”Politics ain’t beanbag” — Finley Peter Dunne One of the many oddities of this cliffhanger election is what might be called the entitlement gap. Right from election night, the Republicans have behaved as if the election was theirs, while Vice President Gore has temporized. This sense of Republican entitlement in turn translates into a partisan […]
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The “Firewall” Between Katherine Harris and Ethics
Katherine Harris, who was simultaneously Florida Secretary of State and co-chair of Bush campaign for Florida, insisted that she had erected a “firewall” between her official duties and her extra-curricular political ones. But it appears the firewall must have cracked. An exploration of hard drives from Harris’ office revealed explicitly political documents on the state-owned […]
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For Many Voters a Choice About Choice
Many viewers were startled to hear George W. Bush and Dick Cheney sound kinder and gentler on the hot-button issue of abortion rights. In the first TV debate Bush seemed to declare that he would not try to overturn the FDA’s decision approving the abortion drug RU-486, that he wouldn’t make reversing Roe v. Wade […]
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Reckless Predictions
You had no reason to notice it, but The American Prospect was totally Y2K-free this past year. We didn’t run a single article about the disasters that were supposedly going to befall the world after the clock struck midnight on New Year’s Eve. We also didn’t run any articles giddily anticipating all the wonders that […]
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Cheney-Lieberman Chronicles
October 6, 2000 — Cheney-Lieberman Thursday night’s set-to between vice presidential candidates Joe Lieberman and Dick Cheney turned out to be the set-to that wasn’t. By tradition, the veep debates are the ones where the fur really flies. But this one was remarkably civil. Yes, Dick Cheney has a habit of talking into his […]
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The Lynching of The Black Vote
Many books will be written about the stolen presidential election of 2000. And when they are, one prominent factor will be the Republicans systematic and extra-legal effort to reduce black voting, details of which are just now being pieced together. Black turnout was way up this year, and nowhere more dramatically than in Florida. Black […]
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Supreme Court Dispatch:
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 […]
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The Two-Party System is Letting us Down
This year voting turnout could fall to a record presidential low. The decline partly reflects two dreadful candidates but also the long-term impoverishment of politics. Membership organizations have been displaced by professional fund-raisers and TV spots. The time squeeze leaves no leisure for ordinary people to go to meetings. Civic values are crowded out by […]
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The Turnout Imperative
Low voter participation favors conservatives. If liberals want to avoid a reprise of 1994 in 1998, they have to make turnout a top priority — and fortunately some are already hard at work.
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Trial Heat:
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 […]
