Garance Franke-Ruta

A pointed exchange between Obama and Clinton on the topic of Social Security leads to the second instance this evening of the audience booing or ooing one of Clinton’s competitors for being critical of her. Obama makes the point that raising the payroll tax cap above the $97,000 mark is not going to be a […]

During the “yes or no” question on support for driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants, Obama stumbles further, giving a “Clintonesque” answer before saying, when pressed, “yes.” The rest of the responses: Biden – no; Clinton – no; Edwards – no; Dodd – no. Dennis Kucinich has the best answer, telling Blitzer: “I take issue with […]

“The will be no loud bells,” CNN debate moderator Wolf Blitzer said, introducing the set-up. “No flashing lights.” No flashing lights, that is, except the twinkling of Hillary Clinton‘s eye. Clinton is back in business, and she’s feeling fine. “This pantsuit is asbestos tonight,” she joked, replendent in a trendy grey jacket and black shirt. […]

It’s all happening on The Strip: Can Clinton “turn up the heat” on her rivals or is she going to pull a John Kerry and wait too long to respond? This whole “above the fray thing” may look like good strategy when the opponent is Jonathan Tasini, but Barack Obama seems to have realized he’s […]

The Trail has the scoop that the person Newsweek has selected to balance out Markos Moulitsas as a campaign 2008 commenter is….Karl Rove. Yowza. If those two ever wind up in the same editorial meeting, I hope Newsweek will film it and play it for us online. People would pay to see that. –Garance Franke-Ruta

LifeNews.com — the A.P. of the pro-life movement — is reporting that the head of a major crisis pregnancy center advocacy group is trying to mitigate the weight of the National Right to Life Committee’s endorsement of Fred Thompson by coming out in favor of Mike Huckabee: One day after National Right to Life endorsed […]

This may paint me as a bit of a geek to say, but I thought the most interesting part of Ryan Lizza‘s latest New Yorker opus on Barack Obama, the candidate that Lizza did more than any other writer to push into the 2008 race, was on the Obama campaign’s use of microtargeting data: If […]

Someone must have declared Wednesday web video day: Hillary says “caucusing is easy”; an Israeli humor site animates the race; and a little boy in Kenya is inspired by the name Obama to dream about a bigger future. That last one in particular is worth a watch, because it shows just how much power American […]

Does anyone else remember back when Eliot Spitzer could do no wrong and was being hailed as the most likely candidate for first Jewish president? It seems like a very long time ago. CNN is reporting that Spitzer, who was in DC meeting with the New York delegation, will announce plans to withdraw his controversial […]

Special all Clinton round: Former Bush-Cheney ’04 webmaster and RNC e-Campaign Director Patrick Ruffini starts a Facebook group “Official Petition Against Hillary Clinton “They Look Like Facebook” Insult,” responding to Mark Penn‘s assertion that Barack Obama‘s supporters “look like Facebook.” Mike Turk, former e-Campaign Director for Bush-Cheney ’04 and a friend of Ruffini’s, posts the […]