The Los Angeles Times has a powerful video interview on its website with David Steiner, who was a young campaign aide to Robert Kennedy in 1968 and was in the ballroom at the Ambassador Hotel 40 years ago tonight. To Steiner, RFK’s death “was like the death of baseball and Thomas Jefferson and Betsy Ross sewing the flag and all the rest …
Very interesting post by Jake Tapper over at ABC about the “private and friendly” conversation (that, apparently, was neither) between Barack Obama and Joe Lieberman on the Senate floor yesterday. Democrats will almost certainly add to their numbers in the Senate this November, which means they will no longer need Lieberman, the …
Reports of Budge Sperling’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. In a post yesterday about Rep. Tom Davis, I erroneously referred to “the late Budge Sperling”, who created and for years hosted the Sperling/Monitor newsmaker breakfasts that are a Washington institution. As David Cook of the Monitor kindly informed me this morning, Budge, …
In the competition among despairing Republicans to sound the loudest alarm about the party’s prospects in the fall elections, retiring Virginia congressman Tom Davis has his eye on the prize. There’s something about retiring that transforms some politicians into non-stop truth-telling machines. Davis, who ran the National Republican …
So much for conceding tonight. And, by the way, that was one hell of a speech. It’s been said before, but if she had campaigned from the beginning the way she’s campaigned these past few months (minus the occasional gratuitous reference to winning the votes of “white people”), she would have done better. Which means she would have won. …
Not at the presidential level, where any sober analysis of the electoral map at this point suggests John McCain and Barack Obama are in a race that will be decided by one or two states. But the congressional map is something else altogether. The latest battleground poll and strategy memo from Democrats Stan Greenberg, Ana Iparraguirre …
Speaking of Virginia politics, Jim Webb is frequently mentioned as a possible running mate for Barack Obama. Like Obama, Webb is a freshman Democratic Senator. But Webb’s resume is anything but light: Naval Academy grad, Marine Corps officer, Vietnam vet, recipient of the Navy Cross, the Silver Star, two Bronze Stars and two Purple …
Well, we knew things had evolved in Virginia, state of my forebears, when in November 2006 Jim Webb ousted George Allen from the Senate and crushed in its infancy Allen’s “frontrunning” 2008 presidential campaign. And we knew when the popular former Democratic governor of Virginia, Mark Warner, decided to run for Senate in 2008, that he …
Money is a dominant theme in much of today’s coverage of John McCain’s campaign. First, there’s the continuing storyline about staffers and advisers to the McCain campaign having to resign because of their ties to lobbying firms or outside political groups. The latest casualty, deemed the biggest story of the morning by the Washington …
Another update from Paul du Quenoy in Beirut — sent last night:
Hints of normal life are appearing. Yesterday and today more – I would even say most — shops were open. I walked down Joan of Arc Street toward the university. People were walking with real purpose instead of the nervous curiosity that possessed them for the previous
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For journalists covering Congress, one of the best things about game-changing elections like the 2006 mid-terms is that they create a trove of new story lines. David Herszenhorn exploits the opportunity well in a smart piece about Barney Frank in this morning’s New York Times. Frank, 68, was elected to the House from Massachusetts the …
Herewith Paul du Quenoy’s most recent missive from Beirut, sent a few hours ago:
The settlement is touch and go. I slept very late today. Beirut seemed quiet, but there was word of fighting continuing in the northern part of the country, in Tripoli and Halba. The Sunnis are strong in the north and were out for revenge on the local
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My professor acquaintance Paul du Quenoy sent this Saturday. To those who have enjoyed his dispatches from Beirut, my apologies for not posting this one sooner. An even more recent one, from today, will be posted soon. Here’s Saturday’s, with the subject line “The Seige is Lifted”:
I am happy to report the situation is much better
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