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September 30, 2014

Democrats Should Be Nicer to the South by Froma Harrop

MOBILE, Ala. -- It's been noticed by just about everyone except what we call the "liberal establishment" that of the eight Senate seats now up for grabs, four are in the South -- Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana and North Carolina. H. Brandt (Brandy) Ayers, the publisher of The Anniston Star in Alabama, has certainly noticed the neglect. And boy, is he frustrated.

Ayers is both a staunch liberal and Southern to the core. If the Democratic Party wants to establish a healthy dialogue in the Southern states, he told me, it has to first say, "We like you." Liberals can't just sigh at the troublesome region's sharp move right and say, "That's a Southern thing."

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September 30, 2014

Obama Stands Aloof From America's Four Foreign Policy Traditions By Michael Barone

President Obama's speech at the United Nations last week was "an important turning point in American foreign policy -- and in his presidency." That's the verdict of Brookings Institution scholar and former Clinton White House aide William Galston, a Democrat who has not been an unqualified admirer of this Democratic president's foreign policy.

Whether Obama's decision to launch air strikes against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and Khorasan terrorists is a turning point, it was at least a move in the direction of a tradition in American foreign policy that has been conspicuously lacking in his administration.

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September 26, 2014

Scots Vote Against Independence, but Controversy Continues in Britain By Michael Barone

Last week, the voters of Scotland, in a heavy turnout and from age 16 up, decided not to disunite what has been arguably one of the most successful and beneficial nations over the last 307 years, the necessarily clunkily named United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

It was a relatively close-run thing: 45 percent voted for an independent Scotland, just 383,000 fewer than voted for Scotland to remain part of the now-not-necessary-to-be-renamed UK.

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September 25, 2014

Kids Who Don't Go to College Also Matter by Froma Harrop

It shouldn't be this way, but the well-to-do tend to dominate public conversations in this country. The result has been a national preoccupation with the comfort, safety and psychological health of children like theirs -- that is, children who go to college.

Thus, the students' problems get customized attention. Government asks: How can we protect women on campus from sexual assault? How can we stop students who drink too much or are "underage"?

It's hard to believe that sexual predators roam more freely at the dorms than in society at large. Or that there's more drunkenness around student hangouts than at working-class bars

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September 25, 2014

House 2014: Generic Movement, Specific Standstill By Kyle Kondik

The national numbers indicate that Republicans should be on the verge of big House gains. But a district-by-district analysis suggests a different story.

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September 24, 2014

What the Republicans Chasing Hillary Should Learn From Wile E. Coyote by Joe Conason

As the Republican right's fear swells in advance of Hillary Clinton's anticipated presidential campaign, conservatives' feverish smears increasingly resemble the desperate gambits of a certain Wile E. Coyote. The latest episode in their cartoonish crusade appeared in The Washington Free Beacon, which headlined "The Hillary Letters" the other day with an ominous subhead: "Hillary Clinton, Saul Alinsky correspondence revealed."

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September 24, 2014

Two Anti-Choice Parties By John Stossel

Democrats often call themselves "pro-choice." Republicans defend "freedom." Unfortunately, neither party really believes in letting individuals do what we want.

When Democrats say they are "pro-choice," they are talking about abortion. Some act as if a right to legal abortion is the most important freedom in America.

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September 23, 2014

Ending Life on Your Terms By Froma Harrop

The low point of the Obamacare debate -- and there was much probing of the floor -- had to be the "death panel" charge. It was the creepiest in a volley of lies aimed at killing health care reform.

What was the fuss about? A proposal to pay doctors for time spent talking to patients about the kind of care they wanted in their last days. Such conversations would be entirely voluntary.

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September 23, 2014

Why has Immigration Shifted? By Michael Barone

What should we do about immigration policy? It's a question many are asking, and some useful perspective comes from an article in Foreign Affairs by British-born, California-based historian Gregory Clark, unhelpfully titled, "The American Dream Is an Illusion."

