Why Is ‘Man Up’ This Year’s Political Epithet?

One of the hottest epithets to emerge this political season has a gender basis: “Man up.” “Man up, Harry Reid,” Nevada Republican senate candidate Sharron Angle said to her Democratic opponent. “You need to understand we have a problem with Social Security.” “Hey, politicians who are in office today you, some of you, need to [...]

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Christine O’Donnell vs. Chris Coons: Who Won the Debate?

Last night Delaware Senate candidates Chris Coons and Christine O’Donnell debated live on primetime CNN (before cutting away to cover the ongoing miner rescues in Chile). The most widely talked-about moment came when moderator Nancy Karibjanian of Delaware First Media asked O’Donnell about which recent Supreme Court rulings with which she disagreed. O’Donnell fumbled the [...]

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Blocked Fed Nominee Wins Economics Nobel

For months, an anonymous hold in the senate (likely, most reports note, Senator Richard Shelby (R-Ala.)) has blocked MIT economics professor Peter Diamond’s nomination to the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors. “Professor Diamond is a skilled economist and certainly an expert on tax policy and on the Social Security system,” Shelby said July 28. “However, [...]

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Post-Mortem: GOP blocks DADT Repeal

Yesterday Senate Democrats failed to garner enough votes to invoke cloture and prevent Republicans from filibustering a defense bill with several liberal riders, including a repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and the Dream Act, which would pave the way for illegal immigrants with college degrees or military service to gain citizenship. The bill was [...]

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Predicting Elections in an Unpredictable Year

FiveThirtyEight has changed its forecast for this fall’s Senate elections — the chance of a Republican takeover dropped from 26 to 15 percent, thanks to Christine O’Donnell’s primary win earlier this week. Although Ms. O’Donnell and Mr. Coons remain relatively unknown to some Delaware voters, and a comeback by Ms. O’Donnell is not impossible, the [...]

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Delaware Dispatch: Primary Post-Mortem

It’s Wednesday, the day after the Republican primary for Delaware’s open Senate seat, and the smoke is starting to clear. “O’DONNELL IN SHOCKER,” my copy of the News Journal screamed this morning. Tea Party candidate Christine O’Donnell took 53 percent of the vote and the win. Mike Castle, her opponent, former Delaware governor and nine-term [...]

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MPI: 14th Amendment Repeal Would Increase Illegal Immigrants

Recently some Republican legislators — including but not limited to John McCain, John Boehner, Jon Kyl, Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham and Jeff Sessions — have advocated reviewing the Fourteenth Amendment (and one sarcastic call to repeal the Nineteenth). Specifically, they want to repeal the Citizenship Clause, the part about anyone born on American soil being [...]

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Democrats, the Tea Party and a Massive Rise in Attack Ads

The economy is in rough shape, even by the most optimistic of interpretations. Many industries (coughnewspaperscough) are collapsing beneath us. But there’s one industry, albeit small and seasonal, that seems to be soaring: political attack ads. According to the Associated Press, state and federal candidates have spent $395 million on attack ads already, far more [...]

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Why Democrats Probably Won’t Keep the House

Practically no one is expecting Democrats to keep the House after this fall’s election. The senate is up for debate; most reports right now indicate Republicans will take back several seats, cutting down the Dems’ majority. The New York Times just ran an editorial bemoaning the lack of enthusiasm on the left, while the right [...]

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