himwhynot

Jamelle Bouie says a willingness to spend money isn’t enough to seal the deal for would-be officeholders. For Americans used to rich candidates and expensive elections, this seems very strange. The reality, though, is that self-financed candidates have long struggled in their electoral bids. In 2006, of the 13 candidates who invested more than $1 […]

Kat Aaron and Mary Kane ask whether a new national database will give regulators the data they need to address the ongoing foreclosure crisis. In the absence of a government database, corporate providers serve as the main source for numbers on foreclosures. This information relies on sampling and is proprietary, expensive, and not standardized. The […]

Tim Fernholz talks to Simon Rosenberg, the president of a progressive think tank who sees signs that November won’t be so bad for Democrats after all. What is driving this change? Democrats had a much more powerful closing argument than the other side that they just simply hadn’t deployed. Obama is using an economic argument. […]

Adam Serwer says the GOP remains fixated on the alleged tyranny of a democratically elected president and Congress pursuing a publicly predetermined domestic agenda. James Madison wrote, “Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.” During our decade-long […]

Chris Mooney says cynically using science to stall policy is the research equivalent of filing frivolous legal motions. That’s a question sharply posed by a reading of The Polluters, a history of the American struggle for environmental protection before the triumphal 1970s, when Congress passed the Clean Air Act and many other landmark environmental laws. […]

Renee Feltz notes that critics of Arizona’s immigration-enforcement law have praised the federal government for stepping in, but racial profiling already happens under its watch. Stories like Angel Castro‘s are common. In March, Castro rode his bicycle past a police cruiser at a red light in Cobb County, Georgia, and was pulled over for “failure […]

Tim Fernholz says disillusioned progressives can help Democrats, and themselves, at the ballot box. Redistricting presents an opportunity to solve this problem directly: Drawing more competitive seats would allow Democrats to expand their majority not just in “safe” districts or Republican strongholds but in balanced seats. Look at voter registration by district: Dozens of Democrats […]

Jamelle Bouie says Democratic voters have never been that thrilled about voting in midterm elections, and there isn’t much the president can do to change that. True, there is a large enthusiasm gap between Democrats and Republicans. According to Gallup’s late September polling, only 28 percent of Democrats are enthusiastic about their party’s candidates in […]

Paul Waldman says in politics, truthfulness is a virtue — except where it matters most. The problem is that we have a rather unusual set of unspoken rules that we apply — or that the press applies on our behalf — to determine which lies matter and which don’t, which are so consequential — and […]

Adam Serwer on how the ACLU looks to science fiction to prepare for future threats to civil liberties. In the aftermath of September 11, when the government was expanding its surveillance powers and preparing for an invasion of Afghanistan, the ACLU began gaming out worst-case scenarios of civil-liberties violations. As James Madison once wrote, “No […]