Politics

Lauren Ashburn | April 13th, 2012

Via Flickr user Peter 'lastfuture' Marquardt

Goodbye, Oprah’s couch; hello, Twitter. You want to say you’re sorry in this day and age, tweet it. God forbid you pick up the phone and call someone.

It took lobbyist Hilary Rosen half a news cycle yesterday to apologize for sticking her foot in her mouth the night before on CNN by saying Ann Romney, a mother of five who has suffered from breast cancer and multiple sclerosis, “never worked a day in her life.”

When asked by Wolf Blitzer later in the day what she had to say to Romney, Rosen did not say she was sorry. When Wolf called her on it, Rosen seemed to think the electronic version was enough: “Well, I assume that Mrs. Romney saw my apology this afternoon, but, if not, I apologize.”

Take a look at: Ann Romney’s Body Language Analysis

Republicans Love Diet Dr. Pepper. But Why?

Daily Download Team | April 13th, 2012

Via Flickr user nathanmac87

A recent study from National Media Research Planning & Placement identified particular brands that resonate also political lines, such as Diet Dr. Pepper’s strength with Republicans. But: why?

CREEP Returns To The Watergate

Daily Download Team | April 13th, 2012

Via Flickr user brownpau

Someone with a keen sense of both humor and history has registered a new SuperPAC named “The Committee to Re-Elect the President.” Or CREEP for short. And it’s mailing address will sound awfully familiar.

The Veep Virus

Howard Kurtz | April 8th, 2012

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan

Are you sick of the veepstakes yet? I sure am.

The chatter over who Mitt Romney might tap as his running mate is pretty pointless—but reveals a great deal about our media culture.

First, it’s a journalistic way of declaring the Republican race over. Why pay attention to Rick Santorum’s campaign when we can endlessly argue over who Mitt might pick, or should pick, or won’t pick because he’s too short-sighted to listen to us?

It’s a way of filling up column inches and cable segments at a time when the campaign has hit a lull. And it indulges the seemingly bottomless desire of the pundits to predict the future, on the theory that no one will remember if they were wrong.

Female Voters Unzipped

Lauren Ashburn | April 4th, 2012

Seems I have a bullseye on my back. Well, me, and other voting women under 50 who analysts say will decide thiselection. An even greater subset of us – younger, secular women – are likely to be the most longed for swing group. A group that already tends to cast their ballots for Democrats.

Gone are the soccer moms of '90s. Hello 2012 childless heathens?

Pols are convinced they need the votes of women who aren’t tied down, don’t have kids and seem to eschew religion and its constraints on social issues. Which is why you see Ann Romney tweaking her message to female followers by focusing on the importance of the economy. Her role, and that of her counterpart, Michelle Obama, is crucial as the campaigns aim arrows at the targeted estrogen-filled demographic.

Attack of the Unsolicited Political Text Messages

Daily Download Team | March 6th, 2012

It's the new spam. Michigan voters were deluged with anti-Romney texts before last week's primary. The legal status is murky–the FCC has yet to weigh in–but the Obama campaign is best positioned to show up on your phone unless and until the practice is banned. Via Slate

Website Reviews

Atlantic Politics

The Atlantic’s page is a thinking person’s site, and featuring a daily menu of political features and a roster of star columnists. These include James Fallows, Megan McArdle, Robert Wright, Ta-Nehisi Coates and Jeffrey Goldberg, who almost always have something interesting to say, even when their posts are short.

Real Clear Politics

The site is an all-you-can eat buffet of political links, enough to fill almost any appetite, especially if you like to
gorge on polls (and a very helpful average index of recent polls). But its layout is almost defiantly unfriendly, just
unbroken columns of red-type headlines with no summaries at all.

original pieces by Real Clear’s own reporters.

The links range across the political spectrum…

Political Wire

Taegan Goddard’s website was aggregating political news way before it was cool. Political Wire (one of Daily Download’s partners) provides a steady flow of bite-sized morsels, packed with nutritious links, that draw on an impressive array of sources, from big news organizations to local outlets to polling outfits. Goddard, a onetime Capitol Hill foreign policy adviser and author of a book on political management, brings a distinct sensibility both to his curation of news and his pithy summaries. He embeds his analysis in the items, often topped by pithy…

The Fix

The Fix's Chris Cillizza

This Washington Post blog manages the neat trick of feeding the junkies while also providing hard-core political analysis and having some fun in the process. Primary author Chris Cillizza knows the game inside out, so there’s a sense of smart context and tapping into the insiders. And with seven or eight posts a day, Cillizza [...]

538

Nate Silver is a self-described nerd who moved to writing about politics after a career in crunching baseball statistics. He delves deeply into polling data and dwells in the rarefied realm of forecast models. The results may be a bit geeky for some readers. But Silver is a lively writer and thinker, and the 538 blog (named for the number of Electoral College votes) is adept at both catching political waves and describing the nature of such waves. That means Silver is sometimes wrong (“National Polls Suggest Romney Is Overwhelming Favorite for GOP Nomination,” on Jan. 19); or right at that nanosecond (“New Florida Polls Show Big Swing to Gingrich”) before events break the other way (Gingrich falls behind in the Florida primary).

Rasmussen Reports

Run by pollster and frequent cable news talker Scott Rasmussen, the website delivers poll results and commentary focused on news coverage, politics, business, lifestyle and more.