Columns, pieces and posts
Mitt Romney’s victory in Iowa is underappreciated. It was a well-run campaign and no one thought the day of the Ames straw poll, in August, that it would happen. The victory of Rick Santorum is a pundit-humbler: No one saw that coming even six weeks ago, except perhaps Mr. Santorum. The Iowa results almost perfectly […]
So the first third of the Republican presidential race is ending. The first third is the introduction: “This is who I am, this is what I want to do, this is why you want to choose me.” The campaign is announced, organized, and goes forward in key early states. The second phase is the long […]
The great words of the year? “Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow.” They are the last words of Steve Jobs, reported by his sister, the novelist Mona Simpson, who was at his bedside. In her eulogy, a version of which was published in the New York Times, she spoke of how he looked at his […]
I had a friend once who amused herself thinking up bumper stickers for states. The one she made up for California was brilliant. “California: It’s All True.” It is so vast and sprawling a place, so rich and various, that whatever you’ve heard about its wildness, weirdness and wonders, it’s true. That’s the problem with […]
This is the week it became clear that nobody knows anything. Pretty much all the conventional wisdom about the 2012 presidential race has turned out to be wrong. Newt rules, Cain’s over, Romney’s rocked. Nobody knows what’s going to happen. We’ll start with the president: Gallup. Obama down. Forty-three percent approval. Lower than Jimmy Carter […]
The talk this week was of who was most damaged politically by the failure of the super committee. The first, admittedly earnest answer is: the country. We have a projected deficit over the next 10 years of $44 trillion. A group of Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill were charged with coming up with $1.2 […]
There is an arresting moment in Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs in which Jobs speaks at length about his philosophy of business. He’s at the end of his life and is summing things up. His mission, he says, was plain: to “build an enduring company where people were motivated to make great products.” Then […]
One of the people in the debate was bombastic to the point of manic, and another was more pointedly aggressive than her usual poised and beautiful self. But enough about Jim Cramer and Maria Bartiromo. It was a revealing debate. It would be wonderful to see President Obama grilled as the Republicans were Wednesday night […]
The Republican Party continues to struggle with its brand. A Washington Post-ABC poll this week tells us that in spite of Barack Obama’s relative unpopularity, and in spite of the economy, the Democratic Party is still more popular with voters than the GOP. Forty-eight percent said they view the Democratic Party favorably, while the Republicans […]
People are increasingly fearing the divisions within, even the potential coming apart of, our country. Rich/poor, black/white, young/old, red/blue: The things that divide us are not new, yet there’s a sense now that the glue that held us together for more than two centuries has thinned and cracked with age. That it was allowed to […]