By Jeff Smith, on Fri Nov 18, 2011 at 8:30 AM ET  The 51 percent approval is definitely problematic. But remember that while the president’s struggles have been dissected in every way possible for the past three years, the inept Republican presidential field has yet to lay a glove on Mitt Romney. Democrats are likely to ensure that he is unrecognizable a year from now.
There are a lot of angry unemployed people in the country who blame the president for their plight, but it may be hard for Republicans to rally swing voters around that sentiment, given the fact that the economy wasn’t exactly humming along when the president took office.
Conversely, there are thousands more who, after being laid off by the profit-hungry Bain Capital machine, blame Mitt Romney. Their sentiments are, I think, more likely to move voters; I suspect that many of their heartbreaking stories will emerge.
By RP Staff, on Wed Nov 16, 2011 at 8:30 AM ET Our own contributing RP, Jeff Smith, once again is hitting the international public airwaves, the subject of a lengthy interview on National Public Radio on his jail experience and recovery.
Click here to listen.
By Krystal Ball, on Tue Nov 8, 2011 at 8:30 AM ET I have never held political office.
Like most young women of my generation, running for office was something I never pictured myself doing. I tended to think of politicians as coming from two different-and unappealing groups-extreme partisans and opportunists.
But when I decided to run for US Congress in early 2009, shortly after my daughter was born and in the throws of the idealism and hope that President Obama’s inauguration represented, I realized that things are the way they are in this country in large part because people like me, young mothers, young women struggling to make careers and find their way in the world, don’t participate very much in the political process.
We tend not to run for office. We feel in fact virtually excluded from the national political conversation. And I felt, and still feel, that the absence of the voices of women generally, and young women in particular, was hurting us as a country.
So, even though I felt absolutely 100% terrified about the whole process, I threw my hat in the ring and ran for US Congress. I thought that if I could overcome my shyness and insecurities and run for office, perhaps that would serve as an example for a few more young women to run and that those few more could serve as an example for more still until eventually thousands of young women, from all over the country, decided to participate in the political process and run for office at every level, and the higher the better. There’s no question in my mind that if this were to happen things in this country would really change.
Read the rest of…
Krystal Ball: Why We Need More Young Women in Politics
By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Oct 19, 2011 at 1:35 PM ET  Looking back on our lives, we are usually proudest of things we’ve done.
I’m perhaps proudest of something I stopped doing.
Although I rarely mention it, today is 26 years since I had my last drink of alcohol. It was an awfully good decision.
And I mention today because maybe some young person who is where I was 26 years ago will reach out for help. I’m glad I did. And grateful help was there….and more help is available today than ever before.
I won’t comment more on this but if anyone wants to message me personally, I’m happy to try to help.
(To send a confidential message to John, you can send an email to JYB3@TheRecoveringPolitician.com. That will go directly to John’s personal account.)
By Jeff Smith, on Tue Oct 18, 2011 at 8:30 AM ET  Jeff Smith Read the polling. It’s more suicidal for the Republicans to kill it than it is for the Democrats to push it. Let Republicans spend the next year defending those who earn over a million a year. Not a good look.
(Cross-posted, with permission of the author, from Politico’s Arena)
By Zack Adams, RP Staff, on Wed Oct 5, 2011 at 12:30 PM ET If he’s ever going to be president, now’s the time. He doesn’t have to look very far for two case studies: Newt Gingrich and Barack Obama.
The former missed his chance to strike while the iron was hot, passing up a race in 1996 when he likely could’ve taken the nomination from the laconic Bob Dole.
The latter went back on his pledge not to run in 2008 because he understood how quickly and ruthlessly media churns through its sensations. You can only be Bieber for a while (although if you have any actual talent or savvy you may be able to reemerge a decade later a la Timberlake).
I don’t think Christie will have the opportunity to re-emerge in four years, though; my sense (as a recent transplant to Jersey) is that he will not be reelected here. All of the adulation of the national conservative intelligentsia doesn’t seem to have affected folks here; indeed, I’ve heard a few call him too big for his britches (not sure if pun was intended).
And so while he could pull a Romney, quit the governorship w/o contesting re-election, and begin running for the 2016 nomination in the last year of his term, I wouldn’t advise it. You can’t catch lightning in a bottle twice.
(Cross-posted, with permission from the author, from Politico’s Arena)
By Artur Davis, on Tue Oct 4, 2011 at 8:30 AM ET  Last weekend, a horde of dignitaries and operatives gathered in Little Rock to mark the twentieth anniversary of Bill Clinton’s entry into the 1992 presidential race. The affair, which in substance and tone easily could have been dubbed “the Making of the Last Successful President”, will contribute to the wave of Clinton nostalgia that is alive in the Democratic Party. And well it should: the Clinton saga is one of triumph on multiple levels, from a victory that broke the Republican hold on the electoral college map, to a presidency that recharged the economy, balanced the budget, faced down Serbian genocide, and ended with a 65% approval rating.
