The Illinois Supreme Court has issued a stay of an appellate court order that Rahm Emanuel be tossed off the ballot in the race for Chicago mayor because of a failure to meet residency requirements. It’s an indication that the Supreme Court will hear the case, although it’s yet to confirm that, and a big [...]
How many memorable State of the Union speeches can you think of? I can conjure just three indelible moments from the past 20 years. There’s Bill Clinton’s 1993 vow, complete with theatrical pen-wave, to veto any health insurance bill lacking universal coverage. Chastened by the Republican Revolution two years later, Clinton declared that “the era [...]
The promise to pare back spending propelled Republicans to power in the House. Getting the details on paper has been trickier. Here’s a Time.com piece on how the GOP is trying to get specific about spending cuts, and why a recent proposal could prove to be a problem.
On Jan. 5, the day Nancy Pelosi passed the House speaker’s gavel to John Boehner, Democratic Senators Tom Udall, Tom Harkin and Jeff Merkley introduced a package of rules changes geared toward increasing transparency and accelerating the pace of an institution whose innate incrementalism has veered into “obstruction and dysfunction.” Noting that use of the [...]
I especially hate the day before the State of the Union message because….every last interest group in Christendom, including the Jewish and Islamic ones, sends out e-missions about what the President really should say about everything from junk food to oil subsidies. And the New York Times inevitably collects a dozen of the usual suspects [...]
In a stunning setback, an Illinois appellate court tossed Rahm Emanuel off the ballot for next month’s Chicago mayoral race, ruling 2-1 that Emanuel was ineligible for the job. The appeals court’s decision, which overturns rulings by the Chicago Board of Elections Commissioners and a Cook County court, argues that Emanuel failed to meet residency [...]
Some State of the Union tips from former Clinton speechwriter Michael Waldman: He can play jujitsu and find a way to use the angry energy of the Republican electorate against the interests of Republican elected officials. Those voters were angry about congressional corruption, earmarks and the deficit. Obama could try to leapfrog the Republicans in [...]
Last week I looked at how state-by-state unemployment might affect the 2012 presidential campaign map. And now Chris Cilizza helpfully zooms out to consider the landscape more generally: Obama’s 365 electoral votes in 2000 were 114 more than Kerry won and 99 more than Gore received…. Let’s assume Obama loses [both Ohio and Florida] – [...]
Swampland alum KT pointed out to a few of us this weekend something we’d missed in the already much-discussed Sarah Palin video that followed the Tucson shooting: the American flag placed behind Palin to add a presidential air to the recording is on the wrong side. Big deal, you say? Actually, yeah. The U.S. Flag [...]
