Tim Fernholz

Contra Ezra, I think that if McCain chooses Joe Lieberman as his running mate it would be a disaster. McCain’s entire strategy in the last few months, the strategy that has succeeded in moving the polls for him, has been predicated on attacking Obama’s character and gathering in supporters on the right. Why would he […]

Apropos John Kerry’s magnificent speech last night (also see this great article on Kerry by Jason Zengerle), there is a real difference between candidate McCain and the McCain of the past, and nothing emphasizes it more than this interview with Time magazine: There’s a theme that recurs in your books and your speeches, both about […]

Ezra and Adam touch on some of the anxieties percolating on the left about the Obama campaign: They’re not attacking enough, the Clintons are too distracting, the GOP is going to spend the entire time going negative at the convention, and we’re seeing today that the press is really willing to let John McCain blatantly […]

A good friend points me toward former Republican Charles Barkley‘s convention interview, where the basketball star shows he’s ready for his long-rumored run for the Alabama governorship: CNN.com: What do you think the Democrats need to do here to win the White House? Barkley: I think they’ve got to just make sure to get those […]

There may be something going on in Denver, but the real action is found in D.C.’s policy shops. My two front teeth. All Latinos want of the next administration can be found in 58 breezy pages put out on Monday by the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda. Fingers crossed your favorite presidential candidate reads them, because […]

John Sides at The Monkey Cage has an interesting post on the different ways that political journalists and political scientists approach their respective crafts, taking both Matt Bai and Samantha Power to task. Journalists are much more free and easy with their categories and less focused on defining precisely the variables and arguments they make. […]

Like Dana, I find the “Civil War” storyline to be a stretch — on the whole, most Hillary Clinton supporters are getting on board with Obama. But when the McCain campaign starts using whole chunks of her ads and remarks from the primaries, it’s a reminder of just how brutal her attacks really were. Now […]

Like Matt and Ezra, I find this whole “Obama lacks substance” argument extremely dubious. A simple comparison of the two campaigns’ Web sites will show that Obama has provided more detail. And when Politico went out and did some easy reporting on the topic, it discovered that, sure enough, McCain’s policy proposals are light on […]

So Sarah and Pastor Dan have taken Jim Wallis to task for his rhetoric in support of policies that would “supply real support for the child and for the woman facing this question [of abortion] in terms of pre- and post-natal healthcare, in terms of income support, the kind of support like paternity leave, family […]

Some of the best in the business have already discussed the convergence between the withdrawal time line being negotiated by the Bush administration and Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki and the decline of the Sons of Iraq. Two observations: One, when will a reporter ask John McCain, who has called withdrawal surrender, if he thinks President […]