Garance Franke-Ruta

ST. LOUIS — The clearest sign that things didn’t go well for the Bush camp in the town hall debate here in overcast Missouri came in the campaign’s flood of post-debate round-ups. Starting last night and continuing throughout today, the “What They’re Saying” missives tried to gin up an increasingly creaky right-wing noise machine but […]

Presumably safe territory is turning into some of the trickiest ground for the candidates to make a stand on in this year’s presidential contest. Following quickly on the heels of John Kerry’s decisive defeat of George W. Bush in their debate on foreign-policy and national-security issues, where Bush was expected to be at his strongest, […]

CORAL GABLES, Florida — After months of being forced to defend himself on unfriendly political terrain, John Kerry last night placed a remarkably petulant George W. Bush on the defensive during their first debate. While both men trotted out many of their favorite lines from their stump speeches, a calm, serious Kerry added new and […]

Unless you spent the summer orbiting with the Genesis space capsule, you know that John Kerry had a lousy August and a brutal early September. Thanks to the attacks of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and the masterfully orchestrated Republican national convention — aided and abetted by the right-wing media’s power to keep stories […]

By the middle of August 2004, President George W. Bush still had not settled on a coherent second-term domestic-policy agenda, and conservative policy mavens were starting to get nervous. They’d heard the renewed talk about providing uninsured, low-income workers with tax credits to buy health insurance, part of the “ownership society” agenda Bush announced August […]

The United for Peace and Justice march in New York yesterday, the largest of the protests planned for the week of the Republican national convention, was nothing if not a forum for creativity. From signs reading “George W. Bush: Worse than Rod Stewart” to an inflatable pink “corporate” pig floating over Seventh Avenue (looking more […]

Sometimes it’s hard to remember how many orange alerts there have been. Washington, D.C., in particular seems to go up and down in alert level with all the rapidity and drama of a rapid-cycling manic-depressive. One week we’re the defensive and hostile center of the universe, ringed with anti-aircraft missiles and full of cement bulwarks, […]

As anyone who knows me knows, I have, since 9-11, taken the threat of terrorism seriously. Perhaps too seriously, even, making me the object of some amusement among my more cynical — or less nervous — friends. And I’m certainly willing to poke fun at the situation myself, as I did in this 2003 piece, […]

Wednesday night was John Edwards’ big night. But it was not his best one. After Edwards’ speech, I ran into one of his aides, who reminded me that the first rule of speechwriting is, “First, do no harm.” And by that standard, the text Edwards worked with was a rousing success — moving, direct, colloquial, […]