A moment of choosing is fast approaching for Barack Obama and his party’s congressional leaders: to sacrifice the public option that the Democratic base holds so dear, or to stick with it, damn the consequences. Their decision looms as the difference between (almost) sure-thing passage of a compromise health care plan and an ugly, protracted Read More
Back on June 24, Democratic consultant Joe Trippi blogged on the Huffington Post about how polls showed Representative Carolyn Maloney would make a much better, and more viable, candidate for U.S. Senator than Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, and said that he hoped she “does decide to enter the race.”
Trippi later added the following update to his Read More
How many candidates for Congress—Democratic and Republican—have you heard loudly insist that they don’t believe in party labels, just in doing the right thing? And how many of them, once elected, end up voting with their party pretty much all the time? It’s an absurd dance. Voters like hearing about “independence” and “bipartisanship,” so candidates Read More
Unemployment will drag the Democrats down in 2010, but by 2012 Obama will be back in Read More
Apparently, Pat Leahy is a little more intimidating than David Paterson—at least as far as Kirsten Gillibrand is concerned.
Recall that back in January, at the formal announcement of her appointment to the Senate, Paterson tried in vain to get Gillibrand to finish her rambling, unfocused opening statement. “Shall I finish?” she asked at Read More
Today’s Sonia Sotomayor confirmation hearing will be Al Franken’s Senate debut and he’s just about to make his opening statement—the last senator to do so, thanks to his status as the most junior member of the Judiciary Committee. Technically, though, this won’t be Franken’s first Supreme Court hearing: In October 1991, he played Senator Paul Read More
One of the responsibilities that comes with picking a vice-presidential candidate is never admitting that you might have made a bad call—even if it becomes painfully obvious to the rest of the world that you did.
So it was that John McCain withstood a six-minute grilling on Sunday from David Gregory on the subject Read More
To her critics, there’s only one acceptable way to view Sarah Palin’s decision to quit as Alaska’s governor: Her rationale, as Eugene Robinson put it, is “not just contrived or implausible but literally nonsensical,” and anyone who even suggests she remains a viable 2012 contender is, in the words of Josh Marshall, “being witlessly contrarian Read More
ALBANY—Representative John McHugh’s nomination as Army secretary was sent to the U.S. Senate Monday, and the field of potential candidates to replace him in Congress is starting to shake out.
His nomination must still clear the Senate Armed Services Committee, which has to review materials and schedule a confirmation hearing. It is expected a Read More
ALBANY—With an official announcement imminent from Representative Carolyn Maloney about her intention to run a primary against Kirsten Gillibrand, I asked State Senator Liz Krueger if she would seek Maloney’s House seat.
“I’ve never been in Congress so I don’t know if it’s less frustrating,{” she told me yesterday. “But I suspect pretty much Read More
