State-of-the-union speeches are supposed to be inspirational, and last night’s by President Obama achieved that goal. It certainly spoke to his Democratic base and evoked a vision of what those center and left-of-center want their country to be and do. The problem is that the President glided over the lessons of the 2011 annus horribilis …
Continue reading State-of-the-Union speech paints vision and ignores political realities
The Huntington Theatre’s God of Carnage is a hilarious deconstruction of sophisticated social interaction and marital relationships. Two urbane and successful New York couples get together in the wake of a playground incident in which one couple’s son has hit the other couple’s son with a stick and knocked out two of his teeth. Their …
Continue reading "God of Carnage" gets at dirty little secrets
Boston Mayor Tom Menino’s 19th state-of-the-city speech last night was a welcome relief from the nasty partisanship and overheated rhetoric of the national political scene. Locally, Boston’s unemployment rate is 5.7 percent, two points lower than last year. Menino noted that the Innovation District he created in the Seaport area is bringing jobs to the …
Senate candidates Elizabeth Warren and Scott Brown are adopting a statesman-like posture in calling for the elimination of campaign ads paid for by outside groups. Each candidate, in doing so, can boast of support for a better, less distorted political process, one from which we would all benefit. But their recent exchange of letters and …
Continue reading Warren, Brown seek the impossible in the ad game
Mitt Romney should “get a grip” in considering how punitive the United States should be in responding to China’s often unfair (but enormously successful) industrial policy. So said former US Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky after speaking to a crowd of more than 700 executives and professionals at The Boston Club’s Corporate Salute on Thursday. Barshefsky, …
Continue reading Chest thumping on China gives insight into GOP candidates
By the numbers, Mitt Romney can’t have the GOP Presidential nomination wrapped up until late April. By then he could have aggregated enough of the 1144 delegates needed to win next summer’s convention to take off some time and go boating on Lake Winnipesauke. To date, only 40 delegates have been chosen, two percent of …
So, Joe Kennedy III appears poised to return his famous family to political office. His father, Joe, was a Congressman from the 8th congressional district, that seat famously held by his uncle Jack before he became President. Young Joe has resigned from his post in the Middlesex District Attorney’s office and set up an exploratory …
Continue reading Kennedys return, this time to 4th congressional district
New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary is supposed to be retail politics at its most pure. The idea is that the candidates meet people from all walks of life, in every conceivable kind of setting, and the people make up their minds based on personal, elemental information gathering. At least, that’s the history and the theory.Which is …
Continue reading Voting with polls is the tail wagging the dog
Thank goodness for the Presidential race filling the vacuum created by a New England Patriots bye week. Waiting until 2:30 in the morning for Romney’s 8 point Iowa caucus margin of victory was a bit much however. Iowa starts the winnowing process. Minnesota Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann, despite having won last summer’s Iowa GOP fundraiser/straw poll …
Continue reading Eight-vote landslide boosts Romney’s front-runner status
My friend and colleague Tom Waseleski, editorial page editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, always prepares for New Year’s Day an aspirational list of headlines from which many of us could benefit. Here, with my own imprint, are the headlines I’d like to see in 2012.National Jobless Rate Drops Below 7 PercentThose Benefiting from New Health …
