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Archive: Oct 2008

Will African Americans Turn Out?

From the Associated Press: There have been predictions all year of a record black turnout for Obama. The first actual figures suggest that wasn’t just talk: In North Carolina, blacks…

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McCain Maintains Advantage In Poll Of Family Members: But Obama closing gap

The latest polls show Obama just ahead among rural swing-state voters and in Montana, and closing in ….. Arizona?…

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The Best of the ’08 Campaign II: Best local press coverage

A bit more than a year ago, my mother-in-law moved to a small town north of Anchorage that has been much in the news lately. Her immediate complaint was that…

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The Cost of Democracy

Gross National Product: Malta: $5.49 billion Madagascar: $5.37 billion Cambodia: $5.34 billion Spending on Fall 2008 U.S. Elections: $5.3 billion Burkina Faso: $5.24 billion Mali: $5.12 billion Nicaragua: $4.97 billion…

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Less Reprehensible Regions of Conspicuous Consumption

If it were your ambition to convince a friend that her deeply held belief, cherished since childhood—say, that apple cider is undrinkable, undigestible, and unbearable—is dangerously off the mark, you…

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Sarah Palin, Nieman Marcus and Senator Norm Coleman’s Friends

Several weeks back I reported here on claims from sources that a friend and donor of Senator Norm Coleman had previously bought him suits at Nieman Marcus in Minneapolis. After…

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The Best of the ’08 Campaign I: Best Speech in a Comic Mode

We now are entering into the last fortnight of the 2008 Presidential Campaign. This period often marks the final descent into demagoguery, character assassination and hysteria as appeals are launched…

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Endorsement Fever: This is good news?

Colin Powell and Ken Adelman have endorsed Obama, and that’s supposed to be reassuring? Normally I’d take an endorsement by one of those guys and run in the other direction.…

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Turkmeniscam at TPMCafe Book Club

I’m discussing my new book, Turkmeniscam: How Washington Lobbyists Fought to Flack for a Stalinist Dictatorship, all week at TPM Cafe. Others taking part in the conversation are Stephen Walt,…

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About the Youth Vote: A reader sees high turnout for Obama

A letter in response to yesterday’s post, which cited GOP consultant Tom Edmonds arguing that youth turnout for the presidential election would be smaller than expected. Your 10/20 post entitled…

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Weekly Review

Caught in the Web, 1860. Governments around the world attempted to slow the global financial catastrophe. Der SpiegelNYTThe stock market in Iceland reopened after a three-day suspension and immediately plunged…

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Little Men in Themselves

“A lexicographer has godlike powers,” wrote Guy Davenport in an an essay on America’s last and greatest such household deity, Noah Webster (1758-1843). Lexicographers, Davenport continued: can, like Johnson, define…

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Buying the Election

This is astonishing. The state where the Obama campaign has been carpet bombing the airwaves most vigorously this past weekend was West Virginia. If you watched TV over the weekend…

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Is It Over? Part II

I just ran an interview with GOP media consultant Tom Edmonds, who thinks McCain still has a shot at winning the election. I had tried to contact a few other…

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Is It Over?

Barack Obama is ahead in every national poll by a seemingly comfortable margin. He’s shattering all records for political fundraising, is attracting huge crowds to his rallies, and the pundits…

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Justice in the Gutter

Saturday the New York Times alerts us to a new opinion issued deep in the bowels of the Bush Justice Department. The decision emanates from the Office of Legal Counsel,…

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Shakespeare’s Quality of Mercy

The quality of mercy is not strain’d, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest; It blesseth him that gives and him…

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Niebuhr’s Relationship to the Past

If man does not acknowledge his status as creator, his freedom over the historical flux, his right and duty to challenge the inherited traditions of the community, his obligation to…

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The Gipper At Play

From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer: The men are shown with sex toys around their necks, doing skits in blackface, dressed in wigs and women’s clothing and consuming copious quantities of alcoholic…

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How AIG Spends Its Money: Resort stays and political support

Earlier this month, AIG executives headed to a luxury spa in California to decompress after the company received an $85 billion federal bailout. How else does AIG spend its money?…

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Did She or Didn’t She? McCain’s alleged girlfriend denies story of affair

From Ed Pound at National Journal: In one of the most sensational stories of the presidential campaign, The New York Times published a 3,000-word, front-page article in February suggesting that…

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Six Questions for Eric Janszen on the Economic Collapse

Angel investor and iTulip.com founder Eric Janszen contributed to this month’s Forum, “How to Save Capitalism: Fundamental fixes for a collapsing system,” and wrote “The Next Bubble: Priming the markets…

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McCain’s Other Joe Problem: Should the senator switch to Sanka?

From BAGnewsNotes–“Has McCain Been Suffering From What The DSM-IV Classifies As Caffeine Intoxication?” Is it just coincidence John McCain is often depicted with a jumbo-sized Starbucks in or at hand?…As…

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Joe the Plumber Is Not Having a Good Day

From Politico: Joe the Plumber really is no fan of paying taxes. According to records from the Lucas County (OH) Court of Common Pleas found by my colleague Avi Zenilman,…

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Is ACORN Plotting a Coup?

I had never realized prior to now that ACORN was one of the most powerful organizations in the country. Not only is the group accused of being responsible for the…

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The Wobbly Political Theology of Sarah Palin

Insiders say that John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin was designed to mobilize and rally the Religious Right—the bloc that played a key role in George W. Bush’s victories in…

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