CUNY Academic Commons

It is a truth universally acknowledged that, in the GOP primary, no truths last long enough to actually merit universal acknowledgement. The same might be said of the ascending front-runner Newt Gingrich. Conventional wisdom says he may indeed win the round of musical chairs that will determine the Romney alternative. Even Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight cautiously […]

Ironically for anyone who remembers the 90’s, Newt Gingrich seems poised to play the role held in 2008 by his nemesis, Hillary Clinton. After Iowa, the 2008 race was turned on its head, turning the establishment candidate into the scrappy underdog, and the young upstart into the favorite of both the elites and much of […]

The supercommittee’s impending failure is a golden opportunity for Obama to reposition himself for the 2012 campaign. For the past three years, the sharpest criticisms of Obama’s presidency have focused on his apparently overly optimistic commitment to bipartisan cooperation. The narrative of “Obama as chump” snowballed as he preemptively eliminating a public option from the health-care negotiations, and […]

Anyone attempting to prognosticate about the 2012 elections should be watching a vote that combines the pre-election season’s holy trinity: Ohio, Occupy Wall Street and big corporate money. On Tuesday, the voters of our most heart-stopping heart-shaped state will vote on repealing Ohio’s Senate Bill 5, a signature piece of Koch-funded public-union-busting legislation.  One standout […]

Bill Clinton, the ultimate celebrity president.  How fondly we recall the late-night sax solos, the roguish grin, the rope lines. No surprise, therefore, that Clinton is so at ease in a recent video celebrating the ten-year anniversary of the Clinton Foundation. The video stars a hapless bunch of celebrity strategists for the Foundation, including Matt Damon, […]

“I’m gonna do this! I’m going to run for the United States Senate.” Elizabeth Warren’s Senate campaign announcement swept over RSS feeds like a hosanna from desperate progressives – redeem us, plainspoken one! She has no disappointed, for within several weeks of her announcement, a quote from one of Warren’s campaign events has made the […]

The Obama administration has struggled to position itself during the Arab Spring and its aftermath. Some would say we waited too long to voice our support for the Egyptian protestors. Even more people would say our support for the Bahraini government during that country’s protest period transparently revealed the U.S.’s protection of our economic and […]

Election Weekend, 2008. A horde of college students descended upon my parents’ home in Cleveland, for 48 hours of canvasses, rallies, and all-around “Yes We Can”-ing.  We had Shabbat dinner for 20, climbed over sleeping bags sprawled in every direction of our living room and basement, knocked on doors in the Kinsman projects as a […]