BY B. JAY COOPER
MAR 30 | Reprinted from The Screaming Moderate (bjaycooper.com)

Thirty-five years ago today, Ronald Reagan was the victim of an assassination attempt, fewer than three months into his first term in office. Thirty-five years ago today I was working my first day as a political appointee in the Reagan Administration, as a public affairs staffer over at the Commerce Department, led by Secretary Malcolm Baldrige.

I can’t say I recall every minute of that first day for me, as Imy memory is overtaken by the attempt on the President and the effects of that on the country and the world. I imagine I spent most of the morning filling out paperwork as a new employee of the government. Which would mean that, after lunch, I was in my first hours of actual work, or learning what it was I was supposed to be doing, when we got the news that President Reagan had been shot. It was a memorable day on many levels. Continue reading →

BY MICKEY EDWARDS  |  MAR 26

Originally published in Politico.com

Donald Trump is likely on the verge of losing the Republican primary, falling short of the number of delegates required to win the presidential nomination. But, as bullies are wont to do, Trump is now trying desperately to change the rules—to argue that the nomination should go not to the candidate who wins 1,237 delegates but to whoever comes closest.

What’s wrong with that argument? Electing a U.S. president is not a schoolyard game, where goalposts change when bullies whine. There’s a reason a candidate has to make it to 1,237 votes to win the nomination. Each party’s goal is to put forth a nominee whom the party’s members, represented by their elected delegates, believe will best reflect the party’s collective judgment—a determination possible only when the level of support is clear and convincing. That’s why both parties set a benchmark, the political equivalent of the tape at the finishing line of a race, sufficient to establish the party’s preference. In a hundred-yard dash, a runner who beats the others but who can only manage 95 yards doesn’t go home with a medal. Continue reading →

BY B. JAY COOPER
MAR 22 | Reprinted from The Screaming Moderate (bjaycooper.com)

Donald Trump’s tour of Washington, D.C., yesterday – ed board at the Washington Post, speech at a major Jewish organization, press conference at a hotel he’s building – showed different facets of Donald Trump, Marketing Genius.

I watched his speech, I read about his press conference and I read the transcript of his interview at the Post. What those events demonstrated to me is that Donald Trump is the exact opposite of what he claims to be. He says he’s not a politician but he certainly is, in the worst, cynical sense. Continue reading →

BY RICH GALEN
MAR 14 | Reprinted from Mullings.com

Elite Washington is totally consumed by the political events over the past week. From Donald Trump cancelling a large rally in Chicago on security grounds, to video of a White (assumedly) Trump supporter cold-cocking a Black protester being led out of another rally, to Trump’s campaign manager Cory Lewandowski allegedly grabbing and shoving to the ground a female reporter for Breitbart.com, Michelle Fields.

In all of that there was no mention of anyone else. Especially not anyone else named Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, or John Kasich. Continue reading →

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON  |  MAR 8

Almost every day you can view in HD the emaciated bodies of frightened, starving children crying for help, trapped inside the bombed out rubble of entire neighborhoods and cities all across Syria.

You can look into the angry and horrified faces of refugees along the closing border of Greece and Macedonia, tugging their children along, looking for human salvation, many of them the relatives of those whose bodies have floated up on the Mediterranean beach having not survived the desperate trip across the sea.

You are left aghast at the grotesque, genocidal inhumanity of man all across the Middle East and North Africa where terrorist extremists massacre innocent women and children, without a hint of remorse. Continue reading →

BY FRANK HILL
MAR 5 | Reprinted from TelemachusLeaps.com

‘It’s morning again in America. Today more men and women will go to work than ever before in our country’s history. With interest rates at about half the record highs of 1980, nearly 2,000 families today will buy new homes, more than at any time in the past four years. This afternoon 6,500 young men and women will be married, and with inflation at less than half of what it was just four years ago, they can look forward with confidence to the future. It’s morning again in America, and under the leadership of President Reagan, our country is prouder and stronger and better. Why would we ever want to return to where we were less than four short years ago?’

So goes the text of one of the most successful political ads in American history, ‘Morning in America,’ which was the theme of the 1984 presidential campaign of incumbent President Ronald Reagan asking the American people for a second term. Continue reading →

BY JOHN FEEHERY
MAR 4  |  Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

“One clear loser in Thursday’s debate: the Grand Old Party,” blared The Washington Post.

“Welcome to the GOP civil war,” Politico chimed in.

“A Heated Debate Along a Growing Republican Divide,” agreed the New York Times.

Does Donald Trump really represent an existential threat to the future of the GOP?

I don’t think so. Continue reading →

BY RICH GALEN
MAR 4 | Reprinted from Mullings.com

I’ve been involved with politics since I was in college which is a long, long time ago. I have never been through a day like today.

I am including in that election day (and night) 2000 when Bush won Florida, then Florida was too close to call, then we descended into the nightmare of the recount – a process that didn’t end until December 12, 2000.

I covered local politics as the news director of WMOA Radio (1490 on your AM dial in Marietta, Ohio 45750). I ran for City Council twice. Lost by two votes the first time, but won in a walk the second time when the Mullings Director of Standards and Practices ran my campaign. Continue reading →

BY RICH GALEN
MAR 2 | Reprinted from Mullings.com

A lot that happens in American politics is like Earnings Week on Wall Street: It’s not how you do, it’s how you do in relation to what you were expected to do.

Example: If you have a company that reports earnings per share of $1.15 and the Street predicted you would do $1.13 you’re a big winner. But, if the Street’s prediction was $1.17 per share, that same $1.15 is seen as a failure.

Last night Clinton and Trump did very well. They each won seven of the 11 states. By any measure that is a huge night.

