Ten Democratic senators recently issued an important call to action for Majority Leader Harry Reid to support efforts to get America's long-term fiscal imbalance under control. One can only hope Senator Reid listens.
Democrats in the liberal fiefdom Massachusetts are alarmed. In fact, they seem so alarmed it's hard to say whether they are concerned that they could lose the open seat bequeathed by Ted Kennedy, or they're just irritated the Republicans have made it an actual contest.
Today's young workers understand they are on their own when it comes to their retirement savings. In a recent poll, young adults (ages 18 to 25) predicted that 61 percent of their retirement income, on average, would need to come from personal savings. A startling 59 percent of young adults-higher than any other previous age group-assume they will be financially worse-off and less secure than prior generations.
Before the special election, I stated that Martha Coakley would emerge the victor by a mere few percentage points in Massachusetts, enough to leave the impression that no Democrat is "safe" in his or her seat for the midterms in November. Many of the Republicans I spoke with could not quite fathom the idea of Ted Kennedy's seat turning red. Some even rolled out half-baked conspiracy theories of the Service Employees International Union counting the votes or even--a la Minnesota--"discovering" ballots in the trunk of a car.
As with any bill jerked around for half a year in the democratic process and packed with side-deals, last week's momentous health care legislation has its perks and its flaws. There's still no public option, but recent college graduates will soon be able to ride their parents' insurance until they turn 27. Meanwhile, the pro-choice movement made no headway when it comes to a woman's right to have an abortion--if anything, they lost ground.
Are death threats and regularly broadcasted rage throwbacks to similar times in American history, or is it a new phenomenon that a quarter of the Republican party thinks our president is, without exaggeration, the Antichrist? I recently took a turn through Gallup's Presidential Approval Center to get some answers about how today's political and cultural climate truly differs from the past.
There is an interesting piece by Charles Krauthammer in today's Washington Post, in which he claims Tuesday's results blow the theory that the 2008 presidential election signaled the creation of a grand new ideological alignment.