May 16th, 2012
Is this the Golden Age of New Jersey politics?
After the chronic embarrassments of Governors James McGreevey and Jon Corzine, beyond the scores of mayors indicted for corruption, the Garden State is suddenly fielding a bipartisan team with national appeal.
They’re the ultimate political odd couple, a stereotypical comedy duo in a thin guy/fat guy, black guy/white guy sort of way. And now they’ve co-starred in their first online comedy feature, filmed for the benefit of the New Jersey Press Association Legislative Correspondents Club dinner, which quickly went viral. Read More…
May 11th, 2012
There is a small but telling irony beneath the gay-marriage debate: the Republican candidate favors changing the constitution; the Democrat is backing states’ rights.
It’s a role reversal that reflects the outcome-based, situational ethics beneath many supposedly principled ideological and partisan divides. The more transcendent truths are found in the traditionalism of conservatives and the progressivism of liberals, for better or worse.
Romney’s reversal from backing “full equality” for gays and lesbians back in 2002-era Massachusetts to his embrace of a Federal Marriage Amendment today is striking even by his standards—because few Republicans not running for president have advocated resuscitating that bad idea from Bush-Cheney 2004. Instead, some of the architects of that original plan have been busy apologizing for it in the intervening years. Dick Cheney supports the freedom to marry. And federalism was the argument hotly advanced by the Tea Party against health-care reform. Read More…
May 8th, 2012
It’s Bill Clinton versus Billy Graham in North Carolina’s vote on a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.
Advocates have dispatched powerful surrogates to this newest front of the culture wars, with the former president voicing robocalls urging voters to shoot down the measure and the evangelist featured in newspaper ads backing it. It’s a big battle in a high-stakes swing state where the research triangle meets the Bible Belt, and where Barack Obama eked out a win four years ago. Read More…
May 7th, 2012
It’s RINO hunting season, and Dick Lugar has a big target on his back.
The six-term Indiana senator was once Richard Nixon’s favorite Republican Mayor—but Tricky Dick looks like a hippie compared to the Tea Party crowd, and Lugar has several sins alleged against him that could lead his party to purge him on Tuesday.
First, he’s on speaking terms with some Democrats. Second, he once co-sponsored nuclear non-proliferation legislation with Barack Obama. Third, as the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he definitely knows who the president of Uz-becki-becki-stan is. Read More…
May 1st, 2012
There will be an alternative to Barack Obama and Mitt Romney this fall: A bipartisan ticket chosen in an open online convention that begins May 15, courtesy of the organization Americans Elect and its founder and chief funder, Peter Ackerman.
It is an audacious if untested challenge to the duopoly of the Democratic and Republican parties, delivered by the somewhat reclusive and controversial multimillionaire who has avoided talking to the press—until now, when he agreed to sit down with The Daily Beast. Read More…
