At the Democratic primary debate last week, Joseph R. Biden Jr. prompted some distress within the party with a rambling, discordant answer to a question about the legacy of slavery, a moment that highlighted his unsteady instincts, and mixed record, on matters of race. Three days later, a heavily African-American […] Read more »
Biden bear-hugged Obama. His foes couldn’t pry him loose.
Historically, when a former vice president runs for a promotion to the top job, he struggles with the legacy of his former boss. George H. W. Bush was caricatured as a wimp as he tried to step out of Ronald Reagan’s shadow. Al Gore was paralyzed as he tried to […] Read more »
The Republican Party Is Doomed
The 2020 election will be transformative like few in our history. It will end with the death of the Republican Party as we know it, leaving the survivors to begin the struggle to renew the party of Lincoln and make it relevant for our times. It will liberate the Democratic […] Read more »
Why it’s back to the future in the Democratic presidential race
The wine track and the beer track are back. The leading candidates in the 2020 Democratic presidential race are assembling coalitions of support through the early primary polling that are reminiscent of the patterns that repeatedly shaped the struggles for the party’s nomination in the last decades of the 20th […] Read more »
Joe Biden, Gary Hart and the perils of being atop the polls
On Tuesday, several officials in former vice president Joe Biden’s campaign held a background call for reporters about their upcoming plans. One reporter asked whether they considered the Iowa caucuses a must-win event. “I think we’ll win,” one of the advisers said. “Do I think it’s a must-win? No.” The […] Read more »
10 Years Of The Tea Party
NPR’s Leila Fadel speaks with Sarah Jones of New York magazine about the legacy of the Tea Party a decade after its inception. Weekend Edition Sunday, NPR News See also: The Tea Party Is Alive and Well (New York magazine) Read more »