2016-election

He Really Said "Titties"

Gabrielle Bluestone · 08/08/16 12:48PM

Donald Trump has a big, bouncing beautiful set of economic plans—just see for yourself.

In His Own Words: Trump On "Violence, Hatred, Or Oppression"

Timothy Burke · 07/21/16 10:01PM

Tonight Donald Trump told the world that “Anyone who endorses violence, hatred or oppression is not welcome in our country and never will be.” Trump, of course, has never endorsed violence, hatred, or oppression—as you can see in the above video.

How Not to Beat Ted Cruz

Alex Pareene · 12/24/15 12:37PM

·The GOP establishment will probably learn to love Ted Cruz, a man every Republican in Washington currently hates, when and if they determine that they have no other options. (Marco Rubio isn’t just stagnant, but actually falling in recent national polls.) But they’ll fight him until they are absolutely sure they’re stuck with him. The opposition research has been coming at a furious pace. And so far, it’s a huge whiff.

Ted Cruz Was For Controversial Cartoons Before He Was Against Them

Jordan Sargent · 12/23/15 05:25PM

Are you up to date on the election’s newest micro-controversy? Yesterday, the Washington Post published a cartoon depicting Ted Cruz’s daughters as trained circus monkeys, a reference to a recent political ad released by his campaign that uses Cruz’s admittedly adorable tots as, arguably, props. Later that night, after widespread condemnation [citation needed], the Post decided to pull the cartoon, drawn by Pulitzer winner Ann Telnaes.

Marco Rubio Is Losing

Alex Pareene · 12/22/15 09:25AM

Is Senator Marco Rubio running for president? Is that a stupid question? After all, there he was on stage last week in Las Vegas, speaking more than any candidate besides Cruz (he beat Trump!). He was, according to FiveThirtyEight, the most-attacked Republican candidate, too, which usually indicates frontrunner status. Except Marco Rubio isn’t a frontrunner in any poll, in any primary state; his popularity remains primarily theoretical. Is he actually doing anything to change that?

Donald Trump's Putin Admiration Is Completely Within the Political Mainstream

Alex Pareene · 12/18/15 12:55PM

Donald Trump’s most important purely political skill (that is, one not directly related to his abilities as an entertainer and performer) is his ability to intuit what the great angry mass of movement conservatives wish their gutless leaders would say, and then say it. Other Republicans dogwhistle. Trump dispenses with coded language and simply says: We should deport all the illegals. We should ban all Muslim immigration. And now, on Vladimir Putin: “He’s running his country and at least he’s a leader, unlike what we have in this country.”

Hillary Clinton Again Invokes 9/11 to Explain Her Wall Street Fundraising

Alex Pareene · 12/01/15 01:57PM

At a Democratic presidential debate in Iowa last month, Hillary Clinton was challenged to account for the fact that a large proportion of her campaign fundraising haul has come from the financial sector. She responded with a non sequitur about 9/11. Asked to elaborate, she seemed to argue that her popularity in the finance sector is primarily a result of personal relationships developed in the aftermath of that tragedy in lower Manhattan.

Hillary Clinton Explains Why Wall Street Loves Her: 9/11

Alex Pareene · 11/14/15 11:18PM

It is a fact that Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, like her previous political campaigns, is funded in large part by donations from the finance industry. Bernie Sanders has criticized her for this—or, at least, he has pointed this out, critically. At tonight’s inconveniently scheduled Democratic debate on CBS, Sanders was asked to reiterate that criticism. Clinton’s response was, well, memorable.

Carson Campaign Emulates George Costanza After GOP Debate

Andy Cush · 11/11/15 12:21PM

In one of Seinfeld’s most memorable episodes, George spends the entire 30 minutes telling his friends about the great comeback he would have employed against an insulting coworker, if he’d thought of it at the time. At the end, he travels halfway across the country and painstakingly recreates the original situation just to tell the guy “The jerk store called, and they’re running out of you!” A sick burn that Ben Carson’s campaign almost landed on Donald Trump last night was kind of like that, too.

What Kind of Dog Is Each Presidential Candidate? 

Allie Jones · 11/06/15 03:45PM

There are only several hundred more days until the 2016 presidential election—have you picked your favorite candidate yet? No? Well, perhaps it would help to imagine each one of them, who are all so confident that they should be the next person to run this country into the ground, as a dog.

Jeb Bush Should Become a Democrat

Alex Pareene · 10/29/15 09:31AM

If Jeb Bush became a Democrat, I’m not saying he’d win the nomination, let alone the presidency, but he’d have a better shot at either than he currently does in the Republican Party.