obama

Hope and change mean something different to me now than they did in 2009.

Vinson Cunningham’s debut novel focuses on a campaign staffer’s indeterminate views, using them to shed light on the rise of a political star.

Robinson's essays are sometimes tedious. Yet they provide glimpses of the capacious faith undergirding her novels.

How did an Afro-pessimist who doesn't believe in hope become the darling of white liberals?

Chuck Todd may be right: Obama doesn’t like the National Prayer Breakfast, so he uses his speech to stir up trouble there. I don’t like it either. But it’s astonishing that this counts as trouble.

Conservative economist Greg Mankiw has pushed the idea before: raise the gas tax, and offset this by reducing payroll taxes. So has conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer, many times. He did it again last month.

President Obama's speech last night was a strange one. The administration's strategy of speaking out of both sides of its mouth on Syria continues. (This is a narrow, punitive mission...motivated by broad, humanitarian concerns such a mission won't really address.)

Stranger still was the fact that Obama gave the speech at all.

If you’re really into competing blueprints for the federal budget—and we both know you are—then it’s an exciting week. The president released his 2014 budget request today, and for the first time in many years there are White House, House and Senate budgets all on the table at the same time. There are also two other proposals, one from the House’s right wing and one from its left.

These great graphs from the Washington Post compare these five plans to one another and to current policy. Note than on the first metric, the ever-popular question of budget deficits, all five dip lower than current projections in just a couple years.

Recently I did something for the first time: I attended the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington DC. Held annually since 1953, the breakfast is sponsored by the Fellowship (sometimes called “the Family”), a shadowy organization with connections especially to conservative members of Congress.

I went with my crap detectors on high alert.

Obama embraces both the idealistic and realistic poles of Christian action. He recognizes with Niebuhr that politics is inherently tragic.

The nation's changing racial and ethnic profile will bring political change. But we can also expect it to elicit fear and resistance.

While past attempts at big deals have failed, this time Obama has serious leverage: House Republicans loathe the fiscal cliff's policies.

The presidential election revealed that the “God gap” in electoral politics remains as large as ever—and is much larger than the gender gap that was often touted during the campaign. Mark Silk summarizes it:

Those who said they attend worship weekly preferred Mitt Romney by 20 points, 59-39. Those who said they attend less frequently went for Obama by 25 points. That compares to a male preference for Romney of seven points and a female preference for Obama of 11.

How fervently one practices one’s religion is—apart from race—still the best predictor of how one votes.

I wasn't planning to post a running commentary on the final debate, since I don't follow foreign policy half as closely as the domestic stuff. But judging from the candidates' dodges and pivots last night, neither do they. So here I am. 

What does "middle class" mean if it somehow applies to most of the country? And if we are all middle class now, what are the implications?

The fear is palpable. The Obama supporters feel that a Romney presidency will completely erode our safety net, so that only the rich will survive. Women feel like any gains that they have eked out in society for the last few decades will be taken away completely. The Romney supporters think that we need to get someone in there who knows about business, or else our economy will collapse. They worry about the looming deficit and an oversized government, so they want Romney to make the tough decisions.

I didn't post anything during the presidential debate last night, because I watched it without the benefit of an internet connection. Also because bona fide live-blogging can be seriously annoying to read. But if you want it in digest form, here's how I reacted in front of the TV.