Search Results for: 2004 kerry
October 28, 2012 — John Hinderaker
I wrote yesterday about the media effort to help the Obama administration cover up the Benghazi scandal. That scandal includes at least three elements: 1) the administration’s failure to provide adequate security for our personnel there, even after they had requested heightened security; 2) the administration’s attempt to deceive the American people about the nature of the Benghazi attack, by falsely characterizing it as a spontaneous mob uprising prompted by
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October 26, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
In my last post, I noted that the third presidential debate did not move the needle in terms of the popular vote. Before the debate, Romney led Obama by 5 points in the Gallup poll and 2 points in the Rasmussen poll. In the aftermath of the debate he leads by 5 in Gallup and 3 in Rasmussen. Of course the needle might move yet. There could be a surprise
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October 24, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
If President Obama loses this election, the Democrats will need a scapegoat. The obvious scapegoat would be Obama himself. But he’s been getting free passes all of his life, and the left-liberals who comprise the Democratic mainstream will think long and hard about holding him accountable now. For one thing, he’s manifestly one of them. For another, he’s African-American. Accordingly, the need for a different scapegoat would arise. That scapegoat
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October 23, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
If there’s a common takeaway from the four debates of this presidential cycle, it’s the indiscipline of Barack Obama and Joe Biden. The problem manifested itself in different ways in different debates. In the first debate, Obama apparently lacked the discipline to treat the event with the seriousness it required. He seemed comparatively unprepared, unwilling to treat Romney as a serious opponent until it was too late, and unable even
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October 12, 2012 — Steven Hayward
Score this for Ryan: I’m certain that it was Biden’s plan to try to get under Ryan’s skin, drive Ryan off his core strength (his passionate wonkiness), cause him to make a mistake, lose his composure, or look too young and unready for high office. Biden utterly failed to do this. Ryan kept his cool throughout. I hate ever to agree with David Gergen, but Ryan won on style points.
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October 10, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
“Big stakes for Biden and Ryan in VP debate.” So reads the Washington Post’s headline to this story by Dan Balz. Actually, the debate of vice presidential candidates is almost always inconsequential in the end. The odds are that this will be the case once again. Vice presidential debates seem to take on a heightened importance when an incumbent president loses the first debate. In that event, the party in
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October 9, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
My general theory of presidential debates is that, whatever happens in the immediate aftermath of a debate, gravity will tend to pull the candidates back to where they started out. Thus, if President Obama went into last week’s debate up by 4 points, say, but after the debate finds himself 2 points behind Mitt Romney, then my general theory would predict that, over time, Obama will recapture most of that
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September 27, 2012 — Steven Hayward
The media line right now is that Obama is pulling away from Romney in the all-important state of Ohio, which, as all political junkies know, is not just a swing state—it is the swing state, as no Republican has ever won the White House without winning Ohio. (The Wall Street Journal‘s lead story today is “Electoral Drama Shifts to Ohio.”) I spent Monday and Tuesday in Ohio, and most
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September 16, 2012 — Steven Hayward
BOZEMAN, Montana—My weekend with my pals at PERC, the Property and Environment Research Center, is almost over. I managed to get in a quick afternoon hike through the smoke of nearby forest fires—the smoke may explain why this nearby iPhone photo is so washed out. I also got to pick the brain of John Batchelor of the John Batchelor radio show for tips for the next time I sub for
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September 9, 2012 — Steven Hayward
I’ve been wondering the same thing as John, and confronting the same grim hypothesis–that the calculus of the modern welfare state has passed a tipping point (I mean, just who do we think those 47 million people on food stamps are going to vote for)? This is, of course, just a variation of the classical critique of democracy–that the poor majority would vote to take from the wealthy minority. This
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August 28, 2012 — Steven Hayward
As the GOP convention gets under way a day late today, Team Obama must be truly worried about things, if Chris Matthews’ unhinged behavior over the last 36 hours is any indication. But the egregious Matthews is just one small symptom of a larger asymmetry between the two parties. The Team Obama theory was that they could destroy Romney over the summer with vicious attacks calling him a tax cheat,
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August 27, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
A new Washington Post/ABC survey shows that Mitt Romney has a huge lead over President Obama among married women. The Hill has the details: Married women are strongly backing Mitt Romney, 55%-40%, over Barack Obama. Compare that with 2008 exit polls when Obama won married women with children, 51%-47%, while McCain won married women with no kids 53%-44%. Romney’s 15% margin soundly beats both numbers. That 15% is identical to
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August 25, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
Both presidential candidates must be feeling reasonably happy as we head into the conventions. President Obama should be satisfied that, from all that appears, he leads Mitt Romney by a point or two in polls of likely voters, despite the economy’s weak recovery and the mostly bad economic news of the past few months. Romney should be satisfied that he stands only slightly behind Obama, including in key states like
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August 24, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
My post yesterday bemoaning the apparent superiority of Team Obama’s ground game failed to mention at least one important consideration — groups like the Tea Party that will supplement the Romney ground game. One reader tells me: I signed up, since I live in the red hills of Texas, to make calls in Virginia with the Election Day Tea Party. I got this information from Instapundit. They are also going
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August 23, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
Phillip Klein argues that the reaction by Republicans to the Todd Akin mess seems to signal a new sophistication of the conservative movement: In recent years, we’ve become used to a typical pattern when conservative candidates have come under fire for making controversial or ill-informed statements. Democrats and their liberal allies pounce, as do some Republicans and even conservative pundits. But many on the right are reluctant to join them,
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August 17, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
John Kerry sniffs that criticism by special operators and intelligence professionals of President Obama’s disclosure of sensitive national security information reminds him of the Swift Boat Vet attacks during the 2004 campaign. I’m happy to say that there is a resemblance. There are also differences, though. The dispute about Kerry’s Vietnam service was entirely about the past. The issue had nothing to do with policy or national security. It was
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July 29, 2012 — Scott Johnson
Seyed Hossein Moussavian is a former Iranian nuclear negotiator now setting up shop as Research Scholar at the Program on Science and Global Security at Princeton University. Jay Solomon provided the background on Mousavian’s departure from Iran in a 2010 Wall Street Journal article, but I first heard of Mousavian in a Journal book review last weekend by Robert Bartley Journalism Fellow Sohrab Ahmari. Despite falling out with a powerful
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