You are browsing the archives of 2009 November.

[This op ed first appeared in the national blog race42012]
There are many aspects of the U.S. presidential campaigns which
could be importantly improved. In the last cycle of 2008, I joined with
former Speaker Newt Gingrich and others in an appeal to reform the
presidential debates. Although [...]

Between now and February, 2010 will be a critical practical time
for the 2010 elections. Although most challengers to incumbents in both
parties are already known, and in many cases, there are more than one
candidate for a party nomination, there are numerous potentially close
races where a serious challenger has not yet [...]

Sarah Palin is a rare object in the political firmament these days,
and no matter how you feel about her, she is luminous, provocative and
fascinating.
Whether she will run for president, much less win the presidency if she
does, is a separate discussion. It is also undecided whether [...]

Former Governor and first Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge
was in Minnesota recently, and I hosted a small event in Minneapolis to
celebrate his new book “The Test of Our Times.” This book is his account
of how the new cabinet post was set up after September 11, his
assessment of homeland [...]

Where I live, in the north midwest, we have been enjoying an
extended period of so-called Indian Summer, a late-autumn interval
that occurs most (but not all) years just before winter arrives with its
full force of cold and snow. In these parts, winters are frequently
bitter, and the weather forecasters are predicting a [...]

There is a great deal of political re-calculation going on across the
country in the wake of the limited number of notable elections in 2009,
and from the so far incremental shifting of public opinion following the
hard-ball strategy of congressional Democrats to push through
seemingly very unpopular health care legislation. One cannot fault [...]

I thought it was obvious that November, 2009 is much too early
to make pronouncements on the 2012 presidential race. But you would
not know that from many commentaries in both the old and new media,
in print and on blogs. Now that does not mean that journalists should not
write about candidates, announced [...]

The “deal” in Honduras between the interim government and the
forces of former President Zelaya has collapsed, according to news
reports. I’m not surprised. Mr. Zelaya, who violated the Honduran
constitution by scheduling a plebiscite to enable him to stay in power
beyond the legally-set one term (and thus forfeited his office, according
to the [...]

We all know that the Democratic candidate received the most votes
in last Tuesday’s elections in the special election in New York’s 23rd
congressional election. By now, most folks have read at least ten
or more different opinions about what the results mean in that very
contentious and sensationalistic race. The liberal Republican candidate,
increasingly facing a conservative insurrection, trailed [...]

I promised an analysis tonight, and the results from the two
biggest races are in. The Republicans won two governorships that
had been held by Democrats. The conventional wisdom now probably
will be that it was a big win for the Republican Party. I don’t think,
however, there were enough races to draw that conclusion. [...]