Of Small Varmints, Comma, If You Will

David Von Drehle writes in with a scene from a Romney rally:

A candidate never knows, when inviting questions from the audience, what might come up. In one of the last Q&As of the long New Hampshire campaign, Mitt Romney was asked what he would do, as president, about the pet population crisis. “I was pretty well-briefed for last

In the Arena In the Arena

No Big Deal

I think I’ve now been asked 53 times whether Hillary Clinton’s emotional moment helps her, hurts her, will cause the ozone hole to expand and the polar ice caps to melt. Who knows? My reaction was that she’s exhausted, in a tough race and held things together very well under the circumstances.

In any case, I’ve seen her cry before–in …

McCain Stays in Iraq

Wanted to add a quote from that exchange with McCain that didn’t get captured on video. Responded to Ramesh’s question about staying in Iraq for “a hundred years,” he said, we’d stay there as long as needed, whether that’s [exact quote here] “one hundred years, one thousand years, ten thousand years or until the earth collapses under …

Impression From the Trail

Having covered a few of these presidential elections, it strikes me that there is a different feel to the crowds that show up to hear the candidates in the early weeks of 2008.

In past elections, when you talked to people who were interested enough in the election to come out and hear the candidates, many of them would cite an issue or …

Reexamining Rudy’s Florida Strategy

For months now, the campaign of Rudy Giuliani has been trying to get America to stop paying attention. Don’t worry about the former New York mayor’s declining state and national polls. Don’t mind the winners of the early contests in Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan and South Carolina. Don’t even focus too much on all the mayor’s thin …

In the Arena In the Arena

McCain’s Lost Weekend

Manchester

The polls still have John McCain comfortably ahead of Mitt Romney in the New Hampshire primary, but I don’t believe them. For one thing, McCain has just dragged himself through two of his worst debate performances ever. For another, Mitt Romney–even though under assault constantly in Saturday night’s debate–has had two of …

Clinton and Obama

I saw them both speak today, Clinton in Nashua, Obama in Salem. Each was impressive. Hillary drew a large crowd to the same high school gym where Obama had drawn a horde the day before (I’ll leave it to others to argue over whose crowd was bigger and whose had more actual New Hampshire residents). She spoke well, was pointed at times but …

Obama’s High Crimes and Misdemeanor

This is the Hillary campaign’s latest shot across Obama’s bow: An “apparent violation” of New Hampshire election law. Among other things, “The call does not identify its sponsor — the Obama campaign — for 38 seconds. State law requires the sponsor to be named within 30 seconds.”

The bill of particulars after the jump.

UPDATE, FROM …

Tale From the Trail

Nancy and I went our separate ways this morning, but I ran into her as we were waiting for an Obama rally to begin here in Derry. She went to a Hillary Clinton event this morning at the same Nashua high school that Obama packed yesterday–and found another huge crowd. She also came across a California man named Richard Bonati, visiting …

Equal Time for Mitt

A rep from the Romney campaign called me yesterday to point out that Romney’s not the only one attacking another candidate. He cited McCain’s web ads in particular but also said the attacks were coming from surrogates. It’s true that McCain’s jabs at Romney are not getting the same coverage as Romney’s jabs at McCain. (Even the liberal …

In the Arena In the Arena

The Triumph of Hope Over Experience

If Hillary Clinton watches this Frank Luntz focus group, she’s got to be tearing her hair out. To my ears and eyes, she had the substance part of the program knocked, but Obama seemed more authoritative, more presidential. Classic contest of style v. substance and, in the television age, style always wins. But Luntz’s group doesn’t even …

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