Dana Goldstein

Bear with me, readers, as I filter the Iowa caucuses through a first timer’s eyes this week. I arrived today after a stopover in Detroit, only two hours delayed. From the plane, I looked down at the barren, snow-blanketed corn fields — beautiful in their bleakness — and the farmhouses a mile or two apart […]

Slate has a piece on how the expansion of Starbucks can actually benefit mom and pop coffee shops — by whetting more consumers’ tastes for overpriced beverages and pleasant semi-public hanging out spaces. In Omaha, for example, sales increased by 25 percent at independent coffee shops when Starbucks began to open branches in the city. […]

I knew it was bad news for the Obama campaign when I called my dad this morning to thank him for some holiday gifts, and he interrupted me to say “Hey, did you hear what Obama’s chief strategist said about Hillary Clinton? He said she was responsible for Benazir Bhutto‘s death! I really didn’t like […]

Dear Andrew Sullivan and Glenn Greenwald, I don’t have a problem when people with whom I sometimes agree laud Ron Paul‘s original opposition to the Iraq War (a position he shares with Barack Obama, of course) or his long-running stance against American imperialism (Dennis Kucinich, too, has been there, done that). What does disturb me, […]

Today seems to be the day of Obama in the Center. The Obama campaign put Virgina’s Democratic governor, Tim Kaine, on the phone with reporters this afternoon to learn about the candidate’s appeal to moderate and Republican voters. “Virginia is a tough, tough state,” Kaine said, but Obama appeals to the same “slice of the […]

We know that while in the Illinois State Senate, Barack Obama voted a noncommittal “present” seven times on bills that would have limited women’s access to abortion. A New York Times article today — gleefully cited by the Clinton campaign in a morning press release — cites a total of 130 times Obama voted “present” […]

I want to put into conversation two fascinating new pieces of journalism: First, Matt Bai‘s New York Times Magazine piece on how the legacy of Clintonism is playing out in the Democratic primary, and second, a TPM Election Central interview with Paul Krugman about his evolving feud with the Obama campaign, which he accuses of […]

As the days pass, there seems to be no end game to the Writers Guild of America strike against the movie and TV studios. But no matter what else is or isn’t accomplished, here’s a potential major victory: If the strike continues, the writers are planning to boycott the Oscars and Golden Globes later this […]

Yesterday, Andrew Sullivan endorsed Ron Paul from among the Republican candidates. It is Sullivan’s business if he wants to muddle things up by issuing two endorsements (his heart obviously belongs to Barack Obama), but his tribute to Paul lionizes the Texas congressman as a classic “live-and-let-live” libertarian without ever mentioning the deep contradiction in his […]

Moving along from the Moving along from the Huckaspawn to the Huckaspouse, check out Janet Huckabee‘s MySpace page. Her favorite movies are “Men of Honor,” “Remember the Titans,” and one I’ve never heard of — “Rudy.” Seriously. It’s not about a controversy-baiting big city mayor, but rather, a short kid who wants to play for […]