Running Mates and the New Electoral Map →

The campaigns have an unusual opportunity to define the playing field on which they will play because there are a higher number of potential battleground states, spread over more parts of the country than in recent elections. For example, a campaign between an Obama-Strickland ticket and a McCain-Jindal ticket would be decided in the rust belt, but an Obama-Kaine ticket against a McCain-Whitman ticket might make the Republicans competitive in important parts of the Northeast which had previously been Democratic strongholds while making the Democrats competitive in southeastern states that were never in doubt for George W. Bush in his last two elections. An Obama-Salazar ticket would give the Democrats a chance to make real gains in the west.

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Reforming the Nominating System: Maybe There is No Better Way →

In 2008, Hillary Clinton tested the assumptions behind the primary system, refusing to give up, thus prolonging a process long beyond the point when Barack Obama had amassed a prohibitive lead in pledged delegates. Depending on your views, this can be attributed to her perseverance and commitment or to her ambition and selfishness, but in either case she was the first candidate to do this since the McGovern-Fraser reforms created the modern nominating system.

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A Different Look at Hillary Clinton's Campaign →

The notion that Hillary Clinton ran a terrible campaign in 2008 has become accepted wisdom among the punditry and in the blogosphere. Criticizing her campaign for not having a post-Super Tuesday strategy, losing key Democratic constituencies, raising expectations in key states and all her other campaign shortfalls, is an appealing narrative to many people including supporters of both Clinton and Barack Obama, but it is driven as much by tautology, Clinton lost therefore she ran a bad campaign, as by thoughtful analysis.

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Whose Dream? Whose Ticket? →

Obama-Clinton may not be a dream ticket for everyone, but it would certainly be exciting and historic. However, before we get too focused on the excitement and history, two very conventional questions need to be addressed. First, will Clinton's presence on the ticket add more value than that of any other candidate and second, will an Obama presidency be strengthened by having Clinton as vice president. However, Hillary Clinton would not be just any vice-presidential nominee, so there are other issues to be considered as well.

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Should She Stay or Should She Go? →

Hillary Clinton is at the point where staying in the race for the Democratic nomination for president will yield increasingly small and unlikely returns, and potentially be very damaging to her. After Obama and Clinton split Oregon and Kentucky on Tuesday, Hillary Clinton finds herself confronting the usual question of whether or not she should continue in the race, and if she does, how strongly she should criticize her primary opponent, Barack Obama. This is the question which has been facing Hillary Clinton for at least a month now. There seems to be a belief among many pundits and commentators that Senator Clinton has much gain and little to lose by staying in the race and continuing to do what she is doing, but it is worth investigating this notion more closely.

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1964 →

Accepting this different road to 270 electoral votes will be difficult for many in the Democratic Party who have spent decades searching for the silver bullet that would bring white blue collar workers home to the Democrats. Unwillingness to accept this was at the heart of Hillary Clinton's electability narrative. Her narrative, that she was uniquely positioned to bring Reagan Democrats back home in November was prima facie absurd, but got an enormous amount of traction and was largely unchallenged in the media or, frankly, by the Obama campaign. The reality was that Clinton remained unpopular with this group, with 55% of white voters who had not completed college viewing her unfavorably in an April, 2008 AP poll.

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Wall Street's Credibility Problem →

Monday saw a very interesting and telling moment as the newest iteration of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's banking recovery was met on Wall Street by a jump in the Dow Jones of almost 500 points, a gain of fully seven percent. The big gains on Wall Street occurred amidst several days of bad press and attacks on the banking recovery plan, the AIG bonuses and Secretary Geithner in general from across the political and media spectrum. Progressive economists such as Paul Krugman attacked the plan as being insufficient and essentially the same as the original Bush/Paulson "cash for trash" plan, while conservative Congressman Eric Cantor (R-VA) referred to Geithner's plan as a "shell game.

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Why AIG and Jim Cramer Matter →

In the last months, because of the economic crisis a number of stories about the nature of American business have been brought to the attention of many Americans. These anecdotes include not only banks using bailout money for spas, travel and redecorating, CEOs of automobile companies flying on private jets to come to the Washington to ask for bailout money, and the current story of the AIG paying bonuses to top executives while being bailed out by the US government, but also stranger stories such as the ongoing silliness, to be generous, of business journalism and the bizarre television feud between Jim Cramer and Jon Stewart.

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Managing Expectation and Understanding the Financial Crisis →

The expectations calculation is not so simple for Obama because the tone coming from the White House is viewed as having an effect on the country's economic performance. So, if the economy only improves slightly in the next 18-20 months, during a period when Obama carefully reduces expectations for a recovery, many will undoubtedly blame the tepid recovery on the failure of Obama to instill confidence in markets or consumers, leading to reduced support for Obama which will make it increasingly difficult for the administration to pass additional legislation. If Obama becomes a cheerleader for the economy, there is a chance that this will have some short term impact on confidence of investors and consumers and begin a short term economic recovery, but it will also have the added effect of raising expectations to a level which the recovery will almost certainly not meet. So, from a partisan strategic angle, it is not clear what the best course for the president should be.

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Beacon of Democracy or Khachapuri Republic

Immediately after the crackdown on November 7, 2007, the Western media, in addition to the inevitable puns about roses, thorns and withering, offered two different narratives. The first, perhaps best seen in Anne Applebaum's piece in The Washington Post, was that democracy had failed in Georgia partially because of wrongheaded U.S. policies. The second was that this was a mistake, but otherwise things were going well in Georgia and if the January 5 elections went well, democracy in Georgia would be back on track. Interestingly, this latter narrative seems to be in the ascendancy and seems to reflect US policy. The truth lies somewhere in between and is worth thinking about.

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