Recent News

On Sunday, Hillary Clinton stood at the pulpit of Foundry United Methodist Church, which she’d attended as first lady, and said she’d just gotten some excellent, Bible-based advice from her former minister, J. Philip Wogaman: In keeping with the reading of the day, from Romans 12, he told her, “You’ve got to be nicer to the press.”

Perry’s Exit May Have an Impact on the Race

The news at the end of last week that former Texas Gov. Rick Perry was suspending his campaign for the GOP nomination and exiting the race took few by surprise, as numerous stories in recent weeks had reported on his campaign’s lack of funds and poor showing in the polls. The New York Times this morning has an interesting story detailing polling data that show Perry lost more than half of his support to businessman Donald Trump when the latter ... Read More >>

“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.” —Hunter S. Thompson

The days when Labor Day marked the beginning of the electoral season have long gone. Thanks to information technology, money, and the Supreme Court, we live in the era of the permanent campaign. But the end of summer still feels like a significant marker, and it provides a good moment to take stock of a set of events that surely would have prompted the good Doctor, had he been alive to chronicle them, to send out for another bottle of Wild Turkey.

GOP outreach to Hispanic voters cut short by Summer of Trump

A concerted effort to improve the GOP’s dismal standing among Hispanic voters has — like all things on the campaign trail this summer — collided with Donald Trump, whose incendiary statements have attracted widespread attention and provoked other presidential candidates to take a harder line.

Latino group — not conservatives — behind new anti-Trump ads

When news leaked this week of plans to quietly produce videos attacking Republican presidential front runner Donald Trump, some thought that rival conservatives could be behind the project.

They’re not.

A lot of the support for Donald Trump is fueled by outrage against the Republican establishment. But those who ask us to understand this anger—as if it were a totally new phenomenon that none of us had ever noticed before—are ignoring the fact that Trump divides the right just as much as the establishment does.

Candidates for their party’s nomination in 2016 began the process with certain assumptions and strategies, all hoping their plans would work well enough to eventually put them in the White House. As the summer campaign season draws to a close, however, it’s become clear for some that earlier assumptions were wrong, strategic decisions didn’t pan out the way it was hoped, and some serious changes may be in order.

Several stories this morning highlight some of these strategic errors and shifts, ... Read More >>