Except it wasn’t because – at least on the GOP side – Donald Trump was expected to win 10 of the 11 races. Ted Cruz was expected to win his home state of Texas, and he did. Continue reading →

BY RICH GALEN
FEB 24 | Reprinted from Mullings.com

One of the things you learn when doing communications and messaging for a political campaign is: Find something good to say.

If a poll shows your candidate is in 9th place 276 percentage points behind the guy in 8th place, you say, “Our internals indicate our message is just beginning to break through, so we take great heart in these excellent numbers.”

Then you go to confession. Even if you’re Jewish. Continue reading →

BY JOHN FEEHERY
FEB 23  |  Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Nobody trusts Ted Cruz.

And since trusting Ted Cruz is one of his major campaign themes, that’s a major problem.

Cruz is a smart guy. Just ask him.

He must look at the Supreme Court vacancy left by Antonin Scalia and wonder where it all went wrong for him.

He was aiming for the wrong job all along.

I’m not saying that Cruz would get confirmed by the United States Senate should he cut a deal with Marco Rubio to drop out of the race and then get named by President Rubio to fill the Scalia vacancy, because I don’t think that’s possible. Continue reading →

BY B. JAY COOPER
FEB 22 | Reprinted from The Screaming Moderate (bjaycooper.com)

Here goes: I’ve been wrong.

I never believed (still don’t or maybe better put can’t) that Donald Trump would be the Republican candidate for president. The facts are the facts though – he may be.

The stars have aligned: voters are angry with the way things are and Trump, who will say anything about anyone or anything and feel no qualms about it because he can say the opposite a minute later, channels that anger. The GOP field has stayed big for too long and his 30 to 35 percent of the GOP primary base has been more than sufficient to win New Hampshire and South Carolina. He attacked and attacked his previous biggest target – Jeb Bush – and Jeb now is gone. The remaining GOP candidates don’t have anywhere near Trump’s hooooge personality or mouth so who will take him down? Continue reading →

BY BOB WALKER
FEB 15  |  Reprinted from Facebook

On this day of celebrating the presidential leadership qualities of President Washington and President Lincoln, it is interesting to think about how they might fare in today’s political environment.

They were honest and trustworthy.

They were neither narcissistic nor vulgar.

They believed in the equality of opportunity, not the equality of outcome. Continue reading →

BY JOHN FEEHERY
FEB 11  |  Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

“We are all connected.”

Said John Kasich in the single most inspirational and evangelical political speech of the year.

The former Catholic altar boy turned Anglican has been the most faithful of Christian enthusiasts in the GOP primary race.

He is the one who is taking the most heat for being such a faithful Christian, not from the left but from the right.

He expanded Medicaid in his state for one stated purpose: He wanted to help the poor. Continue reading →

BY JOHN FEEHERY
FEB 3  |  Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

While the President announced his “moon shot” to cure cancer from the Speaker’s Rostrum overlooking the United States House of Representatives, he might as well been speaking from an alternative universe.

Don’t get me wrong. I think we need to invest a lot more in cancer research. I also think we need to invest more to cure Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.

Here is what the President said: Continue reading →

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON  |  JAN 29

“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”
― Abraham Lincoln

There is much that Lincoln said in his lifetime that we should all carry with us, but this quotation is particularly apt as we enter an election year. I say “enter” because not one single American has yet to cast a single vote for a single candidate for office even though the oracles and surveyors have already decided our fate. It’s Trump. No, it’s Cruz. No, Kasich is coming up on the inside rail in New Hampshire. Gotta be Rubio. Watch Christie. Bush is dead. “Donald Trump basks in growing sense of inevitability,” says Politico. My. My.

I read that crap and think back to what we learned from the experiences of Presidents Guiliani, Tsongas, Gingrich, Santorum, Hillary Clinton, and my favorite, Michele Bachmann. They all led in the polls. They all won key caucuses and primaries. And who remembers that loser Bill Clinton, who limped out of Iowa with less than 3 percent in ‘92? Continue reading →

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON  |  JAN 24

I’ve decided to enroll in the Sanctuarial University of Experiential Learning (SUEL). This SUEL campus is nestled among the Himalayan Mountains in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, just blocks from the Potala Palace, where the Dalai Lama once had his summer home.

Classes are not held on the campus, of course. If they were the learning wouldn’t be experiential now would it?

The actor Sean Penn first introduced me to experiential learning. He is well advanced in the methodology, already a practitioner of what he calls experiential journalism. Continue reading →

BY JOHN FEEHERY
JAN 21 |  Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Few people can rival Bob Dole in his service to America.

In April of 1945, Dole was severely wounded during World War II in the Italian Alps, and lost the use of his right arm. His recovery was long, slow and painful.

His orthopedic doctor was a survivor of the Armenian Genocide (and yes, to my Turkish friends, there was an Armenian Genocide) who dispensed this advice: focus not on what you have lost but what you have left. Continue reading →

BY JOHN FEEHERY
JAN 19 |  Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

On 17 October 1521, Pope Leo X declared King Henry VIII the Fidei Defensor or Defender of the Faith.

The Pope was more than a bit desperate. Martin Luther had posted his 95 theses on a church door in Wittenberg, Germany and the Catholic Church was in a world of hurt.

Henry was not exactly the poster child for the faithful little Catholic. He was a notorious womanizer and a murderer to boot. He would have his many wives executed once they failed in producing a male heir.

Donald Trump reminds me of Henry. Continue reading →

BY RICH GALEN
JAN 18 | Reprinted from Mullings.com

Why is Iowa important?

Because it is.

Same reason the Kardashians grace the cover of magazines at the supermarket checkout: They’re somebodies because they are.

In two weeks from today, Iowans – some Iowans, will go to someplace in their town or neighborhood, listen to speeches in favor of one candidate for President or another, and cast a vote for their favorite. Continue reading →