0 minutes. They call it a campaign, but it’s really a reality-TV show with eight contestants who compete for nearly a year. Each week or so, they get on a stage and are prodded to attack each other, equivocate and regurgitate …
2012 Election
Debate Deja Vu: Newt Gingrich Faces Familiar Immigration Quandary
At times, Tuesday night’s Republican presidential debate on nation security gave the unmistakable sensation of deja vu. The audience was culled from major conservative think tanks in Washington and familiar faces from the George W. Bush era such as former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, ex-speechwriter Marc Thiessen and …
The Snooki Effect: Why the GOP Debates Now Matter Less
The Republican Presidential candidates will gather tonight for their eleventh televised debate, and as usual the media mob is teeming with predictions and storylines to watch. I can’t help but wonder if the power of debates has …
Romney Attacks Obama on New Paid Media Front of GOP Race
In a barrage that marks a new phase of the presidential campaign, Mitt Romney has used his first paid media ad to assail Barack Obama, welcoming the President to New Hampshire today with a withering TV ad and open letter that …
With Supercommittee Failure, 2012 Election Offers False Hope
“Good riddance!” say the pundits on both left and right. The Super Committee is dead, and with it any short-term hope of a solution to the nation’s long-term deficit woes. For the right, this is a victory, because no tax …
Gingrich May Be a Historian, but not a Clairvoyant
This June 2005 quote from the former House Speaker, spoken at a joint appearance with none other than Hillary Clinton (Newt was in a moderate-friend-of-Democrats phase at the time) proved less than prescient:
“We may be at the end of a 40-year cycle of bitterness,” Gingrich said. “I’ve spent enough of my life fighting. It would be nice
…
GOP Primary Volatility Captured in Conservative Reader Sentiment
The vicissitudes of the GOP presidential primary have been dizzying; candidates have surged and plummeted so sharply and with such frequency that predicting the next sea change in sentiment can seem like a fool’s errand. But if you’re looking for a reliable bellwether of how candidates are faring with the motivated GOP base, check out …
Occupy Wall Street’s Day Off Message
Occupy Wall Street began with a simple idea: occupy Wall Street. By sitting, camping, sleeping at what many Americans still see as the symbolic scene of the crimes–both moral and legal–that led to the 2008 financial collapse, the message was clear. It was an act of civil disobedience that pointed the finger at the rich guys in suits. …
In a Tea Party Universe, Visions of Supercommittee Success
Just before 2 p.m. on Thursday, as bands of Occupy Wall Street protesters clashed with police around the U.S., the movement whose headlines they’ve stolen neared an unexpected confrontation of its own.
For months, a group of …
Why Jon Huntsman Could Be Newt’s Most Important Ally
In my magazine story this week, Newt Gingrich told me he plans to run a positive campaign, modeled after Ronald Reagan’s 1980 primary candidacy. This may come as a relief to Mitt Romney, who surely doesn’t relish being the victim of Newt’s political martial arts. But it’s possible that someone else will do that dirty work for Newt, …
An Ascendant Newt Gingrich: ‘We Have No Intention of Fighting With Republicans’
Beware the eye of Newt! Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is a fearsome practitioner of attack politics–just ask the Democratic House Speaker he almost single-handedly toppled in the 1980s, the Democratic barons who lost their power when Newt’s Republicans took back the House in 1994, and Bill Clinton, who outdueled Newt in the …
Marcus Bachmann Calls to Collect
When Rep. Michele Bachmann’s presidential campaign was at its zenith over the summer, the gay rights group Truth Wins Out sent an undercover operative into the Christian therapy clinic her husband Marcus operates in Lake Elmo, Minn. John Becker’s hidden camera captured one of the Bachmann’s therapists agreeing to help try to turn …
So Much Happening in New Rick Perry Ad, Except for One Verb
A while back, I argued that Rick Perry made good television ads, and his newest spot–“Lazy”–is no exception. But it is also, in the tradition of the best political advertising, inaccurate, fanciful and grammatically adventurous.
[youtube=http://youtu.be/8_NJgKoBERM]
So let’s break it down.