Watching Rick Perry 2.0 get Biblical on his audience this weekend in Iowa has some conservatives seeing starbursts again. "Dressed all in black, Governor Rick Perry took the podium at the Family Leadership Summit and quoted the book of Isaiah," Breitbart News gushed. "Here am I, send me!" he said. Now, if this riff sounds […]
Category: Election '04
Republicans still refusing to countenance modestly higher tax rates for the wealthiest Americans are facing a moral dilemma. If tax cuts for the gilded-class do not in fact drive economic growth and job creation, then the GOP has been draining the United States Treasury for the sole purpose of needlessly padding the bank accounts of […]
In the aftermath of Barack Obama's reelection victory, voices across the political spectrum were quick to deny that the President had earned a mandate from voters. In the Washington Post, Ruth Marcus warned that a Democratic claim to a mandate was a "delusion." The National Journal's Ron Fournier agreed, adding that the absence of a […]
"In his new book, former Homeland Security secretary Tom Ridge confirms what most long suspected: the Bush administration manipulated the terror threat level for the President's political advantage. But while his long overdue admission is welcome, his suggestion that he resigned over the matter is laughable. As ThinkProgress and others have passed along, US News […]
For the most part, John McCain's Republican National Convention speech was generally panned. While former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson called the performance ''pretty disappointing," CNN's Jeffrey Toobin deemed it "the worst speech by a nominee that I've heard since Jimmy Carter in 1980." But McCain did get some high marks for his rousing finish, which […]
Here are two incontrovertible statements of fact. John Kerry was a decorated Vietnam war veteran. Barack Obama suggested Americans keep their tires inflated to ensure better gas mileage for their cars. But as with Kerry and the Purple-Heart Band-Aids in 2004, Obama is about to see his basic truth swamped by the tawdry but sadly […]
While a terrorist attack on the U.S. homeland would be a tragedy for the American people, it would apparently be viewed as a blessing by the campaign of John McCain. On the same day that USA Today reported that terrorism is the only issue on which Americans clearly prefer John McCain to Barack Obama, McCain […]
The campaign 2004 indignities continued this week for Senator John Kerry. On Tuesday, Kerry's Foreign Relations Committee confronted Sam Fox, the President's nominee for ambassador to Belgium, also a Bush "Pioneer" and a $50,000 contributor to the Swift Boat Vets in 2004. And on Wednesday, Kerry learned that the Federal Election Commission slapped a record […]
Just before November's midterm elections, a piece called "Divide, Suppress and Conquer" described the two-pronged Republican campaign strategy of mobilizing its conservative base while driving down the Democratic and independent vote. When it comes to vote suppression, a new study has found that the Republican tactics have been quite successful, indeed. In a report just […]
A chastened President Bush ventured into enemy territory on Saturday to address the annual gathering of House Democrats. Obliterated in the November elections and facing both abysmal poll numbers and open rebellion over Iraq within his own party, the formerly fierce Bush with tail between his legs feigned a spirit of bipartisan cooperation: "I welcome […]