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September 19, 2014

American Amnesia: Why the GOP Leads on National Security by Joe Conason

If the latest polls are accurate, most voters believe that Republican politicians deserve greater trust on matters of national security. At a moment when Americans feel threatened by rising terrorist movements and authoritarian regimes, that finding is politically salient -- and proves that amnesia is the most durable affliction of our democracy.

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September 19, 2014

Which Is the Weaker Party? Your Call by Michael Barone

Which of our two great political parties is the stronger? Maybe it makes more sense to ask which of the two is weaker.

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September 18, 2014

A Rough Month in America for Women By Froma Harrop

Mark Sanford's heralded engagement to Maria Belen Chapur is apparently over. The rep from South Carolina released the news to America through a Facebook post. That's how Chapur found out, too.   

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September 18, 2014

Senate Ratings Changes: North Carolina, New Hampshire, and Minnesota By Kyle Kondik

Another week is down the drain in the race for the Senate, and while our overall outlook is unchanged — a five to eight seat gain for the GOP — some of our ratings are in need of adjustments.

One of these comes as a surprise, as Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC) is proving to be quite resilient.

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September 17, 2014

Immigration Is American By John Stossel

Conservatives rightly point out that America is a nation of laws. No one should be exempt. That's why many oppose amnesty and other paths to citizenship for illegal immigrants who are here now.

"If they want to be in America," the argument goes, "they ought to return to their own countries and apply for a visa legally. America should not reward law breaking."

That sounds sensible -- but what happens when the immigrant does that, goes to the U.S. embassy and says, I'd like to work in America legally?

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September 16, 2014

How Not to Get Your Country Back By Froma Harrop

The tea party mantra, "I want my country back," resonates with many. The racial undertones can be ugly (as well as pointless). But the longing for an economically secure America centered on a strong middle class is on point and widely shared.

Older and mostly white members of the far right tend to see themselves as model Americans who worked hard, saved up and played by the rules. They may have done all the above, but many also have no idea of how easy they had it.

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September 16, 2014

Obama Forced by Events to Reverse Course --- and Disillusion Base by Michael Barone

Iraq, immigration, inversion. On all three of the issues referred to, President Obama finds himself forced by events to do something he dislikes -- and he's in trouble with much of his Democratic Party base for doing so.

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September 15, 2014

Republican Reaction to Obama Speech Reveals Much -- About Them by Joe Conason

Minutes after President Barack Obama concluded his strong and sensible address explaining how he intends to destroy the terrorist organization the Islamic State, Republicans popped up on television like political snipers. He should have kept a "residual force" in Iraq, complained Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and he is to blame for the Islamic State's advances. He sounds just like George W. Bush, gloated former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and he is reluctantly enacting the advice of Dick Cheney.

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September 12, 2014

Large Government Out of Place in a Society Based on Small Technology by Michael Barone

"Twentieth-century technology," writes economic historian Joel Mokyr in the Manhattan Institute's excellent City Journal, "was primarily about 'large' things."

Large in physical size, that is. Mokyr's examples include the diesel engine and the gas turbine, shipping containers, communications satellites launched by giant rockets, oil-drilling platforms, massive power stations, giant steel mills and huge airplanes.

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September 11, 2014

Do We Need a Place Called Home? By Froma Harrop

There's this scene in Shakespeare where the straight-talking Rosalind tries to make sense of Jaques, a guy who travels all the time and is plagued by melancholy.   

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September 11, 2014

What Is a Wave in the Senate? By Larry J. Sabato, Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley

For several months, we’ve held steady on our range of expected gains for Republicans in the Senate: a net of four to eight seats. With Labor Day in the rearview mirror and with less than 55 days to go until the midterms, we’re giving Republicans a slight bump: Our new range is a Republican net of five to eight Senate seats.

This means that the best-case scenario we can now envision for Democrats is a 50-50 tie in the Senate, with Vice President Joe Biden’s tiebreaking vote narrowly keeping Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) as majority leader.

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