Sometimes the media gets so used to reading between the lines, that they forget to look at the meaning of the text. A case in point is the role that Vice President Biden will play in the upcoming Obama Administration.
I’ve heard frequent speculation on the role that Biden will play. The New York [...]

I’ve previously written about the three basic different theories of fiscal policy: Keynesian, neo-classical (or fiscal conservative), and supply side. As the country debates the massive fiscal stimulus package that President-Elect Obama out-lined yesterday, it’s worth remembering the distinctions between these three theories, and what they each proscribe to get out of our [...]

I have to say that I was a little bit surprised by Hillary Clinton’s name coming up for Secretary of State. In particular, she’s never shown a particular interest in diplomacy or foreign policy. Her work in the Senate has mostly focused on health care, “women’s issues”, and homeland security and emergency preparedness, [...]

The latest fad criticism of Obama is that he is somehow reneging on his promise of change by hiring ex-Clinton officials. The two most high profile people that Obama has picked thus far, his Chief of Staff and Attorney General, both worked in the Clinton White House, and he is even reportedly considering the [...]

Life is about to get really interesting in the Senate. Right now, the chairs of three of the most powerful committees in the Senate are either stepping down, or about to. Joe Biden (Foreign Relations) is becoming Vice President, Robert Byrd (Appropriations) is stepping down from his committee chair for health reasons, and [...]

When I heard McCain label Obama a socialist in the recent campaign, I scoffed at the notion. Sure, Obama was liberal, but he wasn’t in favor of government ownership of the means of production. Or, to the extent that Obama showed socialist tendencies in the financial sector with his support of the bailout, [...]

A debate is raging right now among Democrats about whether or not to punish Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) because he supported McCain, spoke at the RNC, attacked Obama, and campaigned for a number of Republicans (including Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN), currently involved in a mandatory recount in one of the closest elections of the year). [...]

I might get into the Obama transition tea leaf reading some other time, but for now the Republican Governor’s Convention has my attention. Specifically, I’m intrigued (albeit pessimistic) about the GOP’s ability to remake itself into an open, inclusive party. As I said before, I think the country would be better off if [...]

The long campaign season showed the country a surprisingly divided GOP. Now that they are a minority party–and continuing to slip–it’s time for the GOP leadership to figure out how to proceed. Here are the options:

On nytimes.com right now, they have an interactive feature which compares the 2004 map to the 2008 map–breaking down by county the change in vote from one to the other. I find those two maps fascinating. In particular, here is a list of places where McCain outperformed Bush (or alternatively, where Kerry beat [...]