Jamelle Bouie

If you haven’t already, you should read Robert Barnes‘ fascinating Washington Post piece on how Louisville, Kentucky, is working to keep its schools integrated, while complying with a 2007 Supreme Court that struck down race-based measures for diversity: The final product, which integrates schools based on socioeconomic factors rather than on race alone, has proven […]

(Source) Ezra Klein bemoans the slow creep of “moral language” into our debate over tax cuts: The effort to separate support for popular middle-class tax cuts from unpopular upper-class tax cuts has let a sort of moral language creep into the conversation. As if rich people “deserve” higher taxes because they’re somehow bad, rather than […]

At the American Scene, David Sessions captures exactly why it’s no surprise that Rep. Mike Pence won the Values Voter presidential straw poll: The speech itself was the most hard-line stump speech I’ve heard a conservative candidate give perhaps ever, though not in the John Boehner, podium-pounding “Hell No You Can’t“ mode. It wasn’t angry […]

Last week, at a fundraiser for supporters of the Connecticut Democratic Party, President Obama made a few jokes at the expense of liberal activists: OBAMA: Democrats, just congenitally, tend to get — to see the glass as half empty. (Laughter.) If we get an historic health care bill passed — oh, well, the public option […]

The Tea Party movement has long stressed its commitment to fiscal issues over social ones, but speakers at the 2010 Values Voter Summit — while tying themselves to the Tea Party — have tried to reduce the distance between social and economic conservatives. Citing recent poverty statistics, Mike Huckabee argued that “economic crisis is not […]

I’m at the Values Voter Summit, and while waiting for the next speaker I — along with most of the attendees — spent a few minutes watching a longer version of this Heritage Foundation video celebrating the Constitution: The video is what you would expect — sweeping music, interviews with ordinary people, and regular references […]

“Moderates? I don’t need no stinkin’ moderates*,” says South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, chairman of the NRSC: “They told me we couldn’t win in Pennsylvania with a conservative – Pat Toomey is ahead. They said we couldn’t win in Florida with a conservative – Marco Rubio is ahead. They said Rand Paul couldn’t be competitive […]

Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman has spent immense sums in her bid to succeed Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor of California, but as Colorlines’ Jamilah King reports, it hasn’t done her much good in the polls: Whitman also shouldn’t underestimate voters. Despite her massive campaign budget, she’s remained relatively tied with Brown in recent polls. On […]

Daniel Larison, who has an excellent record of predicting election outcomes, isn’t convinced that Republicans will win the House in November: Based on CQPolitics’ rankings, available funding and recent polling, I count 25 Democratic House seats that will most likely change hands, 4 Republican House seats (including HI-01) that will become Democratic seats in November, […]

I don’t know what the Associated Press has against counting higher numbers, but this is a very annoying headline: “Nearly Half Oppose Tax Hikes for Rich.” Here’s how the article opens: Almost half the country opposes tax increases for the richest Americans, according to a poll suggesting that congressional Democrats are taking some risk by […]