Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

I’m with Brian Fallon

Campaigns are complicated things. No one gets every piece of them right. Some candidates are great at big rallies. Some are good only at small events. Some are terrific TV communicators but bad on the stump. Some delegate well, and others don’t. Some never waver from a message, while others can’t seem to find one […]

The most important endorsement of Clinton other than Sanders’ and Warren’s came today … from Al Gore

Paul Waldman has a lengthy post today at the Washington Post’s Plum Line blog titled “Despite what you’ve heard, Democrats aren’t in disarray. Their party is under attack from the outside.”   He argues that the Democratic Party itself isn’t that divided, and that the divisions really are between Democrats and the outsider Sanders supporters who […]

Ugh. Okay, still …

In a letter co-signed by 15 other Senate Democrats — and every Senate Republican — Kaine asked the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to exempt community banks and credit unions from many of its regulatory requirements. In justifying these exemptions, the letter suggests that these regulations would make it more difficult for these small banks to continue “spurring economic growth” […]

Imagine a Dem VP nominee who can speak with clarity about antitrust legislation to limit the market power of Big Ag (and other such things)

I don’t want to compare myself to other people [in contention for the job], but I will tell you I’ve spoken with so many groups and I’ve represented those folks as a small-town lawyer, as a small-town mayor, as a state senator, then representing the state. I understand those folks and their struggles,” [Agriculture Secretary […]

Britain’s New Prime Minister Openly Channels … Bernie Sanders?

[New British Prime Minister Theresa] May — who campaigned for “remain” in last month’s E.U. referendum — had vowed to unify her bitterly divided party by appointing “leave” and “remain” advocates alike to top posts. She has made good on that pledge. But she also chosen to banish Gove and others who had been critical […]

ANTITRUSSSTTT! (Bernie Sanders did SO talk about antitrust during his campaign. A LOT. But thank you, Elizabeth Warren, for picking up that mantle now.)

A detailed update follows the original post. ____ Is the window closing on Bernie Sanders’s moment? A number of folks, your humble blogger included, have suggested as much. We’ve argued that with Democrats seeming to unite behind Hillary Clinton, it’s possible that the longer Sanders withholds his endorsement for her in the quest to make […]

Clinton’s figured out how to ensure her victory: Threaten Sanders that if he doesn’t endorse her, pronto, she’ll begin campaigning as a triangulator.

The risk is that [Sanders] will lose his moment because some Clinton partisans already see a more centrist campaign as the best way to win over millions of middle-of-the-road voters who find Trump abhorrent. Sanders has to decide if accelerating his plans to endorse Clinton is now the best way to maximize progressive influence. — […]

Why are so many pundits conflating U.S. blue-collar voters’ concerns that are similar to their British counterparts’ who voted for Brexit with the separate issue of whether the Brexit vote itself will influence U.S. blue-collar voters’ votes in November? These are completely different issues.

Some of our wisest political observers informed us that Brexit would be great news for Donald Trump, because it shows (somehow) that there may be more support here than expected for his nationalist message of restoring American greatness through restrictionist immigration policies and turning the clock back on globalization. So it’s a bit surprising to […]

A Clinton Blank Check? Or a Sanders Blank Check?

Long-time Republican strategists and campaign consultants privately acknowledge they are so certain of Hillary Clinton’s victory – and so worried about its impact on Senate races and GOP control of the Senate – that they are already considering a controversial tactic that explicitly acknowledges Donald Trump’s defeat. The tactic, used by congressional Republicans two decades […]