...and Newt Gingrich reveal just one of the numerous aspects of political consultants’ strategy: namely, negative advertising. These “Made in the USA” manufacturers also operate far from home, and their track record is no ode to democratic “American” values. American political consultants have learned what corporate America learned thirty years ago: there are lucrative opportunities for growth offshore. During the off years in American elections, co...
photo from Wikimedia Commons It was March 2011 and the Egyptian military had assumed executive power in what was dubbed a democratic transition. As I stood next to a military tank, I saw slogans such as “the people and the army are one hand” and believed that military rule was the best alternative to Mubarak. The tanks indicated the military’s role as protector during the transition to democracy, but the military’s actions since have amounted t...
Illustration by Ilana Schulder As his first term approached its end, Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou of the Kuomintang Party (KMT) was pitted against Tsai Ing-wen, a member of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the first female presidential candidate in Taiwan. The January election, restoring incumbent Ma as president, captured international attention as many anticipated a resulting shift in the precarious relationship between Taiwan a...
...need to win over the majority of Hispanics, but to remain competitive nationally in the coming decades, it will need to prevent the Hispanic voting bloc from going the route of the Black voting bloc (i.e., nearly 100 percent Democratic in any given election). Romney likewise adopted the party policies of opposing gay marriage and abortion (although he differed from the official party platform in that he argued for exceptions for abortion in the...
Columbia Political Review: You got a lot of props for brokering Andrew Cuomo’s withdrawal from the Democratic gubernatorial primary and saving face for the Democratic party. What would have happened to New York’s Democratic party if Cuomo had not withdrawn? Congressman Charles Rangel: All I know is that we got the support of the Kennedys, the Clintons, and the Cuomos and we’re moving ahead. We’re moving ahead, we’re closing the gap, and everythi...
...ession and social misery shared by the Arab majority. This shared consciousness has galvanized uprisings that demand the end of state tyranny and the introduction of transparent, open democracy (though perhaps not the liberal democratic model used in the West). Neo-Arabism is certainly not a codified dogma or theory, nor should it be—the Arabs have only seen such ideas betray them. Rather, neo-Arabism represents a renewed confidence among the Ar...
...small and conservative enclaves typically dismissed by Democrats focusing on Ohio’s liberal base. Come Election Day, the tactic would prove effective after all; reaching out to towns that had been off the map for the national Democratic Party for years invigorated Democratic campaigns across the country. Democrats retook Congress with a gain of six seats in the Senate and thirty in the House, while picking up six governorships. Pundits have seize...
...lly good for? Those questions may well have important political implications. Advocates for robust national service sense that the issue could turn out to be politically fruitful for Bush’s opponent in 2004—and several of the Democratic candidates seem to agree. After twenty years of efforts to forge a true national service movement, proponents see in next year’s election the potential for a much more expansive discussion of what service and citi...
After a summer of intense partisan political protests and a series of bold, left-leaning initiatives pushed by the new president, it comes as no surprise that conservatism has united to gain traction in recent months. With a Democratic majority in the House and the Senate, it may be a surprise then that a June 2009 Gallup Poll showed that conservatives are currently the single largest ideological group in the United States: with 40 percent of th...
Wikimedia Commons Most American young adults have grown up with at least a vague sense of disillusionment towards the democratic voting processes. Since the historically low voter turnout during the 1996 presidential election — during which less than 50 percent of the voting-age population participated — the collective attitude towards voting in elections has been one of frustration or sarcasm, that we are in some sense humoring American democ...
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