Politics
Momentum vs. Math
It’s pretty clear that Mitt Romney cleaned Newt Gingrich’s clock in Florida the other day. In the exit polls, Romney swept all categories: women, Hispanics, Tea Party supporters, young people, old people, everyone except Florida’s most conservative voters (who nonetheless gave Romney 30 percent of their votes). It was the kind of win he’d been angling for since he first got into the presidential race, a decisive blow that was supposed to dash the hopes of anyone trying to keep up with him. But will it? MORE...
The Politics Show
Eighteen Republican debates and counting. Are these things the new Gong Show? You know something? I kind of like them, in that zany, faux reality way television does politics. MORE...
Romney Comes Into Focus
The New Hampshire primary came and went Tuesday, and just like that, the Republican race for the presidency snapped into focus. The soft-edged everyman of politics, Mitt Romney, emerged as a robust––even kind of feisty––frontrunner; Ron Paul solidified his position as the iconoclast who won’t go away; and the rest of the field lived up to their reputation as, well, the rest of the field. MORE...
Thank You, Iowa. Now Get Lost!
The most beguiling time in any presidential race comes at the beginning when you have to figure out when the campaign actually starts. Does the race begin with early fund-raising numbers showing the relative strength of the candidates? Do the early debates mark the beginning of the race or just set the stage for what follows? How important is Sen. Tom Harkin’s summer barbeque? Or the Iowa Straw Poll? Or all those telephone surveys of potential match-ups in a general election?
A good rule of thumb, simple but enduring, is that the race doesn’t really start until the first votes are cast. Somebody has to go first, and for the last 35 years, that somebody for better or worse has been Iowa. MORE...
Running for President On The Side
The drumbeat marching Herman Cain to the Republican nomination has pretty much reached a crescendo. And it’s made for an interesting couple weeks, hasn’t it? MORE...
Waiting for The Anti-Mitt
To give credit where credit is due, the Republican race to choose a presidential nominee for 2012 wouldn’t be all that interesting if the nation’s press weren’t so hellfire determined to make it so. Just ask the 6 out of 10 Republicans who say they aren’t paying attention, according to a New York Times/CBS poll, or the 8 of 10 Republicans who say it is too early to make any decisions.
After 9 debates––with 10 more slated before Iowans cast the first votes on January 3––the Republican field is shaping up to look like Mitt Romney versus everybody else. Or maybe anybody else. MORE...
A Perfect Day Ruined
I was sitting in my dentist’s office getting a crown fitted on my molar. His office overlooks Millennium Park. On a perfect fall day, at the end of a perfect week, I could see the Chicago skyline perfectly reflected in The Bean. My dentist was planning to spend his weekend playing a last round of golf at Medinah. I was going to the Blackhawks home opener. If every week in Chicago were like this one, I can’t imagine why anyone would want to live anywhere else. MORE...
1964 All Over Again
While most of the Republican presidential candidates are reaching back in history to pick up the mantle of Ronald Reagan, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas seems to have overshot the mark, landing instead in the boots of Barry Goldwater. MORE...
20 People Who Will Pick The Next President (They Wish)
Keeping up with the latest trends in technology is not my forte, but it comes with the territory. Twitter, the 140-character Internet medium for communicating your latest thought, has taken over political reporting––and woe be to the reporter who hasn’t climbed aboard.
Never mind that the most popular political Tweeter, Slate political reporter and CBS TV contributor John Dickerson, has 1,387,703 followers. That pales before the 22 million people who tune in every night to watch the evening news.
But there are certain reporters who now tweet so regularly, and so constantly––and are read by so many of their fellow reporters––their combined Twitter feeds have become the narrative web on top of which the 2012 presidential campaign bounces along. I call them The Twitterati. MORE...
Credit Where Credit is Due
Muammar Gadhafi is out as the ruler of Libya and America breathes a sign of relief. Before the Arab Spring spread its unrest to Libya, the average American knew little about this nation of 6 million. We saw it as the land of sand, oil and a colorful, crazed dictator who ran it with an iron fist for the last 42 years. But in an election year, that’s no excuse for not having an opinion on how President Obama screwed it up. MORE...
RR: Are you playing Monopoly on the iPad?
CF: Yep and I’m playing the Italian way. Making all my money in jail.
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