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$23
By Gore Vidal $18.00
$21
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By Marie Cocco — Kitchen-table worries trumped even the charisma of Camelot. This theme has sounded again and again since the Democratic primary contests began, yet neither the national media nor, apparently, the Obama campaign can hear it.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Democrats are divided this year not by the issues but by a feeling and a theory. This helps explain why the preferences of voters in the Democratic presidential primaries so far have gyrated so wildly.
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By Eugene Robinson — When you Google the phrase “unconstitutional third term,” you get references to a rogue’s gallery of strongman leaders—Vladimir Putin, Alberto Fujimori, Olusegun Obasanjo, Islam Karimov, Hugo Chavez—who in recent years at least have flirted with the idea of holding on to power beyond statutory limits. Now the name Bill Clinton pops up, too.
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 dudehisattva.com
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New polls show Barack Obama closing in on Hillary Clinton’s lead, nationally, in California and among women voters, which may be why either the Clinton campaign or some ally is engaging in that unsavory campaign tactic, the push poll.
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 Original: AP photo / M. Spencer Green
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Barack Obama had cause for celebration Friday. Though he still trails Hillary Clinton in most big states, he picked up two endorsements that will undoubtedly have an impact. MoveOn says it is already mobilizing its 3.2 million members—more than half of whom live in super Tuesday states—on behalf of Obama. The Los Angeles Times was flattering of Clinton, but, as the editorial board put it: “Clinton would be a valuable and competent executive, but Obama matches her in substance and adds something that the nation has been missing far too long—a sense of aspiration.”
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 todbrilliant.com
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Paul Krugman argues in Friday’s New York Times that if the Democrats win in 2008, it will be because of their big ideas, and for that, Krugman writes, “they’ll have Mr. Edwards to thank.” He’s got a point. Does anyone remember that John Edwards was the first one out of the gate with a bold health care plan that bears a striking resemblance to the bold health care plans that followed?
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By Ellen Goodman — The Kennedy clan, like many families across the country, is divided. It’s a struggle between the appeal of experience and idealism, and will ultimately decide the Democratic race.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Only a week ago, a soaring Hillary Clinton was on a trajectory to close out the nomination. Now her campaign is struggling to refocus on what had drawn voters to her.
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By Marie Cocco — House Republicans were able to keep an extension of unemployment benefits out of the recently announced stimulus package, which is too bad, since it’s one measure that would actually help the ailing economy.
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By Eugene Robinson — Playing the race card against Barack Obama didn’t work out quite the way Bill Clinton had hoped. Neither did a reported last-minute personal appeal to keep Ted Kennedy, venerable guardian of the Camelot flame, from joining the Obama crusade. The question now is whether the Clintons understand how the country they seek to lead—and, regrettably, I do mean “they”—has changed.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — It was a remarkable moment: A young, free-thinking presidential hopeful named Bill Clinton sat down with reporters and editors at The Washington Post in October 1991 and started saying things most Democrats wouldn’t allow to pass their lips. Updated
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 flcikr / abstract plain
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Dennis Kucinich is expected to announce Friday that he is dropping out of the race for the White House. The Ohio congressman faces four challengers in the primary for his seat in the House. Kucinich’s congressional campaign sent out an “urgent personal appeal” to supporters for donations on Wednesday.
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 news.google.com
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House Democrats, Republicans and President Bush have tentatively agreed on the broad outlines of a $150-billion stimulus package. Most of that money will come in the form of payouts ranging between $300 and $1,200 for individuals and households.
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By Joe Conason — Supporters of one Democratic candidate or another may insist that their man or woman won last Monday’s debate in South Carolina, but in their hearts most viewers could only have been disappointed by its childish tenor and puerile content.
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The issue of campaign financing was raised once again during Monday’s debate between the Democrats, so we thought we’d check the numbers and see how much the candidates are getting and from whom.
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Despite all the smiles, the Democratic campaign has been contentious for a while now. With the nomination on the line like never before, the candidates really let it fly in this, the most heated presidential debate yet. Yes, there have been a thousand already, but if there’s one Democratic debate you don’t want to miss, it’s this one.
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By Eugene Robinson — Six months ago, Bill Clinton seemed to be settling comfortably into roles befitting a silver-maned former president: statesman, philanthropist, philosopher-king. Now he has put all that high-mindedness on hold—maybe it was never such a great fit, after all—to costar in his wife Hillary’s campaign as a coldblooded political hit man.
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By Amy Goodman — One pundit called the Democratic presidential debate in Las Vegas “a lovefest.” It may well have been, but only because the corporate sponsor of the debate, General Electric-owned NBC News and its cable news channel MSNBC, rescinded its invitation to candidate Dennis Kucinich.
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By Eugene Robinson — In the coming general election campaign, voters will be faced with a clear choice on the major issues. It is the ongoing primaries that force us to figure out not just who the candidates are, but who we are as well.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Clinton and Obama would court failure by ignoring the white working class, a group that has reasons to be discontented.
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By Marie Cocco — A truce has been called in the racial feud between Clinton and Obama, but not before it stained both with the residue of their own follies. The resulting peril for the Democratic Party is great.
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This video makes the case that Democrats should do everything in their power to keep Mitt Romney, and his millions in negative campaign ads, in the race.
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By Eugene Robinson — It turns out that Toni Morrison’s famous line about Bill Clinton as “our first black president” was just a bon mot. If the Clintons took it as a sign of African-Americans’ unconditional fealty, they were mistaken.
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 nytimes.com
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Two new polls, one from The New York Times and CBS News and the other by The Washington Post and ABC News, show John McCain at the head of the Republican race nationally. The same polls also show Barack Obama closing the gap with rival Hillary Clinton, who still maintains a lead, though by a much smaller margin than previously.
