Campaigns & Elections

Bill Clinton has lost his fastball. That's an emerging theme from this campaign season, and it was on glaring display on today's Morning Joe. Introducing a clip of Clinton [dressed like a lumberjack] attacking Bernie Sanders in New Hampshire, Mika Brzezinski said the ex-prez had picked up the "hatchet"—not a good image for a would-be statesman. After the clip aired, Joe Scarborough called it "…

Hillary Clinton's campaign is in a place it doesn't want to be, and the New York Times really, really wants to help. Yesterday, Madeleine Albright told a New Hampshire audience at a Clinton rally that "there's a special place in Hell" for women who don't support Hillary. Her outrageous attempt to shame women into voting for Mrs. Clinton followed Gloria Steinem's Friday appearance on Bill Maher's…

The past week has been tough on Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. The 2016 primaries and caucuses were supposed to be a coronation, not a a contest. They've seen that some of Joe Biden's donors, dissatisfied with the prospect of Mrs. Clinton or Bernie Sanders at the top of the Democratic ticket, want the Vice President to seriously consider jumping in. The sight of supporters at the Iowa…

In a Friday piece, New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait delved into why he’d welcome seeing Donald Trump atop this year’s Republican ticket. For one thing, there's the possibility of permanently driving a wedge between the party’s masses and its financial elite. “The GOP is a machine that harnesses ethno-nationalistic fear…to win elections and then, once in office, caters to its wealthy donor base…

People magazine interviewed Hillary Clinton and Chelsea Clinton in the latest issue for a "Campaign Trail Scrapbook" and reporter Sandra Sobieraj Westfall brought the usual syrup. On the table of contents, over a picture of Chelsea resting her head on Hillary's shoulder, they aid "As voting begins, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton reveal the personal side to this year's raucous race to the White House…

Chris Matthews and Brit Hume are, it's safe to say, probably rarely in agreement on much. Tonight, however, both compared Florida U.S. Senator Marco Rubio's handling of Chris Christie in tonight's New Hampshire primary debate to Dan Quayle poor debate performance in 1988 against Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Texas).

Catching up with Donald Trump in the "spin room" after Saturday's GOP debate, NBC's Hallie Jackson attempted to get Donald Trump to say who he thought "lost" the GOP debate, hoping, perhaps, to get the New Hampshire frontrunner to attack Sen. Marco Rubio. For his part, Trump refused to take the bait.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin referred to Madeleine Albright's somewhat well-known saying, found on a Starbucks coffee cup, that "There's a special place in Hell for women who don't help other women." At the time, Albright, who served as Secretary of State under Bill Clinton, huffed: "Though I am flattered that Governor Palin has chosen…

Folks who get their news from a wide variety of sources likely know by now that there is enough concern about the electability of Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders that a prominent Democratic Party donor has "emailed dozens of fans of Vice President Joe Biden on Friday, urging them to remain prepared to donate if Biden jumps into the (presidential) race." But two outlets which have become de…

The Washington Post is dragging out one of the oldest and phoniest arguments against the charge of liberal bias, an argument that has all the freshness of four-month-old milk.  To sum up in a headline: “The media’s biggest bias isn’t partisan — it’s for a juicy story.” If this claim hadn’t been completely obliterated by every juicy thing Bill Clinton did with women he hadn’t married, we can…

NPR's Mara Liasson went after ABC News on Fox News Channel's Special Report on Friday over their decision to not invite Carly Fiorina to their upcoming Republican presidential debate: "It's inexplicable. I don't know how they can stand up and explain why the only woman in the race — who placed above some of the people who are on the stage and has a delegate — is not there. I can't even imagine...…

¡Muchas gracias, señor Matthews! If Bernie Sanders becomes the Dem nominee, the GOP might wind up having to pay royalties to Chris Matthews .  . On this evening's Hardball, Matthews aired what he himself said could be an anti-Bernie Republican ad, cobbled together from clips of various radical statements Sanders has made over the years. In Chris' commercial, Sanders is seen saying he's a…

Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean ranted against the media's supposed "double standard" against Hillary Clinton on Friday's Andrea Mitchell Reports on MSNBC. Dean asserted that "there is nothing to the e-mails" controversy, and went on the attack: "When is the media and when are her opponents gonna stop attacking her personally?...I think it's wrong; and frankly, it really burned me up...I am…

With all due respect, indeed! On the Bloomberg TV show of that name that he co-hosts with Mark Halperin, John Heilemann today reported that the current and former governors in the GOP field--Bush, Kasich and Christie--think Marco Rubio is a "punk." Clarified Heilemann: "when I say 'punk,' they have the same view that Hillary Clinton had of Barack Obama [in 2008]: line-cutter, punk, man of no…