Sam Boyd

So I’m back from a nice relaxing vacation in Death Valley (at least relaxing compared with writing about the primaries) and it seems that political reporters have gotten so sick of all the various surges and slumps and polls that they’ve decided to just ignore them unless something dramatic happens (maybe they agree with Steve […]

Many of us have been saying Rudy Giuliani‘s “29-inning” strategy was about seven kinds of wacky for a long time now, but Rudy himself finally seems to agree with us a bit as his poll numbers continue to sink and he loses his national poll lead. His campaign is sending him on more trips to […]

Most liberal blog-reading types agree that the Democratic field is much stronger than the Republican one. But it occurred to me as I lay in bed last night that we tend to underestimate just how much stronger. If all three of the top democrats dropped out of the race tomorrow after being caught tapping toes […]

The Hillary Clinton campaign is apparently convinced that the big problem for her right now is that people can’t imagine playing a game of Yahtzee with her … or something. The need to “humanize” the candidate is the motivation behind her campaign stops with her mother and other “soft” campaign appeals. I for one, would […]

Wow, I’m out of touch for a few days and when I get back Obama is leading the polls in Iowa and possibly New Hampshire. I’m somewhat skeptical that the resurgence is due to the Clinton campaign’s attacks as Ezra says because it’s just too inside baseball. But could it just be that reporting on […]

Slate’s Emily Yoffe apparently noticed the other day that honor killings exist, even among Muslim immigrants in countries like Canada. But then she asks: Where is the outrage from the Muslim community, from feminists, over atrocities such as this? I went to the National Organization for Women Web site, and I would be thrilled if […]

The LA Times reports today that police in Lakeport California are investigating whether a recently released rapist was murdered by a neighbor who learned his identity from an online sex-offender registry: Although Oliver did not say he killed Dodele, he said that “any father in my position, with moral, home, family values, wouldn’t have done […]

It’s a relatively quiet Friday, but it seems Fred Thompson, at least, has awoken from his nap in his favorite rocking chair on the back porch long enough to launch a piece of negative direct mail against Mike Huckabee. Meanwhile, TNR’s Eve Fairbanks reinforces Jon Chait‘s point that Huckabee has a worrying tendency to adopt […]

The big news today is Mitt Romney‘s speech on religion (see Ezra and Sarah‘s coverage below, watch it, or read the transcript). Shorter version: “There are two things I hate in this world — religious intolerance and those damn atheists.” Conservatives seem to be dived on how effective the speech was. Just in case yesterday’s […]

Looks like the Huckamoon is over. Murray Waas dropped a bombshell about the Wayne Dumond affair on Huffington Post last night. Dumond was a convicted serial rapist who became a pet cause among certain conservative activists (including close friends of then-governor Huckabee) because one of his victims was a distant relative of Bill Clinton. Huckabee, […]