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By Bill Boyarsky — Hopefully, the results of the New Hampshire primary will eliminate the words hope and change from his presidential campaign. Maybe I am too cynical or too old or too disillusioned from being burned by past failed crusades. But words and elevated oratory are not enough for me.
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By Joe Conason — Conspirators with a “Swift boat” style are looking at the Illinois senator and sharpening their knives. One of their delicious subjects of attention is the candidate’s provocative spiritual adviser.
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By Will Durst — The humorist explains Clinton’s New Hampshire win without polling data or political science but with candid insight into the dark recesses of American prejudice.
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 AP photo / Jim Cole
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“I found my own voice,” Hillary Clinton said in her New Hampshire victory speech, admitting to more than just a bumpy campaign. Instead, she appeared to be pointing at the stilted rhetoric and focus-grouping that have plagued her run for president. With Iowa and New Hampshire behind her, the senator’s campaign promise, it seems, is to speak from the heart.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Hillary Clinton may have unintentionally written the obituary for the Iowa and New Hampshire phase of her presidential campaign, and perhaps her candidacy, when she told voters on Sunday: “You campaign in poetry, but you govern in prose.”
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By Marie Cocco — The most revealing indicator of the state of our democracy is not to be found in the snowdrifts of New Hampshire but in the marbled chamber of the U.S. Supreme Court. Soon enough, we will discover whether the court under Chief Justice John Roberts will become a partisan tool in the national Republican drive to place constraints on voting that are targeted at those who tend to support Democrats.
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 AP photo / Charles Dharapak
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By Chris Hedges — Truthdig columnist Chris Hedges sits down with Dennis Kucinich to get his thoughts on the campaign, corporate America, the state of our democracy and more.
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By Eugene Robinson — It was one of those moments that give you goose bumps—the cheering crowd, the waving placards, the candidate and his family looking Kennedyesque on the occasion of a stunning victory. Barack Obama took the stage Thursday night in Des Moines and proclaimed his vindication of hope: “They said this day would never come. They said our sights were set too high.”
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 cnn.com
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ABC News has announced that Democrats Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel (above) and Republican Duncan Hunter failed to meet its benchmarks and will not be allowed to participate in Saturday’s New Hampshire debate. On the Democratic side, that leaves four candidates in the debate; Joe Biden and Chris Dodd dropped out of the race after poor showings in Iowa.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — One lesson from the Iowa caucuses is that the Democrats are once again an attractive party for independent and unconventional voters, which is usually a good thing when it comes to winning elections.
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By Joe Conason — A presidential run by the New York mayor would be a monument to egotism. Even worse, it might prevent the nation from ridding itself of today’s destructive policies.
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By Marie Cocco — Our next leader will have a huge task: to repair the worldwide damage done to the nation’s image and its foreign policy interests over the past seven years. Americans must choose well.
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By Eugene Robinson — If you had seen the candidate perform Saturday at the public library in Washington, Iowa, you’d understand how he made all that money as a trial lawyer.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — The Bhutto assassination came as a brutal reminder of the gravity of the decision Iowa’s voters will make Thursday. Its impact may be felt most powerfully by Democrats who have been thinking less about issues than about the candidates’ styles and leadership qualities.
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By Ellen Goodman — Since this is the list-making time of year, allow me to add a tiny trophy to Al Gore’s very full shelf: the prize for the most elegant speech of 2007.
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By Andy Borowitz — According to satirist Borowitz, Clinton has exposed some dirty linen and Obama is plenty P-O’d about the accusation.
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 cnn.com
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The House has followed in the wake of the Senate, saying yes to $70 billion in funds for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Anti-war Democrats have had little success overcoming Republican filibusters and a publicity blitz meant to sell the “surge.”
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 whitehouse.org
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Twenty-one Senate Democrats, Joe Lieberman and all but one Republican just approved $70 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Democrats had tried for weeks to tie funding for the wars to a withdrawal plan, but in the end the president got his way.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — The Democratic contest in Iowa—and possibly the battle for the party’s presidential nomination—hangs on whether Hillary Clinton can use the next two weeks to encourage second thoughts about Barack Obama, and get voters to take a second look at her.
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By Marie Cocco — Of all the upsets that can sour a holiday season—pinched wallets, contaminated toys, sugar overload and overbearing in-laws—is there anything that can dull the spirit like a presidential primary season unfolding in its midst?
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Sen. Joseph Lieberman, a self-described “Independent Democrat,” is expected to turn his back on the Democratic candidates to endorse John McCain for president. It’s a fitting move for the George Bush apologist, who was rejected by the primary voters of his own party for his unabashed support of the war.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Congressional Democrats need a Plan B. So far, they have been unable to place the blame for governmental paralysis where it belongs: on the Do-Nothing Republicans.
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By Ellen Goodman — After being wooed by a bunch of homely political veterans, the GOP is now playing kissy with Huckabee. But go slow, Republicans: The new suitor has his own share of ugly warts.
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Ari Berman takes a look at the Democrats’ premiere non-issue as the campaign in Iowa draws closer to a conclusion: electability. He concludes that, their propaganda aside, all of the top candidates have positives and negatives that cancel each other out, but that probably doesn’t even matter. As Bill Clinton himself said: “This electability thing is a canard.”
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By Eugene Robinson — Is it foolish to think that a nation stained by centuries of slavery and racism is prepared to elect a black president? Rarely phrased so bluntly, that’s the central question posed by Barack Obama’s candidacy—especially for many African-American voters, whose doubts are informed by having seen many an oasis turn out to be a mirage.
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