Politics
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It’s a Mistake for Democratic Candidates to Distance Themselves From Obama
Less than one week before the midterm elections, President Barack Obama has, in many parts of the country, become the man who wasn’t there. Swing-state Democrats are afraid to mention his name in public, and consultants are cringing over interviews in which Obama has proclaimed that the upcoming election represents a referendum on his administration’s…
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Young Midterm-Election Voters Will Likely Vote for Republicans
Not so fast, Democrats. You don’t have young voters in the bag. A new Harvard University poll reveals that slightly more than half of young Americans (ages 18-29) who say they’ll definitely be voting in the upcoming midterm elections are planning to vote red. That’s right—for the Republicans. “The new survey, released Wednesday, found a preference for Republican…
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6 Reasons Down-Ballot Races Are Just as Important as the Top of the Ticket
Oh, OK. You’re not too concerned about the upcoming midterm elections on Nov. 4. You don’t mind sitting this cycle out because you’ve convinced yourself that presidential elections are what matters the most. Think again. In addition to a slate of U.S. Senate races that could determine which party controls Congress for the next two…
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Newark’s Mayor Meets One-on-One With Gangs to Forge Peace
With his first-100-days marker past, Newark, N.J.’s new mayor, Ras Baraka, is trying a variety of actions to keep crime down in his bullet-riddled city. And variety means not just within the range of conventional, public-official thinking: Last week he had a secret meeting with gang leaders in a city church, with inside security provided…
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Dems and Some GOPers Condemn Nebraska Willie Horton Redux Ad
A political ad aired by the National Republican Congressional Committee is being called out by many as racist. The ad, which has political circles buzzing and has gone viral, with more than 150,000 views on YouTube, has political observers pointing out that it’s effectively a duplicate of the infamous Willie Horton spot from 1988. That ad was…
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Do You Know Who’s Running for District Attorney? Here’s Why You Should
It’s bad enough only 15 percent of us will be passing through the polling station for one of the most important elections of our time. You can imagine that barely a slice of voters know or care about the local prosecutor running for office. And yet that position commands as much control over our daily…
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Feds Loosen Financial Requirements for PLUS Loan Applications
Big changes are on the way for the Federal Direct PLUS Loan Program (Parent Loan for Undergraduate Students): The U.S. Department of Education is loosening rules for eligibility in a move targeted at making it easier for parents and students to pay for a college education. On Wednesday the department announced and published the final…
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Hispanic Voters: GOP Candidates Running for House Seats Don’t Need You
With all the talk about how Hispanics will be the majority ethnic group in the U.S. in the near future, and all the studies that have, as a result, examined the political and economic power that they will wield, it’s surprising to hear that Republican candidates running for congressional seats don’t need a single Latino vote to be victorious in…
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Democratic Candidates Must Work Harder to Lock in Black Voters
It’s hard not to see this coming. Democrats will be popping Tylenols in bed the morning of Nov. 5—only hours after election-night returns stream in. And once political junkies sort out the scorched earth, some will point not only to the absence of usually reliable, Democratic-leaning black voters at the polls but also to the…
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Watch: Obama Warns Against ‘Hysteria’ and 'Fear’ in Ebola Battle
In an effort to tamp down fear about the spread of Ebola in the U.S., President Barack Obama on Saturday urged Americans not to give in to hysteria or fear. “This is a serious disease, but we can’t give in to hysteria or fear—because that only makes it harder to get people the accurate information…