Goldwater v McGovern
For all the recent references to the aftereffects of the presidential runs of Republican Barry Goldwater in 1964 and Democrat George McGovern in 1972, there's been remarkably little comparison of how...
View ArticleOnly Democratic voters can put Trump back in his cage
Barry Goldwater’s unsuccessful bid for the presidency in 1964, with his appeal to angry white male voters, and subsequent GOP pandering to the farthest edges of the right-wing fringe since, created the...
View ArticleRacism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, religious bigotry
all seem far too prevalent among the followers of the presumptive Republican nominee. In a sense we should not be surprised. First, his rhetoric has fueled a lot of it, legitimizing open expressions...
View ArticleRepublican Party acts like it can't figure out how it spawned both Donald...
Over at The Atlantic, Michelle Cottle has penned a piece looking at some of the hand-wringing going on over Louisiana’s David Duke and his foray back into state politics. State Republican politicos...
View ArticleTrump 77: Mentality
The question had arisen before, but it blew up at the Democratic National Convention after former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg had this to say in urging a presidential vote against Donald Trump:...
View ArticleAtlantic Magazine makes only 3rd endorsement in its history
In a piece for the November issue titled Against Donald Trump, the subtitle informs readersFor the third time since The Atlantic’s founding, the editors endorse a candidate for president. The case for...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Virginia Congressional District Results, 1964; an Election Retrospective, Part 1
IntroductionPolitics in may ways is much more uniform today than it was a few decades ago, when there were conservatives and liberals and moderates in both parties. This could often result in...
View ArticleClinton uses adult 'Daisy' in new ad to link Trump, Goldwater and nuclear...
What Barry Goldwater was to nuclear weapons is what Donald Trump is to … nuclear weapons, that’s what Hillary Clinton’s latest ad seems to suggest.Clinton's new spot features Monique Luiz, the actress...
View Article"Daisy" - Redux
Perhaps the singular most famous political ad of all times ran in 1964. Lyndon Johnson ran it against Barry Goldwater by implication, as being reckless with nuclear weapons.Here is that adxYouTube...
View ArticleNovember 2016 - America at the Dawn of the Great Dismal
In mid-October Hillary Clinton was ahead of Donald Trump by 11 points, as of this morning, 11/6/16, most of that lead had dissipated thanks to the latest batch of e-mails, which may have been...
View ArticleRequiem for Republicans
The above quote by “Mr. Conservative” Barry Goldwater brought me up short and highlighted for me just how far the Republican Party has fallen. I doubt that Goldwater would recognize his own party...
View ArticleMartin Luther King's 1964 London speech, part 3 -- #BHM-90
In December of 1964 Martin Luther King made a speech in London — a speech which was largely lost to us until recently when a recording was discovered. You can listen to the entire speech on a recent...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Cartoon: GOP Inspires Mental Health Care Debate
Script/Layout: Bill Prendergast Art: Will Dinski
View ArticleJournalist James Fallows thinks this is worse than Watergate
as he writes in The Atlantic in a piece titled Five Reasons Why the Comey Affair Is Worse Than Watergate.Fallows had joined the staff of Washington Monthly upon leaving graduate school in 1972, and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Vic Gold, An Appreciation
I first became aware of speechwriter and Washington flack Victor Gold in 1975, when my mom brought home his memoir “I Don’t Need You when I’m Right.” Mom herself was a speechwriter and Washington flack...
View ArticleThis 2016 anti-Trump ad is eerily prophetic
Everyone in the world is terrified right now that a toxic orange cloud of pure destruction might explode in front of them at any moment … and even worse, that he might use nuclear weapons.We were...
View ArticleRoy Moore win means GOP civil war? Please. Rich man's tax cut shows what...
The New York Times had a headline that read: “Roy Moore’s Alabama Victory Sets Off Talk of a G.O.P. Insurrection.” Here’s a headline from the Washington Post: “After Alabama, GOP anti-establishment...
View ArticleThe Conservative Base is Scared Witless. And Has Been for Years.
Conservatives love to be scared. And Trump loves to scare them. Rational Americans look at a caravan of desperate, hungry, thirsty, dirty vagabonds and see a people yearning to be free. But Trump...
View ArticleDonald Trump is Not the Main Problem
Yes, Donald Trump is a problem. He is a short term, immediate problem, who should be excised from office with all deliberate speed, so he won’t become a more severe longer term problem. However, he is...
View Article