Mark Schmitt

Not from Iraq, sad to say. But from the public financing system for his presidential campaign. Not from Iraq, sad to say. But from the public financing system for his presidential campaign. Last week I noted a Politico story contending that for McCain “it could be tougher getting out than it was getting in” to […]

We had a great session at the New America Foundation yesterday, featuring the economic advisors to all the presidential candidates, or, I should say, economic advisors to all the Democrats plus John McCain. (Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee were supposed to send people, but didn’t.) My main impression from the event was that everything has […]

Addie Stan‘s question about Senator Clinton, “whether she possesses an ‘Inner Bella [Abzug]’?” reminds me of a point I was going to make as an addendum to Holly Yeager‘s excellent column last week about the absence of a “bench” of women ready to run for president. The point being that for some number of women, […]

When I say something like, “the Republicans (or conservatives) have been the party of ideas in recent years,” which I probably have said, what I mean by it is not that they have good ideas, or new ideas, but that since about 1978 or so, and especially under When I say something like, “the Republicans […]

You may have read that John Yoo had an op-ed in yesterday’s Philadelphia Inquirer about the lawsuit brought against him on behalf of Jose Padilla. I read it expecting a restatement of Yoo’s familiar and long-discredited defense of executive power in a time of terror blah blah. But there’s more than that: The magnitude of […]

David Brooks today, in a Times blog, drew a distinction that makes the basic econ/social conservative split in the GOP even more tortured: In Michigan, the full corporate Mitt was on display. His campaign was a reminder of how far corporate Republicans are from free market Republicans. He proposed $20 billion in new federal spending […]

I know a lot of folks can’t stand Chris Matthews (and with good reason), but there was a great moment after the debate, when he promised a segment with “the three top strategists from the campaigns.” Anticipating another Trippi/Axelrod/Penn bloodbath, I kept watching, but in place of Penn, the Clinton campaign sent out former Transportation […]

The defining moment, the real turning point, the key to the whole thing for The defining moment, the real turning point, the key to the whole thing for Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire was… – stop! I’m not going there. I have no idea what the “defining moment” or “turning point” was. And having spent […]

Dana‘s excellent reporting on the mailer and robocall wars between the Clinton and Obama campaigns over Obama’s “present” votes on some abortion questions in the Illinois state senate brought to mind a lesson in political tactics that I picked up during my five months on Bill Bradley‘s presidential campaign eight years ago. At about this […]

Barack Obama’s speech last night was not, to my ears, the greatest political oration since Henry V’s Crispin Day speech (as Harold put it) – in many respects, it was a comfortably familiar Democratic speech, and all the better for that. What was remarkable about it was how much political ground it was able to […]