Mori Dinauer

Another Powers Boothe-narrated McCain ad promises “big ideas for serious problems.” Of course, the ad doesn’t actually discuss any of these “big ideas,” unless “taxes: simpler. fairer.” is a big idea. Or perhaps “energy: cleaner. cheaper.” What’s next? “war: longer. safer.” or “puppies: cuter. cuddlier.” or maybe “McCain: older. grouchier.” And speaking of Mr. Boothe, […]

According to this Reuters/Zogby poll, John McCain is seen as a better steward of the economy than either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton by 3 and 5 points, respectively. That’s just bizarre. When did it stop being conventional wisdom that Democrats are stronger on the economy than Republicans, particularly when we’re in a quasi-recession with […]

Richard Florida notes in the WSJ that the driving force of our future economy will be the consolidation of “mega-region” economic units — connected urban metropolises (Judis and Teixeira called them “ideopolises” in 2002). Coincidentally, the electoral tracking site fivethirtyeight.com has settled on an eerily similar regional map of the United States for its own […]

According to this Pew report produced earlier this year, it’s no religion at all. Of those surveyed 7.3 percent described being born “unaffiliated.” That figure is now 16.1 percent — an increase of nearly 9 points. By comparison, protestants and Catholics (all denominations) lost 2.6 and 7.5 points respectively, although they still make up three […]

Last week I noted a ranking of U.S. Senators based on the aggregate of their voting scores according to seven liberal interest groups. The above chart uses the rankings of eight conservative groups to produce comparative results. As you can see, both Clinton and Obama are virtually indistinguishable on policy matters, but both rank, respectively, […]

Late Friday at a fundraiser in San Francisco, Barack Obama made the following comments that dominated the political world over the weekend: You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. […]

In addition to the precipitous 16-point “are you better off?” decline since the roaring 90s, the most striking thing about this Pew survey of middle-class Americans is that the middle class good life hasn’t changed — it’s still home ownership in a safe neighborhood, gainful employment, saving for your children’s education, etc. — it just […]

Daniel Larison makes a fair point regarding the relative treatment of Obama and McCain‘s respective campaign advertising: How is it that when Obama says equally vapid things like “we are not as divided as our politics suggests,” he is praised as a demigod and his words become the lyrics to a treacly, saccharine anthem for […]

This weeks’s Petraeus/Crocker hearings on Capitol Hill dominated news coverage. In addition to the tireless coverage of our own Dana Goldstein, the following blog commentary is recommended: Regarding long-term military occupation, Juan Cole makes an analogy to Lebanon. Bill Scher asks whether Petraeus and Crocker inadvertently made the case for Iranian diplomacy. Turkana at the […]

Mr. Super has posted a memo from Florida DNC Member Jon Ausman that addresses the latest DNC proposal for seating Florida’s delegates. The essentials: The staff of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) have completed and submitted their review of the two appeals seeking to have 23 superdelegates and 92 pledged delegates award to Florida . […]