’s much easier to get to know a statewide candidate than a local Congressional one. The House is subject to more radical swings, depending on national mood. Senators debate on statewide tv; they put up more advertising–and so [...]
Late last week I lost a friend and colleague, Jamil Hamad, who was an invaluable source of wisdom about all things Palestinian. Howard Chua-Eoan, our chief of correspondents, wrote this tribute to him: Jamil Hamad, TIME’s invaluable correspondent on Palestinian life and politics, died in a hospital in the West Bank early Sunday morning, succumbing [...]
Diving through the 600+ pages of Sarah Palins two most recent Federal Election Commission disclosures – the October Quarterly report filed Oct. 12 and the Pre-General report filed Oct. 17 – has been fascinating. While most of the media attention has been paid to what she brought in, $1.2 million, I focused on her disbursements. [...]
The Brookings Institution hosted a live Web chat today with their voting guru Michael McDonald. Below are questions I submitted as well as a few other exchanges. Turnout and what prods that turnout seem, predictably, to be on everyone’s minds during these least few weeks. Comment From Katy Steinmetz: Are black voters going to turn [...]
Dexter Filkins has a fascinating, if confusing, piece today about the negotiations that have begun between the Karzai government and high-level elements of the Taliban…but not including the highest-level element, Mullah Omar. What is unclear is whether Omar–who has been “cut out” of the negotiations–has authorized his deputies to launch the talks, or whether they’ve [...]
Social issues have not dominated this cycle’s political discourse in the way they did in years past. Just six years after George W. Bush wielded gay marriage as an effective tool in his re-election bid, you have a potential Republican presidential contender suggesting a “truce” to make more room for detente on fiscal issues. The [...]
Earlier this year, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, earned a bunch of ink in the nation’s broadsheets. She had recently left her job at a small college, she told fellow activists, because of her concern that the country was off track. She was becoming a full-time political activist. “We’ve [...]
Democratic Pennsylvania Senate hopeful Rep. Joe Sestak last week came out with this commercial. Puppies! Cute! It reminds me a bit of this ad from Michael Steele’s campaign for Maryland Senate. Steele was widely praised for his innovative ads, though he lost his bid for that seat. The Republican in the Pennsylvania race, former Rep. [...]
