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Brandy was crawling on the floor near her mother’s feet, dressed in her new denim jumper with tightly braided pigtails framing her dimpled face. Her smile hid any sign that in her nine months, Brandy has already been to jail, to a methadone clinic, and shuttled between three homes. Brandy was just four months old […]

Cecile Johnston and her husband Kevin Diffily have just filed for bankruptcy. Their mistake? They had a new baby, and Johnston took 12 weeks off to care for her, as is provided by the federal Family and Medical Leave Act. “I was working at part-time jobs for two agencies,” explains Johnston, who is a community […]

November 8: Gleeful Goreites and Bummed Bushies November 10: Sunbathing and Complaining November 13: Fifteen Minutes of Di-dom November 14: Guarding the Ballots November 16: The Press Horde Has My Number November 17: And Visions of eBay Danced in Their Heads November 21: Dimples Outvoted November 26: G.O.P. Stalling […]

What would a real stock market meltdown do to the economy and, not incidentally, to the presidential campaign? The market has long been poised for a correction. Internet stock expectations were outlandish. Even the broader market has been experiencing inflated ratios of stock prices to company earnings not seen since 1929. All it took for […]

August 10, 2000 — Getting Their Money’s Worth : On August 3rd the Hotline reported the results of a new poll that showed that a clear majority of the public (65 percent) believes that the government’s antitrust case against Microsoft is “politically motivated by competitors” and that roughly twice as many […]

The U.S. Supreme Court did not allow cameras in the courtroom, but they were definitely allowed outside. So as the lawyers wrangled inside, protesters staged made-for-TV-protests outside. For the first time in at least a week, this morning’s mob outside the Supreme Court roughly resembled the mob vote on Election Day — it was equally […]

November 9, 2000, 11:15 a.m. The next president should not arrive at the White House under the suspicion that his claim to office is illegitimate. Even without knowing the final recount in Florida, we do know that more than enough ballots to change the outcome were thrown out in Palm Beach County because of a […]

A close election, goes the old cliché, proves that every vote counts. Election 2000 proved just the opposite: When the election is close and every vote counts, or is supposed to, that’s when the voter is the least powerful. Come to find out, even the most fundamental particle of democracy is loaded with opportunities for […]

Wendy Kaminer Choice: Senator Bob Kerrey, Senator John Kerry, Senator Tom Daschle, or Senator John Edwards Present a group of lawyers with a political question and they will approach it strategically, focusing on finding the most feasible, acceptable answer, a professional facilitator once told me. Present a group of […]

It’s been a long, exhausting week. If you’re like us, you may be having feverish nightmares about counting ballots and flashing electoral maps. And you wake up confused about the intricacies of Florida election law and the ramifications of “pregnant chads.” You keep listening to press conferences with Governor Bush’s many lackeys, and it seems […]