Garance Franke-Ruta

I’ve been busy elsewhere most of the day so will just outsource my first round of thoughts on this to Dan Balz, whose movement from straight political reporter to political analyst has been one of the most underheralded journalistic developments of the campaign cycle, and whose very fine piece you can read here, and Greg […]

Via Andrew Sullivan, Joe Klein praises Barack Obama for giving Iowa voters bad news about what they can expect their government to do for them: A few days before the debate, I spent a day with Obama in Iowa, and the most striking thing to me about the Senator’s performances was the scrupulous honesty of […]

A source inside the Hillary Clinton campaign says that they regularly watch ABC’s The View (I hear it’s one of those shows popular with the ladies). That being the case, Joy Behar must have made them very happy this afternoon. –Garance Franke-Ruta

I was IMing with a staffer for one of the non-Hillary Clinton campaigns who was annoyed by the way Clinton is talking about gender in the wake of Tuesday night’s debate, which featured Clinton as the lone woman facing six male competitors and two male questioners, when it occurred to me that there would be […]

The Democratic Party has had some issues, to put it mildy, this year when it comes to keeping control over its own voting schedule. Last night’s debate in Philadelphia showed that it’s having some trouble keeping control over its debates as well. It actually does a disservice to Democratic voters when a moderator like Tim […]

A friend e-mailed with an explanation of the convoluted Rocky reference Obama made during the debate’s opening moments. This led me to look it up on IMDB. The movie came out in 1976, which is about a decade before many of Obama’s young supporters were born. It seems an odd choice of reference for a […]

Mark my words: Chris Dodd‘s attack on Clinton for supporting “the privilege of a driver’s liscence” for illegal immigrants, even though she said that’s not, in fact, what she supports, is going to have legs. The issues of “privileges” for those who don’t deserve them is a repeated Republican line of attack against Democrats who […]

It’s not just a statue, it’s a whole Dennis Kucinich speech. –Garance Franke-Ruta

Clinton: “A family is the child’s first school.” Great quote for the lightning round. But I’ve noticed that she’s been a bit off her game during this, the final segment of the debate — not because she’s not articulate or clear, but because she’s stopped smiling and seems tired or maybe a little exhausted by […]

Edwards makes a nice — and original — point tying outsourcing of American jobs to the influx of poison Chinese toys. I haven’t heard that argument before. –Garance Franke-Ruta