Thomas Schaller

Piggybacking on Addie’s very serious and trenchant observation below about the infusion of race into the Democratic primary, why not cut through the tension a bit with this fun little video entitled “Don’t Think of a Black Man.” (Hat tip to Max Sawicky for alerting us to it.) –Tom Schaller

Hillary Clinton’s campaign continues to dominate the storylines since their March 4 victories in Ohio, Rhode Island and (sort of) Texas. First there was the “Clinton-Obama ticket” meme, followed quickly by the “Ferraro Flap.” These narratives drowned out some of Barack Obama’s positive, back-on-the-winning-track storylines from Wyoming and Mississippi. Now there’s The Great General Election […]

Listening to the Listening to the Barack Obama campaign media call right now. Herewith a quick transcript of some of the opening comments: Before she had to dash off to cast a floor vote, Illinois congresswoman and Obama supporter Jan Schakowsky who, if not obvious, is a woman, offered a few comments about former Congresswoman […]

Here’s a challenge for TAPPED readers: Determining which of the Sen. Hillary Clinton’s campaign claims thus far is the most internally inconsistent. Only in Hillaryland can the following assertions be made with a straight face, but I’m having trouble figuring out which is the most absurdly illogical. So I’ve decided to put them to you […]

In the past 18 months since my book was published, I feel like I have had to repeat nearly a thousand times that the “problem” of blacks not turning out to vote in the South–a “fact” that an Obama candidacy (at the top or the bottom of the ticket) would purportedly remedy–is not a fact […]

So we know a sitting U.S. senator will become the 44th president, something that the So we know a sitting U.S. senator will become the 44th president, something that the L.A. Times notes is rare and hasn’t happened since John F. Kennedy won almost a half-century ago. The real question, then, is how much their […]

I’m sitting outside a Starbucks on Olaya Street in downtown Riyadh with two major young Saudi bloggers, Ahmed Al-Omran and Saeed Ajaber, both of whom blog about political and social reform in the Kingdom. Ahmed has made international news, including appearances on CNN and other television segments, for using blog to advocate for the release […]

OK, I’m going to take a stab at making the case that OK, I’m going to take a stab at making the case that John McCain will defy the whole “stay out the Bushes” conventional wisdom and pick Jeb Bush over frontrunning option Mike Huckabee as the vice presidential nominee. My argument leads from the […]

More nuggets from the More nuggets from the Clinton camp’s media call, which is just finishing up: Ace Smith, when asked about polls in Texas tightening: “I don’t think there’s any movement. What’s meaningful is what you see on the ground here. We don’t lose any sleep about the polls.” On TX, Mark Penn added: […]

I’m listening in to the noon Clinton campaign call with chief strategist I’m listening in to the noon Clinton campaign call with chief strategist Mark Penn, communications director Howard Wolfson, OH state director Robby Mook, and TX state director Ace Smith (great name!). The general theme was to try to focus intently on what’s to […]