Rick Perry's new video is a fantastic example of the Republican capacity to obfuscate the truth and win supporters in spite of flagrantly lying to them. They're able to get away with whopper lies so massive, they're almost hilariously off the rails.
What happened to the idea that running for President required enormous lead time to build the kind of name recognition necessary to dominate the evening news?
Good politicians, and good presidents, don't choose between getting reelected and doing a good job. If Obama had managed to substantially reduce unemployment, for example, it would have helped his reelection chances while obviously being good for the country, as well.
The president is finally challenging Republicans on taxes, backing them into a corner of their own ideological Tea Party extremism.
"It's warfare," Poppa announced, his tired eyes scanning the faces of his beloved family. "And it's the worst kind of warfare," Poppa continued. "Class warfare."
Is President Obama in trouble? Absolutely. Does his party have legitimate reason to voice a level of discontent Surely. But repeating the "Ted Kennedy" mistakes of 1979 only ensures that either Rick Perry or Mitt Romney waltzes into the Oval Office in a landslide.
Imagine a guy who knows little about current events and politics. If he were to scan "the news"—web, print, TV—he'd be utterly convinced t...
If Americans were told to choose between two cars, shirts, colors or family sizes, we'd rise up in revolt. Tell us we have only two parties, however, and we accept it as though any alternative is unimaginable.
Politicians who continue to believe they can trope-a-dope the public into seeing them as thoughtful, competent or populist by invoking a vapid, empty phrase need to join the real conversation.
It is one thing to play Monday morning quarterback, quite another to proactively find solutions to our many problems, and articulate them clearly and simply, so we can take the next step of motivating a majority of people to want to put these ideas into action.
We don't know yet what the overarching theme of President Obama's reelection campaign will be, but the word "change" is likely to once again play at least a co-starring role. But this time it's different. We've now seen the ways in which the president went about trying to effect that change over the last three years. So while his ideas about the changes the system needs in his second term are welcome and necessary, there is another kind of change he needs to talk about if the change he proposes is to be believed. He needs to make clear the changes he intends to make in himself, in the way he governs, and in the way he approaches the big, systemic changes he claims to want to see. In order for voters to believe that things will be different in the president's second term, there has to be some recognition of what didn't work in the first.
Obama should be working as a president, not a candidate. He should be claiming the vital center, not abandoning it. And most of all, he should be bringing the country together rather than dividing it through class warfare.
Seizing upon a reliable "job creation" talking point, conservatives have stoked their war against "big government" by trying to freeze federal actions to protect the public.
So I think it's worth asking: how does one lead a political campaign, especially against another outspoken Christian, in a God-honoring way?
Rick Perry's "executive leadership" boils down to this: when he sees something he likes better, he visibly drops what he's already committed to.
Michele Bachmann takes stands impulsively when they fit her predetermined ideology, pushes forward aggressively and single-mindedly to expand the intellectual argument, but she becomes so wedded to her position that reality no longer matters.