Michael Barone from Creators Syndicate

Uncle Sam Pays? Sure, Whatever for 04/12/2008

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

"It's the economy, stupid." Those immortal words of the political philosopher James Carville in 1992 have been reverberating increasingly in the 2008 campaign. Polls show the economy as the top issue for voters, far ahead of Iraq. The general assumption is that this helps the Democrats, since the Republicans hold the White House and economic growth has stalled on their watch. But what ...

Updated: Sat Apr 12, 2008

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The Rules Are Changing for Obama for 04/19/2008

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Barack Obama seemed puzzled. Angrily puzzled. The apostle of hope seemed flummoxed by the audacity of the question. At the April 16 Philadelphia debate, George Stephanopoulos, longtime aide to Democratic politicians, was asking about his longtime association with Weather Underground bomber William Ayers.

The Weather Underground attacked the Pentagon, the Capitol and other public building ...

Updated: Sat Apr 19, 2008

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Popular Vote Gives Clinton an Edge for 04/26/2008

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

One thing many people haven't noticed about Hillary Clinton's 55 percent to 45 percent victory over Barack Obama in the Pennsylvania primary is that it put her ahead of Obama in the popular vote. Her 214,000-vote margin in the Keystone State means that she has won the votes, in primaries and caucuses, of 15,112,000 Americans, compared to 14,993,000 for Obama.

If you add in the votes, as ...

Updated: Sat Apr 26, 2008

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Wright Controversy Affects the Polls for 05/03/2008

Sat, 03 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Is the bottom falling out for Barack Obama? It's too early to say that, but there are some disturbing signs. On the positive side, superdelegates still are breaking his way. Rep. Baron Hill, whose southern Indiana district almost certainly will vote for Hillary Clinton, came out for Obama. So did fellow Hoosier Joe Andrew, who previously endorsed Clinton and who was named Democratic national ch ...

Updated: Sat May 03, 2008

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Rethinking the Iraq Critics for 05/10/2008

Sat, 10 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

In trying to understand news about the conflicts in Iraq, I work to keep in mind the difference between what we know now about decision making in World War II and what most Americans knew at the time. From the memoirs and documents published after the war, we've learned how leaders made critical judgments. But at the time, even well-informed journalists only could guess at what was going on beh ...

Updated: Sat May 10, 2008

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An Unconventional 2008 Election Season for 05/17/2008

Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

What makes this presidential election different from all other presidential elections? And different from what we expected when the year began?

First, neither party's presumptive nominee was chosen by massive support from primary voters, as John Kerry was in 2004, George W. Bush in 2000 or Bill Clinton in 1992.

That may not seem obvious in the case of John McCain, who effectively ...

Updated: Sat May 17, 2008

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The Rev. Wright Connection Still Haunts Obama for 05/24/2008

Sat, 24 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

As Barack Obama makes his slow but steady way toward the Democratic nomination, the assumption in the admiring precincts of the press corps is that voters have dismissed as irrelevant his longtime association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. But that may prove as mistaken as the assumption, back in 1988, that voters would not be impressed by Michael Dukakis's 11-year support of a law granting wee ...

Updated: Sat May 24, 2008

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The Economy: A Reality Check for 05/31/2008

Sat, 31 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

"It's the economy, stupid," James Carville famously said during the 1992 campaign, when a young Bill Clinton was running against the other President Bush. The same could be said during this presidential campaign. The headlines are full of economic bad news — mortgage foreclosures, the collapse of an investment bank, higher gas and food prices and lower home prices. Voters routin ...

Updated: Sat May 31, 2008

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General Election Campaign Begins With New Playing Field for 06/07/2008

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Almost precisely at the midpoint between the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 3 and the general election on Nov. 4, the general election campaign is on. Neither party's nominee swept the primaries. John McCain's narrow popular vote margins in New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida and most of the Super Tuesday states, combined with the Republicans' winner-take-all delegate allocation rules, effectively ga ...

Updated: Sat Jun 07, 2008

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In Defense of Lobbyists for 06/14/2008

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Barack Obama has long said that his campaign will not accept contributions from lobbyists, and now that he is the presumptive nominee, the Democratic National Committee won't accept them, either.

John McCain says that his campaign won't employ lobbyists, and volunteers are now queried about possible lobbying activity in the past. It's only a matter of time until someone calls for a law r ...

