Paul Waldman
Paul Waldman is a weekly columnist and senior writer for The American Prospect. He also writes for the Plum Line blog at The Washington Post and The Week and is the author of Being Right is Not Enough: What Progressives Must Learn From Conservative Success.
Recent Articles
Woe is the American Worker
Workers are paying the price for our productivity-focused, growth-at- any-cost business world. Why aren't the candidates talking about it?
Paul WaldmanDec 05, 2007These are not good times for American workers. Real wages are lower today than they were before the recession of 2001, and barely higher than they were thirty-five years ago. Health insurance is more expensive and harder to obtain than ever before. Manufacturing jobs continue to move overseas. The unions whose efforts might arrest these trends continue to struggle under a sustained assault that began when Ronald Reagan fired striking air-traffic controllers in 1981, in effect declaring war on the labor movement. This is a story with which you are probably familiar. But these are in no small part symptoms of a larger transformation of the relationship between employers and employees, in which Americans increasingly sign away their humanity when they sign an employment contract. Let’s take just one component of today’s work environment that most people have simply come to accept: drug testing. An article published last year on Time magazine's web site titled, "Whatever...
WHAT WOULD JESUS DODGE?
Paul WaldmanNov 29, 2007To hear the press tell it, the best moment of last night's debate was when Mike Huckabee answered a question about whether Jesus would support the death penalty by saying, "Jesus was too smart to ever run for public office." Reporters were in awe. The Washington Post called it "the best line of the night.The Chicago Tribune said Huckabee hit the question "over the fence." It was the only quote from the debate Mara Liasson included in her NPR report. But what reporters didn't note is that Huckabee was dodging a direct question on the very area -- the intersection of religion and policy -- on which he is building his campaign . The man whose ads call him a "Christian Leader" and who says his faith "defines me" wouldn't answer a pretty simple question on how his faith affects his opinion on a policy issue. But the press stood up an applauded. So witty! So clever! Ah, that Mike Huckabee, what a lovable guy! And here's something else: is it possible Mike Huckabee isn't really so nice, but...
The Ideal Opponent
Who are our potential presidents hoping to run against in the general election? Here's a rundown of the front-runners' ideal match-ups.
And, on TAPPED, Dana Goldstein, Scott Lemieux, Kate Sheppard, and Rob Farley discuss match-ups.
We are, at long last, nearing the time when the two parties will be choosing their nominees, and more than one candidate is thinking about whom they'd most like to face in the general election. Fortunately for us political junkies, the races on both sides present a fascinating cast of characters, full of strengths and weaknesses. While some carry more of one than the other, there are no obvious losers among each party's leading contenders, none whose supporters seem destined to say, "How on earth did we nominate that joker?" (Although you never know what next fall may bring.) As I described in two earlier columns , successful presidential candidates weave compelling narratives around their candidacies. The most successful incorporate their opponents into those narrative as villains or goats, so that their stories paint the candidates as two sides of a finely etched coin, one strong and secure, inspiring and reassuring, the other twisted and ugly -- frightening or pathetic or both. So...
THAT'S ONE WAY TO SECURE THE BASE.
Paul WaldmanNov 27, 2007The Virginia Republican Party is serving voters that precious combination of desperation and authoritarian impulse for which the national GOP is becoming known: The Republican Party of Virginia wants voters in the Feb. 12 GOP presidential primary to sign a pledge that they will support the party's nominee. The state Board of Elections approved the request yesterday. Those who wish to cast a ballot in the Republican presidential primary will have to sign a statement that says, "I, the undersigned, pledge that I intend to support the nominee of the Republican Party for president." Here's another plan: the week before the election, we kidnap every child in the state, and tell voters that unless the Republicans win, they don't get their kids back! -- Paul Waldman
HE'S GOOD PEOPLE, THAT BERNIE.
Paul WaldmanNov 26, 2007Let's say you want to renovate your house, but you don't have the quarter million dollars it's going to cost lying around. What do you do? Get a home equity loan? Pshaw - that's for little people. Me, I get an Israeli billionaire defense contractor to give the money to a Brooklyn marble salesman, who then cuts me a check. That's what I do. Or at least that's what you do if you're Bernie Kerik . Lots of people probably missed this latest revelation in the saga of Kerik, Rudy Giuliani 's erstwhile right hand man, coming as it did over the holiday. But as the New York Times reported on Saturday, the money started with one Eitan Wertheimer , an Israeli industrialist "whose family’s vast holdings include companies with United States Defense Department contracts." Wertheimer gave the money to Shimon Cohen , described by the Times as "a marble and stone merchant who has been a friend of Mr. Kerik’s for several years." This all happened in 2003. Then two years ago, city...