All of this is still sensitive, touchy territory in some Democratic circles. The left of the party has not forgiven the deregulation of Wall Street or the retreat on health-care reform that happened on Clinton’s watch; Rachel Maddow’s jibe that Clinton was “the last great Republican president” resonated with the ideological rivals in his own party that Clinton thrashed but left embittered. And then there is the Barack Obama/Bill Clinton interpersonal dynamic, a dance laced with ambiguity, the mutual wariness of two self-made men with a strong sense of their own gifts. Sometimes, the tension spills into plain view. Clintonistas recall the pointed barbs—candidate Obama’s unfavorable comparisons of the “transformative” powers of the Reagan and Clinton presidencies—and the more subtle intimations. If you saw the glare in Obama’s eyes when Clinton stole the show at their White House press avail last December, you know what I mean.
 How this story ends is indeterminate, and even when the political book is closed, historians will still pick over the bones. But it is undeniable that Obama’s presidency is at its lowest ebb, stymied in Congress and stuck around 40 percent in the polls. It is worthwhile, therefore, to reflect on exactly how Clinton wore down a Republican opposition that was as fierce and contemptuous as anything Obama has faced, and how he regained the center of the debate both substantively and politically—two events that have heretofore eluded his Democratic successor.
I have a theory that the most discernible distinction in the Clinton and Obama mode of leadership is rooted in their respective paths to the presidency. Clinton rose to power in Arkansas, a conservative state trending toward Republicans, and his survival depended on convincing a trove of Reagan and Nixon voters that he was neither the spend-thrift nor the permissive cultural elitist that they generally believed national Democrats to be. Obama climbed the ranks in Illinois, a state with a progressive tradition moving inexorably toward Democrats, and his ascension required him, principally, to win over liberal leaning primary voters. Clinton, on one hand, lost a statewide race to Republicans, and came uncomfortably close to losing another in his last campaign in Arkansas. Obama, in turn, lost one intra-party primary that nearly wrecked his career but was not even grazed in winning a laugher over a hapless Republican in 2004.
Read the rest of…
Artur Davis: What Bill Clinton Left Behind
By Jonathan Miller, on Mon Oct 3, 2011 at 12:00 PM ET
New Year’s Resolutions?
This week, Jews all over the world commemorate the Days of Awe, a ten day period which begins on Rosh Hashanah (literally, “head of the year”) and culminates in Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.
These ten days are always very special to me and remind me why I so appreciate my religion. While there are some important communal celebrations, the High Holy Days are primarily a time for personal reflection, reassessment and introspection: What do we regret about our actions in the past year? Whom have we hurt or offended? How have we failed to honor our responsibilities to our faith, and to love our neighbors as ourselves?
Most significantly, it is a time to chart a more righteous path for the coming year. Unlike the secular New Year, in which some of us make resolutions to lose weight, exercise more, or strive for a promotion; for the Jewish New Year, we try to self-analyze and figure out how we can better honor God, family and friends. We also try apologize and seek forgiveness for our own mistakes, while promising to do better in the months ahead.
As a recovering politician (6 months, clean and sober!), I have a lot of atoning to do. So in the spirit of the season — and of my website, which gives me and two dozen other former politicians an opportunity to recover by writing candidly about the system and the issues of the day — I offer my own half-Letterman list of New Year’s resolutions:
Read the rest of…
The RP: New Year’s Resolutions from a Recovering Politician
By Zack Adams, RP Staff, on Mon Sep 26, 2011 at 12:00 PM ET God bless him. I’m not sure anyone could control that bunch. But he’s definitely not the guy to do it – all lobbied up, consummate dealcutting insider, the cigars, slick suits, and golf outings…he’s about as temperamentally unsuited to manage the new teapublicans as anybody in the caucus since Chris Shays left.
(Cross-posted, with permission from the author, from Politico’s Arena)
By Stephanie Doctrow, RP Staff, on Wed Sep 7, 2011 at 1:30 PM ET Catch up on coverage of the Texas wildfires that are driving Austin residents out of their homes. [CNN]
How could punishing 19 men and boys for the gang rape of an 11-year-old girl be the subject of dispute? [GQ]
A sign that our political system needs a major overhaul: former mayor Rudy Giuliani will throw his hat into the presidential ring “if things get desperate.” [NY Magazine]
But there is some good news. The economic downturn isn’t as bad as we think it is, for once. [The Atlantic]
Check out this beautiful photo essay that documents the Twin Towers and their absence in the New York City skyline over more than 30 years. [Time]
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The 51 percent approval is definitely problematic. But remember that while the president’s struggles have been dissected in every way possible for the past three years, the inept Republican presidential field has yet to lay a glove on Mitt Romney. Democrats are likely to ensure that he is unrecognizable a year from now.
