in politics

Here you will find articles about government, presidential candidates, public policy, and other political issues.

The Assassination of Benazir Bhutto

The world has been on edge for months as it watches the elections in the U.S., Russia and Pakistan, three very different nuclear powers. This morning in Pakistan, the election campaign took a dramatic turn as former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, the first female political leader of a modern Muslim nation, was assassinated at a campaign rally.

Pakistan has been an ally to the United States in the war on terror, but some suspect that the Pakistani government has not done enough to rein in Al Qaeda. Bhutto, a Harvard-educated leader, emerged from exile earlier this year and returned to her native Pakistan to run in elections that have been repeatedly scheduled and re-scheduled. Her death as a martyr will surely put pressure on Pakistan's President Pervez Musharaff to step down from power very soon.

Posted in politics on December 27 2007, 10:44AM | Read More | Comments (16)

McCain, Obama Rising In New Hampshire

After my election predictions last week, I just had to post this headline from today's Huffington Post. A few people wrote me directly who did not believe that McCain or Obama would win New Hampshire, so I thought it amusing when I clicked on the Internet this morning and stumbled upon this story.

Of course, this doesn't mean that those candidates will win in New Hamsphire, and it doesn't mean my prediction will be right. A prediction is just an educated guess. Anything could happen between now and January 8. But it does seem to suggest that the prediction is not completely implausible. I know I'm closing down the site this week, but I promise to write an article after the Iowa Caucuses and New Hampshire Primary so you can find out if I was right or wrong.

Posted in politics on December 23 2007, 12:25PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Official 2008 Iowa and NH Predictions

Clinton and Huckabee Will Win Iowa

Two weeks from today, voters in Iowa will cast the first votes in the 2008 presidential election cycle, and the race on both sides is still too close to call. At the moment, Obama and Huckabee are leading in the polls in Iowa, but the former frontrunners, Clinton and Romney, are right on their heels. It's a very tight race and the polls are all over the map, but I'm going to take a risk and make a prediction today.

Looking at the trends and the momentum in the first two contests, it looks like Huckabee's momentum as the new GOP frontrunner is still going strong. On the other side, the untold story is that Clinton seems to have contained the losses she suffered as Obama surged in that state recently. All of this works into a complex arrangement that leads us into an even tighter contest in New Hampshire. Based on what I see now, I'm going to predict that Clinton and Huckabee will win Iowa. But then, in a real shocker, Obama and McCain will win New Hampshire.

Posted in politics on December 20 2007, 12:56PM | Read More | Comments (13)

The Phony War on Christmas

I got a call this morning from a producer at a TV news show asking me if I would come on to talk about Mike Huckabee's new "Christmas ad" that features the Republican presidential candidate discussing "the birth of Christ" in front of what some believe to be a Christian cross in the background. The host wanted to use the ad as a segue to discuss whether it was still acceptable to say "Merry Christmas" anymore.

Of course it's acceptable, I responded to the producer, who was actually looking for someone to go on TV and say that it's not okay to say "Merry Christmas." I'm not the right guy for that show, I explained. The producer asked if I could think of someone else who might object to "Merry Christmas" wishes, and then it occurred to me that I really couldn't. All of which led me to question the phony belief that there is some sort of liberal "war on Christmas" being plotted by left-wing activists and academics with a politically correct agenda to secularize the holiday and deprive young kids of their Nintendo Wiis.

Posted in politics on December 19 2007, 1:07PM | Read More | Comments (11)

What's Love Got To Do With It?

The passing of Ike Turner on Wednesday got me thinking about some of my favorite songs from his ex-wife Tina. With all the attacks and counter-attacks being thrown about in the final weeks before the Iowa caucuses, I'm first reminded of Turner's famous comeback song "We Don't Need Another Hero." In Tina Turner's words, "Out of the ruins, out from the wreckage, can't make the same mistake this time." That seems to be the sentiment from the Democratic voters who want nothing more than to sweep the Republicans from the White House.

But there's another line from the song that sums up the GOP conundrum. As Tina put it, "There's got to be something better out there." Maybe that's why the Republican voters still haven't made up their minds about their presidential preferences. To put it crassly, should they pick the guy with the three wives, the Mormon guy, or the Southern preacher guy who lost all that weight? While both sides would love to find the candidate who is "simply the best," the reality is that "what you get is what you see."

Posted in politics on December 13 2007, 12:10PM | Read More | Comments (7)

This Might Work

The political world has never seen anything like it. Oprah Winfrey stumped for Barack Obama over the weekend and brought out more than 70,000 people to campaign appearances in Iowa, South Carolina and New Hampshire. The 30,000 people who jammed the arena in South Carolina were the largest crowd ever for the Obama campaign.

''There are those who say it's not his time, that he should wait his turn," said Winfrey. "Think about where you'd be in your life if you'd waited when people told you to,'' she said, adding ''I'm sick of politics as usual." I've never been convinced that a celebrity endorsement made much of a difference in a presidential election, but it looks like Oprah may be different.

Posted in politics on December 10 2007, 11:03AM | Read More | Comments (38)

They Don't Like Each Other

I suppose it's not breaking news to report an intense rivalry between two competitors for the same political office. That happens all the time. But to watch the body language and to listen to the words of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama lately, the feud between them looks downright personal.

In the past few weeks, Clinton and Obama have traded charges with each other about experience and judgment and on policy differences about Iran, Social Security, immigration and health care. That's all fair game in politics. But they've also gone beyond that, most notably with Clinton questioning whether growing up in a foreign country qualified Obama to be president and Obama questioning whether serving as First Lady qualified Clinton to be president. Clinton even played the "kindergarten card" to question Obama's experience.

Posted in politics on December 5 2007, 11:39AM | Read More | Comments (31)