The People’s Republic
The Myth of the Rising Tide
On the night of last week’s midterm elections, the Institute of Politics down on Kennedy Street was not a pleasant place to be if you were a Democrat. Sure, the atmosphere was fun—balloons, Coke, crowds, and conference calls with political operatives, and so forth—but during a night when the Senate was supposed to flip solidly to the GOP, the result was even more decisive than anticipated.
Though the Harvard Republicans occupied a couple of booths at most—and maybe were one eighth of the attendees—they cheered as loudly as the Dems, which was oddly symbolic of political discourse at Harvard. And they had plenty to cheer about. How did Kay Hagan, a popular Democrat, lose to Thom Tillis in North Carolina? Who’s Larry Hogan, and how’d he win the governorship of deep-blue Maryland? Who, on earth, is Scott Milne, and how’d he come out of nowhere to force the gubernatorial race in progressive Vermont into a runoff of sorts? And, by the way, so much for Colorado being a blue state.
What's So Great About Charlie Baker?
On Monday, the Boston Globe endorsed moderate Republican Charlie Baker for governor, and, like many Globe readers, my first thought was something along the lines of, “What the hell?”
The last time the Hub’s paper endorsed a Republican for governor I wasn’t old enough to talk. It was 1994, and Bill Weld, an old-line "New England Republican," got the nod against Democrat Mark Roosevelt. On close elections, the paper splits left, even to the left of the state’s liberal populace: the Globe endorsed firebrand Elizabeth Warren in 2012, Shannon O’Brien against Romney in 2002, and Deval Patrick against Baker in another close race eight years ago.
In Defense of Thinking
President Obama may be smart and honest, but he’s also indecisive, controlling, weak-principled, and, frankly, a bit paranoid. At least that’s what former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta—and much of the nation’s top military brass—would have us believe.
In a memoir released last week, titled “Worthy Fights,” Panetta criticizes the commander-in-chief for flip-flopping on Syria—imposing a “red line” on the use of chemical weapons by President Bashar al-Assad, then backing down when the dictator dropped chlorine on his own people. He blames the rise of the Islamic State on Obama’s failure to convince Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to allow a residual American military force to remain in the country. He feels betrayed by the president’s reluctance to defend the Pentagon from across-the-board budget cuts imposed by Congress.
Chamber of Secrets
The ad begins ominously.
Under an overcast, evening sky we see the silhouette of the Capitol. “Senators are supposed to be a check and balance on the White House,” a woman’s voice says in a stern tone. The screen cuts to a still frame of Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, who’s running against Republican challenger Scott Brown. Her skin and clothing are colored black, white, and grey, with her left eyebrow raised, as if she were a creepy Tim Burton character.
The Israel Divide
It’s a universally accepted truism that young people tend to be liberal, and the generations above them conservative.
Divest from fossil fuels, boycott Doubletree, open Hillel, occupy Harvard. We’re certainly emblematic of the stereotype, and polls everywhere reaffirm what we already suspect. Gen Y and Millennials like liberal things—like gay marriage, legal weed, and the welfare net—while the middle-aged and the elderly dislike all of them.