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Paul Waldman

Paul Waldman is a contributing editor for the Prospect and the author of Being Right is Not Enough: What Progressives Must Learn From Conservative Success.

Recent Articles

Health Care Reform Villains

It's time for Obama to start naming the bad guys in the battle over health care reform.

Paul WaldmanJun 22, 2009

In December 2007, with the first contest of the 2008 primaries approaching, Prospect Executive Editor Mark Schmitt wrote what would become one of the most influential articles of the campaign. In the piece, Schmitt contended that voters were witnessing a "theory of change" primary, in which Democratic voters were making a choice between three competing theories about how you get things done in Washington. Hillary Clinton argued that it was about being prepared and working hard; John Edwards argued that it was about confrontation; and Barack Obama contended that he could bring all parties to the table and achieve reform by treating everyone as though they were operating in good faith.

The Left and the Living Dead

In the event of a zombie apocalypse, will progressive ideals win out?

Paul WaldmanJun 16, 2009

The popularity of each resident in our cultural stable of monsters rises and falls as the years pass. Presently, vampires are at the top of the heap, with HBO's True Blood and Stephanie Meyer's unbelievably successful Twilight book series (22 million copies sold in 2008 alone) leading the way. The last few years saw a glut of ghost stories, many adapted from Japanese horror films. Werewolves are in a bit of a rut right now, but perhaps they'll make a comeback sometime soon. All of these menaces can be presented in the context of campy fun, genuinely frightening horror, or even highbrow (or at least upper-middlebrow) entertainment.

The Numbers Game

We ought to be in a golden age of data. So why are so many of the statistics we hear just fuzzy math?

Paul WaldmanJun 09, 2009
A macro of a graph in Edward Tufte's The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, which considers the graphic design of data displays. (Flicker/ Kevin Dooley)

Travelers are often advised to avoid certain places when a big holiday comes -- New Orleans on Mardi Gras might be too bacchanalian for you, and midtown Manhattan on New Year's Eve can get awfully crowded. So if you're thinking of visiting Japan, you might want to avoid Oct. 18. It's Statistics Day, and it gets pretty crazy.

Judicial Abstraction

Republicans talk so much about "judicial activism" because it's a dog whistle to the base. Too bad that base is increasingly small and irrelevant.

Paul WaldmanJun 02, 2009

It is becoming clear that conservatives will be unable to torpedo Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court. What is also becoming clear is that they're losing an opportunity to convince the public that their vision of the courts is superior to that of progressives. And they have no one to blame but themselves.

It's Gingrich Time

The return of the former House speaker is not only due to the leadership vacuum in the GOP. Republicans are back in opposition, and nobody opposes quite like Newt.

Paul WaldmanMay 26, 2009

You just can't escape him. He's on Meet the Press, detailing the Democrats' unconscionable perfidy. He's on the op-ed page of The Washington Post, explaining why an anti-Obama backlash is about to sweep across the country. He's on The Daily Show, telling jokes to Jon Stewart. He's profiled in an 8,000-word opus in The New York Times Magazine. The man is positively everywhere.

It's Gingrich time.

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