Obama May Be an Aloof President By Michael Barone
Barack Obama and his family are vacationing in his native Hawaii, far from the wintry snows of Chicago -- and far from almost every other American politician.
Commentary by Michael Barone
Most Recent Releases
December 27, 2008
December 20, 2008
Expectations of Hope and Change By Michael Barone
A new generation is coming to the White House. Barack Obama, born in 1961, is technically a baby boomer. But his early years were straight out of Generation X -- abandoned by his father and, for a time, his mother; experimentation with drugs; a sense of drifting.
December 14, 2008
Chicago Politics Stains Obama By Michael Barone
I have not seen it recorded whether John F. Kennedy, after he was elected president in 1960, held conversations with Massachusetts Gov. Foster Furcolo as to who would be appointed to fill his seat in the Senate.
December 6, 2008
Message From Georgia: This Too Shall Pass By Michael Barone
The world doesn't stand still. Case in point: the Georgia runoff election last week made necessary because Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss failed, barely, to win an absolute majority on Nov. 4. In that contest, Chambliss led Democratic challenger Jim Martin by 3 percent. In the runoff, he won by 14.8 percent. Same candidates, very different result.
November 29, 2008
Managing Risk in an Unstable World By Michael Barone
How can we reduce risk for individuals? That's a natural question when a financial crisis has vaporized trillions of dollars of personal wealth in residential real estate and financial instruments.
November 22, 2008
The Limits of Success -- and Failure By Michael Barone
We Americans are blessed with a history that teaches that things work out right. Our first president set the precedent of relinquishing power he could have had for life and returning to his farm. Two of our greatest presidents were struck down, Abraham Lincoln by an assassin and Franklin Roosevelt by grave illness, at a moment of transcendent victory.
November 15, 2008
Detroit Automakers a Relic of the Past By Michael Barone
Barack Obama has noted, carefully and correctly, that we have only one president at a time. Yet on at least one issue he has taken the lead and nudged the man who will soon be his predecessor in a direction that he might not have taken without prompting.
November 8, 2008
Triumph of Temperament, Not Policy By Michael Barone
The Democrats' victory -- and Barack Obama's -- was overdetermined and underdelivered.
October 29, 2008
Obama's New New Deal No Better Than the Old One By Michael Barone
With victory in sight, Barack Obama's supporters are predicting that he will give us a new New Deal. To see what that might mean, let's look back on the original New Deal.
October 25, 2008
A Reality Check on Obama's Wish List By Michael Barone
What will an Obama administration and a Congress with increased Democratic majorities do? That's a relevant question, given the Democrats' leads in the polls. And it's a little hard to answer, given the financial crisis that has been raging and the recession that seems to be ahead.
October 18, 2008
Can Joe the Plumber Turn it Around? By Michael Barone
Can Joe Wurzelbacher, Joe the Plumber from Ohio, change the course of this campaign? That’s one question that was raised at the third presidential debate.
October 11, 2008
The Coming Obama Thugocracy By Michael Barone
"I need you to go out and talk to your friends and talk to your neighbors," Barack Obama told a crowd in Elko, Nev. "I want you to talk to them whether they are independent or whether they are Republican. I want you to argue with them and get in their face." Actually, Obama supporters are doing a lot more than getting into people's faces. They seem determined to shut people up.
October 4, 2008
The Year of Campaign Chaos By Michael Barone
Politics ordinarily has a certain predictability. Yet presidential politics this year has often seemed to resemble what science writer James Gleick described in his book "Chaos."
September 27, 2008
Are We at an Inflection Point? By Michael Barone
You can sum up much of 20th century history by saying that in the 1930s Americans decided that markets didn't work and government did, and that in the 1970s Americans decided that government didn't work and markets did.
September 20, 2008
The Old Economic Rule Doesn't Work By Michael Barone
The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, the sale of Merrill Lynch to Bank of America, the 500-point plunge of the Dow, the government takeover of AIG -- all these have got the presidential candidates talking about the economy. But both Barack Obama and John McCain have been vague about their solutions. And for good reason.
September 13, 2008
McCain Flies His Campaign Past Obama By Michael Barone
John McCain was trained as a fighter pilot. In his selection of Sarah Palin, and in his convention and campaigning since, he has shown that he learned an important lesson from his fighter pilot days: He has gotten inside Barack Obama's OODA loop.
September 6, 2008
The Battle of the Party Themes By Michael Barone
The national conventions are political shows staged to influence voters. Soon, we can measure the bounce that the two tickets have received from their gatherings.
August 30, 2008
Outrageous Vulnerabilities By Michael Barone
As this is written, with a deadline looming, I have not heard Barack Obama's acceptance speech at Invesco Field and have not learned who is John McCain's choice for vice president.
August 23, 2008
The Chosen Obama Narrative By Michael Barone
Once upon a time, the two parties' national conventions chose presidential nominees. Now, they are television shows that try to establish a narrative -- one that links the long-since-determined nominee's life story with the ongoing history of the nation, one that shows how this one man is perfectly positioned to lead America to a better future. The hope is that the nominee will get a bounce in the polls.
August 16, 2008
Echoes of Berlin By Michael Barone
Last week, the two erstwhile communist superpowers were in the spotlight. Starting on Aug. 8, China staged the Olympics -- an event on the schedule for years. Also on Aug. 8, Russia invaded the independent republic of Georgia -- which apparently caught our government flatfooted.
