Followers of NewsMax, the enterprising conservative website, woke up Wednesday morning to an e-mail with the subject heading: “Urgent: GOP Senators Want $1 Trillion in Taxes, Help Us Stop Them.”
It was an e-mail designed …
Tea Party
The Fact Gap: Can Republicans Overcome Their Alternate Reality to Strike A Debt Deal?
There are plenty of reasons Congress is playing a high-speed game of chicken with the debt-limit negotiations, but one of the main ones is that the two parties can’t agree on what would happen if they crash. On one side, the …
Eric Cantor, the GOP’s Hard-Line Lieutenant, Sways Debt Talks
At his press conference on Monday, President Obama made clear that his frustration with House Republicans’ intransigence in negotiations to raise the federal borrowing limit did not extend to their leader. “I think Speaker …
The ‘Hell No’ Caucus Makes Its Stand
On Thursday afternoon, the House Democrats’ Steering and Policy Committee held a hearing on the consequences of a debt default. They invited four distinguished economists to sketch a gruesome picture: tanking markets, skyrocketing interest rates, a plunging dollar, a new recession–a grim chain of horrible outcomes that would scare any …
The Perils of Political Pledges
The political pledge is a handy weapon in the political advocate’s arsenal. They work. Build a simple statement around a popular principle — keeping taxes low, opposing abortion — and you can pressure skittish politicians to …
Trying to Reinvent Itself Again, the Tea Party Gears Up for 2012
Like any group in its infancy, the Tea Party goes through phases. Gone, or at least temporarily shelved, are the noisy rallies, the tricorn hats, the abundant signage that marked its birth in 2009. “We are not a protest …
Romney’s Courageous Convictions?
In 2008 Mitt Romney ran a Gumby campaign, turning himself inside out trying to be everything to everybody. He bought in to every straw poll, competed in Iowa, signed most pledges–and lost. This time around, Romney seems intent …
The Affordable Care Act Gets Another Day in Court
Evoking the Continental Congress and Alexander Hamilton – and referencing Sen. Scott Brown’s election in Massachusetts – Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli emerged from a federal courtroom today sounding confident that the U.S. Supreme Court will ultimately find the Affordable Care Act to be unconstitutional.
Cuccinelli is …
President Obama Tangles Democratic Message On The Tea Party
The Democratic National Committee sends out dozens of messages a week to make the case that the Tea Party crowd is kooky. One of their recent videos posted on YouTube ended with the words “The Republican Tea Party 2010; Imagine These People Could Represent You.” But today, President Obama was asked about the Tea Party, and his response was a …
In Which the Tea Party Outdoes Progressives
One political dynamic that’s emerging this election season is the strength of the right and the weakness of the left.
While the Tea Party appears, in many ways, to be steering the ship of the Republican Party, on the other end of the spectrum, progressives may feel like their banging their heads against the wall.
Just take a …
Why The Tea Party Can Help The Republican Brand
According to the emails I get every day from the Democratic National Committee, the Tea Party movement is a Democratic gold mine. It has helped to nominate unpopular Republicans, like Sharon Angle in Nevada, and it has split conservative vote in districts like New York-23, allowing Democrats to win even when they should not. It is also …
Re: The House Passed Financial Reform; Now What?
As Adam noted last night, despite House passage of Financial Regulatory reform, the bill still seems in peril in the Senate with five of the six holdouts still seemingly wavering. But, frankly, going into a recess why would you declare your vote? If you were, say Scott Brown, would you a) declare that you’re going to buck your party and …
Glenn Beck’s “Pillow talk”
My colleague Alex Altman has an entertaining review up today of Glenn Beck’s new “thriller,” The Overton Window. Despite getting panned in the Washington Post and Beck’s own acknowledgment that well, maybe he didn’t exactly write the entire thing, Alex notes that the novel will be a best seller anyway. The entire review is definitely …