Politics DailyPolitics Daily

  • HOME
  • ABOUT
  • COLUMNISTS
  • TOPICS
  • THE CAPITOLIST
  • WOMAN UP
  • DAILY FLOTUS
  • JUST IN
  • THE CRAM
  • CONTACT

    • Inside Politics Daily

    Jill Lawrence Jill Lawrence is a PoliticsDaily.com columnist and former national political correspondent for USA Today... more
    Contact Jill Lawrence
    subscribe to RSS email: Jill Lawrence
    Published: 02/9/10

    Scott Brown and the Palin Path: Will He Choose Brassy or Boring?

    By Jill Lawrence

    Scott Brown is at a crossroads. Does the new Massachusetts senator follow the celebrity path blazed by Sarah Palin, or adopt the lower-key political model favored by Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Al Franken when they were Senate newbies? As he starts his first week of senatorial votes and other duties, Brown says he wants to get to work. But early indications suggest it's going to take work, and considerable will power, to tamp down his personality, fend off the attention, put his nose to the grindstone and become as boring as those other famous freshmen. ...

    Keep Reading »
     89 
    Comments
    SHARESHARE
    Published: 02/8/10

    Latino Vote Could Be Key in Midterm Contests for Congress and Governorships

    By Jill Lawrence

    Presidential candidates of both parties have long vied for Latino voters, but this is a midterm year and a new report from America's Voice, a group working for comprehensive immigration reform, suggests Latino voters will be a potentially decisive force in 37 House and Senate races, plus contests for governor in California, Colorado and Texas.The report says Latino voters may be pivotal in eight Senate races, in Arizona (where Republican Sen. John McCain is trying to keep his seat), California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Nevada and New York. It says the group could also decide ...

    Keep Reading »
     82 
    Comments
    SHARESHARE
    Published: 02/5/10

    Oregon as Antidote to Massachusetts: There's More than One Way to Send a Message

    By Jill Lawrence

    There was no nude Cosmo shoot in Oregon, no old truck, no confusion over whether a former Red Sox pitcher is a Yankee fan. But Oregon did have an election last month and the result -- support for $733 million in tax hikes -- was as startling as Republican Sen. Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts. Democrats should take a closer look at Oregon. What they see might help them stiffen their spines. Flickr Credit: functoruser / CC BY-SA 2.0 The Bay State election has been interpreted and over-interpreted beyond reason by gleeful Republicans and panicked Democrats. And to be sure, there was a ...

    Keep Reading »
     87 
    Comments
    SHARESHARE
    Published: 02/2/10

    Vanquished Lawmakers to Capitol Hill Dems: Losing for a Good Cause Isn't the Worst Thing

    By Jill Lawrence

    Karen Shepherd and Marjorie Margolies have a message for their former colleagues on Capitol Hill: There is life after Congress, so vote your conscience, explain your reasons and let elections turn out as they may. If you lose, you might even get some presidential help finding a new job. It is, no doubt, a scary time for incumbents. Republicans are under pressure to meet conservative purity tests in the face of energized primary opponents who have access to money. Democrats, meanwhile, are still trying to recover from Republican Scott Brown's Senate win last month in Massachusetts. Does that ...

    Keep Reading »
     27 
    Comments
    SHARESHARE
    Published: 01/31/10

    Sandra O'Connor's Choice: What Her Missing Supreme Court Vote Means to Women and America

    By Jill Lawrence

    "Gosh, I step away for a couple of years and there's no telling what's going to happen," former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor joked recently in a speech at Georgetown University. ...

    Keep Reading »
     211 
    Comments
    SHARESHARE
    Published: 01/28/10

    Obama to Democrats: Don't Run for the Hills

    By Jill Lawrence

    The country was maybe expecting a chastened president? A chief executive bowed and ready to change course amid 10 percent unemployment, the devastating loss of Ted Kennedy's Senate seat in Massachusetts, and the limbo status of his top priority -- health reform -- after a full year of work? Nah. "I Won't Back Down" is a Tom Petty song that you hear a lot on the presidential campaign trail. The House chamber doesn't have that rally-in-the-gym feel to it, but I couldn't get the song out of my head during President Obama's State of the Union address. With polls showing the country split on his ...

    Keep Reading »
     263 
    Comments
    SHARESHARE
    Published: 01/24/10

    Did Ellen Malcolm (Accidentally) Help Elect Scott Brown?

    By Jill Lawrence

    Ellen Story is a Massachusetts Democrat, a state representative and an independent thinker. Breaking with her state's female political leaders, she did not back Martha Coakley in the Senate primary late last year. "People were stunned that I wasn't supporting her, stunned and irritated," Story told me. Though she would have loved to back a woman, the Amherst legislator said, she chose Rep. Mike Capuano because of her own mood and the mood she sensed among Massachusetts voters. "I wanted a senator who would be feisty and scrappy. Who'd stand for things and raise hell about things," she said. ...

    Keep Reading »
     35 
    Comments
    SHARESHARE
    Published: 01/21/10

    Big Health Bill Still in Play As Polls Shed Light on Massachusetts Vote

    By Jill Lawrence

    Democrats are not rushing back into action on health reform, and that's probably wise -- because their initial reactions to the week's events might be over-reactions. Post-election polls trickling out of Massachusetts suggest that Republican Scott Brown's impressive Senate victory was not a wholesale rejection of President Obama, his policies, or his health care plan. Already, the Obama administration is walking back hints that it is looking at slicing, dicing, and miniaturizing the comprehensive reform bills passed by the House and Senate. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs ...

    Keep Reading »
     159 
    Comments
    SHARESHARE
    Published: 01/20/10

    Brown Victory: Democrats Once Again Fail to Seize the Moment

    By Jill Lawrence

    Republican Scott Brown's defeat of Martha Coakley in Massachusetts is both stunning and, at the same time, a scenario all too familiar for Democrats. How did it happen? The same way Massachusetts nominees lost the presidency for Democrats in 1988 and 2004, and the same way Democrats in Congress lost health reform and their majorities in 1994. They think they have all the time in the world to define themselves, to sell themselves and their policies, to respond to attacks, to dicker over bills, to win elections. And then it turns out they don't. ...

    Keep Reading »
     180 
    Comments
    SHARESHARE
    Published: 01/20/10

    Poll: Majority of Massachusetts Health Voters Wanted to Save Reform

    By Jill Lawrence

    In the absence of exit polls from the dramatic special Senate race in Massachusetts, it's hard to analyze what exactly happened and why. That hasn't stopped everyone (OK, including me) from doing just that. But now we do have an intriguing and counter-intuitive nugget from a Rasmussen poll of 1,000 people who voted in the special election. A solid majority -- 56 percent -- said health care was their top issue. And 53 percent of them voted for . . . Democrat Martha Coakley. So, more people motivated by the health issue wanted to save reform than kill it. "I could make the case very strongly ...

    Keep Reading »
     54 
    Comments
    SHARESHARE

    Most Active Topics

    • Happening Right Now

       
      Powered by Relegence Over 25,000 Sources

    Now Commenting


    Politics Daily More Links