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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

Don't Just Do Something, Appear to Be Doing Something!

Paul WaldmanJun 04, 2010

Let's face it: Pretty much nobody knows what to do about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. To even begin to assess your options, you need very specialized knowledge that few people have, and even then it doesn't appear to be much help. This doesn't stop untrained political consultants and elected officials from criticizing President Obama. Take Rudy Guiliani:

[Obama] should have gone there, should have been there more than twice. He should have been leading the charge from the front. ... He should have brought in the best experts. He should have set up a team of independent advisers to be advising him directly.

The Age of Celebrity

Paul WaldmanJun 04, 2010

The most glittering star in the Republican firmament, whose every Facebook update and Twitter missive sets journalists' laptops humming, who is currently embroiled in a feud with her next-door neighbor (now that the kid who knocked up her daughter has temporarily faded from view), who has one best-selling book and another on the way, not to mention the six-figure speaking fees and the gigs on two different cable networks, doesn't actually hold a job. In fact, neither do most of the other probable 2012 GOP contenders, the ex-governors and ex-congressmen, now politically famous for being famous.

Not the Bipartisanship We Were Looking For

Paul WaldmanJun 04, 2010

From CNN:

Energy giant BP has hired a Washington-based, bipartisan political consulting firm to produce its new aggressive national advertising push, including a national TV spot released Thursday, CNN has learned.

Sources familiar with the arrangement say that Purple Strategies, headed up by veteran political consultants Steve McMahon, a Democrat, and Alex Castellanos, a Republican, produced new advertisements now running on both television and in newspapers.

Old Media Colonizes New Media, or Maybe Vice-Versa.

Paul WaldmanJun 03, 2010

Interesting announcement from The New York Times:

The New York Times said Thursday that it would begin hosting the popular blog FiveThirtyEight and make its founder, Nate Silver, a regular contributor to the newspaper and the Sunday magazine.

A Scandal Is Coming. Eventually.

Paul WaldmanJun 02, 2010

A while back, the Obama administration tried to convince Joe Sestak not to run in the Democratic primary against Sen. Arlen Specter, suggesting that it might give him some sort of position on an unpaid commission. Republicans have been torn by the question of whether this rather mundane bit of political deal-making was just worse than Watergate, or might actually be one of history's greatest crimes. Jonathan Chait makes a good observation about this issue:

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