A TPM reader who is also an elections official in Connecticut responds to me saying that the Pennsylvania decision sets up an “odd, maybe even nonsensical, regimen“: Read More
Romney camp reveals plans for special empathy zingers at Wednesday night debate.
First, lemme just say it. The name may not last through the launch period since half the people who hear ‘TPM Singles’ think we’re starting a TPM dating service. That might be awesome or tragic, depending on your view of these things. But that’s not it. So I wanted to explain what we’re doing with this new and TPM’s first experiment in longform journalism. Read More
Photos and brief bios of the 23 recipients of the 2012 MacArthur fellowships.
The White House and the Obama campaign get a lot of guff for resting their second-term hopes on the idea that the GOP will self-moderate after another disappointing loss. I get that this seems absurdly naive on its face. Romney’s the squish who, if Obama wins, will have lost along with Tommy Thompson and Scott Brown (most likely) in what Republicans could construe as the failure of moderation as a political strategy.
But I think one post-election event will force Republicans to grapple with the moderation question.
If the Bush tax cuts expire at the end of the year, it’ll give President Obama about $4 trillion in revenue over the coming 10 years. That’s way, way more than he’s asked for, more than he presumably wants, and more than the economy can easily bear — so everyone will have a big incentive to negotiate backwards from it. Read More
For years, I was a big reader of Drudge. Was never a fan of Drudge, though I recognized his entrepreneurial acumen. In fact, I despised most everything that he stood for, from rancid politics to integrity free journalism, the endless lying. But I visited the site ALL THE TIME. And the reason was simple. Before social media and (for me) before the TPM “talk” email account gave me a steady traffic of pointers to important stories from everywhere it was just a great way to know what was happening — both in the most basic sense of what was happening and also what was being talked about.
And then maybe half a dozen years ago I just lost interest. Read More
Romney’s Health Care Plan would leave 72 million uninsured.
Paul Ryan implied today that the key to solving the problem of the 47% is to get them jobs. Only the vast majority of those people either do have jobs or are retired. Video after the jump … Read More
There’s a new poll out tonight of North Carolina from SurveyUSA. The topline shows President Obama with a 2 point lead over Mitt Romney, which is near where most recent polls have been. But among those voters who plan to cast early ballots, Obama has a 20 point lead.