The Booth
President Obama won the 2008 Democratic Primary and then two Presidential Elections. Thus began a decade of what became known as the Obama Coalition. There were multiple factors that impacted the results of the 2016 Presidential Election, one of which was the fact that neither Hillary Clinton nor Bernie Sanders could unite and energize the Obama Coalition. Donald Trump peeled off working families that had felt abandoned, enough to win a narrow victory in several key battleground states. Many Democrats like to say Clinton won the popular vote by 3 million votes as some sort of moral victory ...
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State of the Union 2018
President Trump did a good job delivering the State of the Union (SotU) last night. He appeared to stay on message, followed the script, and other than few excessive gestures seemed more like a leader than at any time in his presidency. The team that drafted the speech created an overall good speech that appealed to a center-right audience rather than the usual right-wing Breitbart and nativist audience. This could be the first sign of the administration trying to expand its base. I have watched every SotU for almost 45 years and written about them since the Reagan years. While ...
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Failure in Finland
President Trump flew to Finland to meet with Vladimir Putin. Meetings between the U.S. and Russia are always critical, and it is important to route for our President to be successful, regardless of how we voted and our views on policy. Putin will never publicly admit Russia’s interference in our election or why he favored Trump to win. However, it was essential on many levels for President Trump to aggressively challenge Putin on this and ensure he dissuades Russia from further such action. We also needed Trump to successfully assert U.S. interests concerning Russia’s invasion of Georgia, invasion of Ukraine, ...
Read More »War on Christmas?
Here we are in December. Christmas is right around the corner – the trees are decorated, the lights are strung, and the carols are playing. And if it is December, we are again hearing false claims of a “war on Christmas.” Put bluntly, it is a ludicrous notion. There is not a single person in our great and free country that is not able to celebrate Christmas (or any of the other seasonal holidays). Every family in the country is free to gather in their homes and churches, pray however they desire, sing carols at home or in the community, ...
Read More »Syria – No Action was No Option
President Trump ordered a military strike against three targets in Syria on April 14, 2018. The United Kingdom and France partnered in the strike, adding legitimacy to the decision as our European allies employ a much stricter standard for use of force and targeting decisions. The strike was in response to Bashar Assad’s most recent use of chemical weapons against his own people, dispensing chlorine gas, and possibly sarin gas, against innocent civilians who were just trying to go about their lives. Trump ordered a similar strike just about one year ago in response to a similar atrocity by Assad. ...
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