Thomas Schaller

Given Given Hillary Clinton’s consistent lead in Pennsylvania, I think that Barack Obama rolling up his blue collar sleeves and throwing some strikes and gutters with a few Average Joes in Altoona—as adeptly reported by The Baltimore Sun’s Paul West—is going to be too little, too late. Obama’s multi-stop, six-day bus tour may limit the […]

The Wall Street Journal reports that, in addition to Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, the entire North Carolina Democratic House delegation — crucial, given the approaching, May 6 primary in Tar Heel land–will come out publicly for Barack Obama. They are, of course, superdelegates all. For about a month now I have maintained that the only […]

The body of Keith Maupin, a 20-year-old Army sergeant from Ohio who was kidnapped in Iraq almost four years ago, has been found and identified. What a tragic loss. But at least the uncertainty of his poor family has ended. It’s hard to imagine a fate worse than losing a loved one in the war, […]

Is the Is the Al Gore escape clause scenario really a possibility? Joe Klein ponders the possibilities. So does Glenn Hurowitz. –Tom Schaller

Though I occasionally disagree with his conclusions — the notion that the states are Though I occasionally disagree with his conclusions — the notion that the states are not really that red or blue, when 29 of them were decided by 10 percent or more in the 2004 presidential race, and the share of counties […]

Because the Because the New York Times failed to nail the personal angle of the John McCain-Vicki Iseman scandal, McCain’s relationship with the lobbyist will probably recede forever from view. Nobody in the media wants to touch it. Well, not nobody. The Atlantic’s Josh Green explains why it’s not about the alleged interpersonal relationship, but […]

Speaking of Obama and the Wright controversy, the New Yorker’s George Packer has a great commentary out this week, which concludes thusly: Obama is staking his campaign on the very point he tried to make to Reverend Wright two decades ago: that the dreams and interests of hard-pressed Americans are more important than matters of […]

Over at Over at Talking Points, Josh Marshall raises the interesting question of why Hillary Clinton is sitting down at editorial board meetings with none other than Richard Mellon Scaife, and wonders why she would have us believe she was in any way surprised by a question about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy during such […]

I’m going to take a stab at starting a periodic new TAPPED feature called “This Should Make You Nervous.” Herewith, and with no great fanfare, is the inaugural edition, on the theme of presidential candidate electability: If you’re Barack Obama, this should make you nervous. If you’re Hillary Clinton, this should make you nervous. And […]

Over at the Over at the Carpetbagger, Steve Benen has a nice little takedown of John McCain’s tax position and fiscal solvency. The Arizona senator supports continuing George W. Bush’s tax cuts, which would cost the Treasury about $400 billion, or somewhere between 10 and 12 times as much as if McCain, Lord Supreme of […]