“The strength of the Democratic Party of Cook County is not something that just happened.” – Richard J. Daley
The Daleys had many highs and many lows during their 42-year perch above Chicago, but from the electoral crunch of the 1960 election to the landslide of 2008, they were always successful in making Chicagoland one of [...]
Writing Archive
A City as Blue as Lake Michigan
Map of the Day: Obama All Alone in the Lone Star State?
There are two parts of Texas, according to Jack Burden. “The part where the flat-footed, bilious, frog-sticker-toting Baptist biscuit-eaters live.” And the “part where the crooked-legged, high-heeled, gun-wearing, callous-assed sons of the range live.”
Both parts are a long way form Hyde Park.
Burden’s descriptions of Texas reflect the contempt that many outsiders have always felt toward [...]
Parsing the Prop 8 Map
When a state like South Dakota outlaws abortion or a state like Vermont legalizes gay marriage, it’s because most voters in that state agree on that position. But when California makes a decision on a major cultural issue, it’s a proxy for the nation.
Twelve percent of Americans live in California, and the state has [...]
Will “Mama Grizzly” Claw White Women Away from Democrats?
A Mama Grizzly is “someone who is watching what is going on that is adversely affecting our cubs, our children, the future of America,” Sarah Palin told NBC recently. “It’s all about stopping Obama, Pelosi and Reid.”
Palin’s metaphor is a not-too-subtle suggestion to Moms that Democrats are making the country worse for their children. Her [...]
When Ethno-Religious Groups Can’t Play Nice in the Sandbox
At the height of sectarian violence in Iraq in May, 2006, Joe Biden penned a column in the Times proposing to decentralize the Iraqi federal government, “giving each ethno-religious group — Kurd, Sunni Arab and Shiite Arab — room to run its own affairs.”
The plan called for “three largely autonomous regions,” but it stopped short [...]
Tea Party Caucus Officially More Southern and Western
Michelle Bachmann might hail from the Land of the North Star, but most of the members of the Tea Party Caucus that she formed last week represent the southern and western wing of the Republican House delegation.
The geographic center of gravity for the Tea Party Caucus — or the average geographical location of the hometowns [...]
All Politics is Local… Until There’s a National Vote
Massachusetts became the sixth state today to approve a measure that would award all of its electoral votes to the presidential candidate who wins the national popular vote. So far, six blue states with 71 cumulative electoral votes have signed on.
Proponents of the measure argue that every single citizen’s vote should count, not just those [...]
Wikileaks Highlight Violence in Pashtunistan
The Afghan War Diary leaks didn’t so much reveal as confirm. Specifically, the documents gave merit to suspicions that the ISI is working the Taliban, and thanks to fantastic maps from the Guardian, it illustrated that the war is mostly being waged in so-called Pashtunistan.
Anyone who has paid attention in the last eight years [...]
Obama Approval Rating Drops in 49 States
Dick Cheney and Barack Obama couldn’t be further apart, and so it’s no surprise that their home states of Wyoming and Hawaii gave the president the lowest and highest approval ratings, respectively, in the first half of 2010 as measured by Gallup.
Obama’s approval rating dropped in both states from this point in 2009 — albeit [...]
Different Shades of Peach State Politics
Atlanta has reinvented itself in the last 50 years as the “city too busy to hate.” It has the nation’s busiest airport; it’s home to the headquarters of several global mega-brands, such as Coca-Cola; and it’s the hub of an emerging megapolis stretching to Charlotte.
But race still provides the backdrop to politics in the state [...]
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