Updated: Sat Jun 14, 2008

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The Facts in Iraq Are Changing for 06/21/2008

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

As we enter the second half of the campaign year, facts are undermining the Democratic narrative that has dominated our politics since about the time Hurricane Katrina rolled into the Gulf coast — most importantly, the facts about Iraq.

During the Democratic primary season, all the party's candidates veered hardly a jot or tittle from the narrative that helped the Democrats sweep t ...

Updated: Sat Jun 21, 2008

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Why Veeps Now Matter for 06/28/2008

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

"Not Exactly a Crime" is the title of a book on America's vice presidents published in 1972 — a year before Vice President Spiro Agnew was forced to resign for actually committing a crime.

The office of vice president has long been the butt of jokes — you know the punch lines — but as we await Barack Obama's and John McCain's choices for vice president, we do ...

Updated: Sat Jun 28, 2008

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Obama's Candidacy is a Test for 07/05/2008

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

"They're going to try to make you afraid of me," Barack Obama told the audience at a Jacksonville fundraiser last month. "He's young and inexperienced and he's got a funny name. And did I mention he's black?" Obama was doing here by inference what many of his supporters do more explicitly. Obama's candidacy, in their view, puts American voters to the test: Are they open-mind ...

Updated: Sat Jul 05, 2008

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We're Not Leaving for 07/12/2008

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Sixty years ago this month, the top story in campaign year 1948 was not the big poll lead of Republican nominee Thomas Dewey or the plight of President Harry Truman. It was the Berlin airlift.

On June 23, the Soviets cut off land access to West Berlin. Gen. Lucius Clay, the military governor in Germany, called for sending convoys up the autobahns, but Allied troops were vastly outnumbere ...

Updated: Sat Jul 12, 2008

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Ghosts of 1976 in Today's Campaign for 07/19/2008

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Looking back over the last 40 years, the presidential campaign that most closely resembles this year's is the contest between Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter in 1976. The Republicans were the incumbent presidential party that year, as they are now, but the Democrats had a big advantage in party identification — on the order of 49 percent to 26 percent then, far more than today.

The Re ...

Updated: Sat Jul 19, 2008

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A Step Back From Enviro Lunacy for 07/26/2008

Sat, 26 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Sometimes public opinion doesn't flow smoothly; it shifts sharply when a tipping point is reached. Case in point: gas prices. $3 a gallon gas didn't change anybody's mind about energy issues. $4 a gallon gas did. Evidently, the experience of paying more than $50 for a tankful gets people thinking we should stop worrying so much about global warming and the environmental dangers of oil wells on ...

Updated: Sat Jul 26, 2008

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Polls Continue to Show an Unstable Presidential Campaign for 08/02/2008

Sat, 02 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Just when you think you've got the presidential race figured out, something comes along to upend your carefully wrought conclusions.

Mainstream media provided lavish coverage of Barack Obama's trip abroad the week of July 21-25 and predicted he would get a bounce in the polls. Some of his supporters believe he has put the election away. Other observers employ the hackneyed and meaningles ...

Updated: Sat Aug 02, 2008

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The Ghosts of Political Leanings for 08/09/2008

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

To understand changes in the political map, we naturally tend to look for contemporary explanations. But American political alignments are not written on an empty slate. Beginnings matter, and the civic personalities of states tend to reflect the cultural folkways of their first settlers.

So I was not startled when I compared state poll results in this election with the results of the 20 ...

Updated: Sat Aug 09, 2008

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Echoes of Berlin for 08/16/2008

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Last week, the two erstwhile communist superpowers were in the spotlight. Starting on Aug. 8, China staged the Olympics — an event on the schedule for years. Also on Aug. 8, Russia invaded the independent republic of Georgia — which apparently caught our government flatfooted. George W. Bush remained in Beijing watching the Olympians, while Vladimir Putin, making no secret of who is ...

Updated: Sat Aug 16, 2008

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The Chosen Obama Narrative for 08/23/2008

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Once upon a time, the two parties' national conventions chose presidential nominees. Now, they are television shows that try to establish a narrative — one that links the long-since-determined nominee's life story with the ongoing history of the nation, one that shows how this one man is perfectly positioned to lead America to a better future. The hope is that the nominee will get a bounc ...

Updated: Sat Aug 23, 2008

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