Ann Friedman

So far, John Edwards and Barack Obama have tried to dent Hillary Clinton’s claims to the nomination by attacking her (less so Obama than Edwards) on policy issues. That’s fine. But while she often makes her electability claims based on experience and readiness to lead, she just as often makes it about her toughness and […]

I was supposed to appear on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show last night to promote my new book. But I didn’t because The Daily Show was doing reruns. That’s because the show’s writers have gone on strike. Now, this may look like the kind of strike that used to cripple American industry years ago when […]

As a final note to last week’s “gender card” debate, over at Feministing, Jessica Valenti and I have a plea to male politicians to stop playing identity politics, already. –Ann Friedman

Missouri Governor Matt Blunt has put an anti-choice group in charge of convening a task force in his name to investigate the “impact of abortion on women.” Of course, every member of the task force is anti-choice. I’m sure this will be an “objective overview of the impact of abortion.” The forced-pregnancy movement uses tactics […]

A: On the campaigns that have cultivated and promoted their lower-level female staffers. Like Matt, I think Garance makes an incredibly important point about the reasons for Hillary Clinton’s largely female senior staff: After all, it’s not like there was some huge population of female strategists out there the various campaigns were competing for and […]

Well lookie here: Seems a certain Emmy/Oscar/Nobel winner stands at 32 percent — just five points behind Hillary Clinton and well ahead of either Barack Obama or John Edwards — in the latest (h/t to MyDD) CBS/NYTimes national poll. If Obama or Edwards are smart, they would take a cold, hard look at their campaigns […]

Don’t look now, but the Senate Democrats got enough Republican votes yesterday to overturn a filibuster on a critically important social issue. Eleven GOPniks joined the Democrats in favor of ending the filibuster against the DREAM Act — the bill that enables undocumented-immigrant young persons to stay in the U.S. and eventually win citizenship if […]

If you’re outside the womb, forget the support of the National Right to Life Committee. The group won’t lend its support to the S-CHIP bill. Initially, they wouldn’t sign on to the legislation because it included coverage for pregnant women, not for fetuses specifically. (As if fetuses exist separately from pregnant women…) But with that […]

I’d been dying to know! Good thing he explained: 1. Anti-choice politicians are more trustworthy because they probably also like cutting taxes. Part of my reasoning is politically pragmatic. Grover Norquist, the right-wing activist, once told my National Review colleague, David Freddoso, in an interview that anyone who can go to black-tie dinners and face […]

One is (almost) tempted to express grudging respect for the way in which this Administration can turn any news into a validation of, or call for, their prescribed policies. During the 2000 election, George W. Bush told us tax cuts were necessary because of the surplus; afterwards, they were the only solution to the recession. […]