Women represent 53% of the voting electorate. Vital as it is for Republicans to gain female votes in 2014, their need will reach critical mass in the 2016 Presidential election. Despite a 100-page RNC post-mortem prescribing greater outreach, rather than heed that advice, today’s Republican Party continues to shoot itself in the foot with offensive remarks and legislative actions that flout their aims. Continued male...
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Chris Christie’s political hopes took a hit last week as the burgeoning “Bridge-Gate” scandal painted him and those in his inner circle as bullies who will exact ugly retribution from a political foe. Prior to that, big media, in their unending polling parlor game, had already decided Christie was the Republican best positioned to beat Hillary Clinton in 2016. No sooner did he apologize his...
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Mega-successful political focus group and messaging guru Frank Luntz once helped Newt Gingrich craft the successful “Contract With America.” Today, he feels lost, lamenting to The Atlantic’s Molly Ball that the American people now scare him: “They were contentious and argumentative. They didn’t listen to each other as they once had. They weren’t interested in hearing other points of view. They were divided one against...
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Soon to begin the 6th year of his presidency, President Obama has just entered the 5th year of selling the Affordable Care Act, having been forced to apologize for its disastrous rollout. Launching into yet another promotion tour, Mr. Obama claimed to have learned “the hard way” that wildly overpromising while under-delivering was a bad idea. I can’t decide if it is more shocking that...
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In the Boston Globe, Chris Matthews of MSNBC’s Hardball waxed poetic on the “civilized” politics of yesteryear, particularly praising the relationship between President Ronald Reagan and House Speaker Tip O’Neill. “We’re all friends after six” Reagan would say, and the two worked together in a civilized fashion. Matthews is correct that our current debate is grotesque, catering to the most aggressive in each party, and...
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The Washington Post reported that both CNN and NBC have cancelled plans to produce films about the life of Hillary Clinton. Charles Ferguson, the CNN film’s director, complained that he was frozen out and neither Democrat nor Republican nor anyone in the Clinton camp would offer him access or help, yet despite his frustration, scrapping these films is the correct decision. It is the right of each candidate to define themselves to...
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The Washington Times’ Wesley Pruden just derided Hillary Clinton for her “occasional” visits to the hairdresser and wrote that while a man of 69 is not out of his prime, a woman being inaugurated at that age is well past her “sell-by” date. However one feels about Hillary, do Pruden or Republicans like Mitch McConnell, with his recent “Golden Girls” jibes think ageism is a...
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In the media’s obsession with all things Hillary, the prognosticators for 2016 are exercising their insatiable need to sell copy by conjuring a blood feud between Vice President Biden and Secretary Clinton. We know Mr. Biden would love to be President. Respectfully, that day will likely not come for him. His team knows that, which is why they defensively balk at those who give the...
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After giving a speech on the effects of media bias (a light topic, I know!), a student asked, “How is anyone going to hear your message when they are obsessed with the Kardashians?” I pulled a scientific sounding response out of my…er …left ear, but I suspect her question was better than my answer. Dr. Michael Beckwith once advised, “Be involved; not enthralled.” How do we...
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Fed Chair may not be as sexy a job as President, but the occupant of that position is just as vital, if not more so, to every citizen. Both in front of and behind the scenes, a battle is being waged by those who would seek to influence the Presidential choice making mechanism and public opinion as well. Not surprisingly, the best candidate may not win....
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