[ Posted Thursday, February 25th, 2016 – 18:14 UTC ]
Most intelligent political analysts' reaction (right, left, and center) to the news that Donald Trump may be considering a run for the presidency could be summed up as some version of: "You have got to be kidding me." Followed quickly by: "This is going to be so much fun!" But the real punchline to this joke of a candidacy was actually on the punditocracy, when Trump's poll numbers took off and soon put him either in the lead or very close to it for the Republican nomination. Republican voters, it seems, aren't following the punditocracy's lead on "The Donald."
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[ Posted Monday, February 8th, 2016 – 17:18 UTC ]
It is time once again to peer deeply into my somewhat-foggy crystal ball, and attempt to pick the winners of tomorrow night's New Hampshire primary. Before I get to that, though, some old business needs to be brought up. First, we have some very recent old business and then some truly ancient business, so bear with me.
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[ Posted Thursday, January 28th, 2016 – 16:56 UTC ]
Donald Trump, whether he wins the Republican nomination or not (or the White House, for that matter), has certainly turned the world of American politics on its head this election cycle. Trump is the undisputed king of Teflon -- because absolutely nothing he says or does ever sticks to him. His campaign has been pronounced "dead" or "toast" so many times now (by the inside-the-Beltway set) that it's impossible to keep count. Each time, his poll numbers actually rise rather than suffer the predicted collapse. This time around, after the dust settles in the fracas over tonight's debate, Trump will likely once again emerge stronger. Which is exactly what the Republican Party hoped would happen (albeit to someone other than Trump, but even so...) during debate season.
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[ Posted Monday, January 4th, 2016 – 19:04 UTC ]
Once again, it's been a month since I last took a look at the Republican presidential field as a whole, and in the intervening time two further candidates have dropped out, bringing the total to an almost-manageable 12 candidates (11 if you don't count Jim Gilmore... and at this point, many don't). Even an even dozen, though, is better than trying to keep track of 17 of these folks.
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[ Posted Wednesday, September 30th, 2015 – 16:58 UTC ]
Bernie Sanders, as far as the media is concerned, is the Rodney Dangerfield of presidential candidates -- "he don't get no respect." Of the 23 candidates running for president in the two major parties, precisely four of them have ever shown even 20 percent support (in their polling averages from their base voters). Actually, to be completely accurate, five people have hit the 20 percent support level since the race began this year, but Joe Biden is not actually a candidate yet. The other four are Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Hillary Clinton, and Bernie Sanders.
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[ Posted Tuesday, September 8th, 2015 – 16:58 UTC ]
Labor Day weekend is over, meaning the world of political punditry heaves a collective sigh of relief because, according to the calendar they use, this marks the end of the summer "Silly Season" and the point where the public starts to actually pay some attention to politics once again -- specifically, the presidential race. There's some truth to this, although people in Iowa and New Hampshire have likely already begun considering political presidential candidates, and there are plenty of people elsewhere who won't get interested until we get a lot closer to actually voting in primaries and caucuses. Still, with the second Republican presidential debate due next week, I thought it'd be a good time for a quick review of where the Republican field now stands and where it could go in the very near future. My personal feeling is that Donald Trump might just be approaching a point where he becomes unstoppable, which started as a gut feeling but looks entirely plausible, given the data.
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[ Posted Tuesday, June 30th, 2015 – 16:59 UTC ]
The Supreme Court issued their last rulings of the season yesterday, and I thought one ruling kind of got short shrift by the media. Granted, there were other big rulings on the same day (the court usually saves their biggest cases for last, but this year they actually released the two biggest decisions last week) involving E.P.A. regulations and the death penalty, but the redistricting case -- to me, at least -- was more important.
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[ Posted Wednesday, June 24th, 2015 – 16:30 UTC ]
Bobby Jindal, the governor of Louisiana, just became the 13th Republican candidate for president. Whether this will prove to be lucky or unlucky remains to be seen. Even though the field is already incredibly crowded, Jindal will not be the last Republican to announce -- there are at least two other contenders who will likely jump in (Scott Walker and Chris Christie), with the possibility of a few more longshot candidates as well. The more crowded the field gets, the harder it is going to be for any one of them to stand out, which is precisely Jindal's main problem.
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[ Posted Monday, June 15th, 2015 – 18:28 UTC ]
Today, Jeb Bush formally entered the race for the Republican nomination for president. I should point out, as a bit of personal trivia, that his new campaign logo ("Jeb!") has allowed me to create what I believe is the shortest headline I have ever written (in over 2,000 blog posts).
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[ Posted Tuesday, April 28th, 2015 – 17:08 UTC ]
Sorry, I do not mean to make light of the historic nature of today's case, far from it in fact. I have to admit being personally stunned at how fast events have developed. Almost exactly two years ago I wrote a column predicting that America had reached the tipping point on marriage equality. I've re-run this column a few times, and last October I pointed out that when I wrote the original article, the following was true:
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