They’re not good, but the White House this morning e-mailed out this familiar graph—updated with the latest numbers—along with this statement from Alan B. Krueger, chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers: While there is more work that remains to be done, today’s employment report provides further evidence that the U.S. economy is continuing […]
Election 2012
Posted inMedia
Can We Just Talk About the Onion‘s Convention Coverage For a Second
… because holy shit it has been great. My favorite up until last night was “John McCain Just Blew His Brains Out During RNC Speech“— While witnesses said that McCain waved, smiled, and “seemed perfectly fine” at the outset of his speech, they noted that minutes into the address the senator paused and glared at […]
Posted inComedy
New Obama Ad: It Could’ve Been Worse!
One of the pro-Obama films you didn’t see last night at the convention did make it onto The Daily Show—and I can kinda see why the DNC nixed it. After all, a film titled, “Barack Obama: It Could’ve Been Worse!” narrated by Curb Your Enthusiasm‘s Larry David could’ve been a bit more positive. However! It […]
Posted inElection 2012
DNC Closes Out with Anti-Choice, Anti-Gay Prayer
I hate to sink the levity of the Democratic National Convention, because it was an uplifting revival and all, but in the words of this fellow on Twitter, the finale was “kind of like tossing a turd into a punchbowl.” Democrats selected Cardinal Timothy Dolan—president of the brazenly right-wing United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, […]
Posted inElection 2012
Republican Staffer Pretends to Be Disillusioned Obama Supporter in New Ad
I wonder if Lyin’ Ryan came up with this ad: Republicans debuted a new ad Thursday in which a frustrated former Obama supporter expresses her disappointment with the president. The only problem: The woman in the video is actually an RNC staffer. The new ad features Republican National Committee Director of Hispanic Outreach Bettina Inclan, […]
Posted inElection 2012
The Policy Gap
Only Bill Clinton can do a speech like the one that closed day two of the Democratic National Convention last night. It was 50 minutes of detailed policy talk, compare-and-contrast mathematics, fact checking, and revisiting of ancient history—and it was a total, riveting pleasure to hear. It also reminded that the major speakers at the […]
Posted inElection 2012
The DNC Night That Was: Night Two
Elizabeth Warren and Sandra Fluke both gave surprising speeches. Warren’s was a terrific progressive speech that reclaimed liberal values in prime time television. Hopefully, her speech will give her a bump over Scott Brown in the senatorial race in Massachusetts: And Fluke was exactly as she was when I saw her a couple days ago: […]
Posted inElection 2012
Andrew Sullivan on What Obama Needs to Do This Week
Make a specific promise: For his potential second term to be seen as something new, something offering a fresh start, something that can break through the partisan deadlock and get to real solutions to problems that can no longer be kicked down the road, then he has to do something bold. Get up there and […]
Posted inElection 2012
DNC Night One: The Night That Was
The highlights of the first night of DNC speakers were Lily Ledbetter, Kal Penn, Deval Patrick, and the HILARIOUSLY ALL CAPS-y Ted Strickland. But the breakout star was San Antonio mayor Julian Castro, whose biographical speech marked him as a Texas Democrat to watch. He struck a highly moderate tone—you kind of have to, if […]
Posted inElection 2012
DNC Diary: The Full Force of the Republican DNC “Counteroffensive”
CNN says: Republicans launched their counter-programming effort in Charlotte on Monday with a simple message: Americans are not better off today than they were four years ago. Fox News says: Just outside the security perimeter of the Democratic National Convention, Republicans have set up a “rapid response” unit whose job it is to make sure […]
Posted inElection 2012
POLL: Mayoral Candidates’ Facebook Photos Face-Off
A while back, we showcased Mayor Sam Adams’ most interesting (and, at times, confusing) Facebook photos. It was fun! Soon, however, he will be passing his “mayor with delightful photos” crown onto a new candidate. To make the November voting process easiest for you, I scoured the Facebooks of mayoral candidates Jefferson Smith and Charlie […]