Jill Lawrence
Jill Lawrence is a PoliticsDaily.com columnist and former national political correspondent for USA Today... moreYear in Review: Top 12 Political Surprises of 2010
The predictions game was hard to play in 2010. It was a year of upsets, comebacks and feats of survival. In rough chronological order, here are a dozen developments that we didn't expect this year: Massachusetts miracle: Republican state Sen. Scott Brown wins the U.S. Senate seat held for 47 years by liberal lion Ted Kennedy. State Attorney General Martha Coakley, Brown's lackluster Democratic opponent, is not the only victim of the year's first "shellacking." President Barack Obama and his party are stunned by the loss of their 60-vote super majority, and their ambitious health care agenda ...
What Really Happens to Politicians Without Labels. It's Not Pretty.
You may have heard there's a "No Labels" movement afoot to rouse the country's silent majority – the sane, reasonable, moderate middle that just wants civility, and solutions, and an end to the fighting in Washington. Maybe you're one of those people and you like this idea of no labels. There are lots of big names associated with this group -- senators, mayors, media celebs and more. But I'll be honest, I've been skeptical. You only have to listen to actual no-labels types to understand why. A few days after the official launch of No Labels, four of them offered eye-opening accounts of ...
Arizona Is the New California, and It's Already Changing Our Lives
Once upon a time, California was the trendsetter for the rest of the country. What happened there tended to spread, whether it was property tax cuts or stringent environmental regulation. But now it's time for the Golden State to exit stage left. We have a new outsized player in national life. It's Arizona, and it's taking us in a whole new direction. The Grand Canyon State has been in the news this year for enacting what's been called the country's toughest immigration law and for Medicaid cutbacks that amount to death sentences for transplant patients. If Arizona's controversial ...
Can Democrats Break Out of the Blame Game on Taxes?
Democrats now have two years to plan and execute their next strategy on taxes. Will they blow it again and blame each other for the mess? Liberals may be outraged by the deal President Obama cut with Republicans, but what the heck did they expect him to do? To my mind, congressional Democrats abdicated their seat at the table the minute they left town in October without having voted on his signature issue: extending Bush-era tax cuts for household income below $250,000 (to help the middle class) and letting them expire on all income above that. With the lower rates for all incomes set to ...
Elizabeth and John Edwards, Partners in the End for the Family They Created
Elizabeth Edwards spent her final days in the round-the-clock company of her tearful husband, the two of them linked by family, tragedy and maybe even love, despite the stunning political soap opera that destroyed their marriage. It led to a legal separation, but not to separate lives. Perhaps the most unexpected aspect of Elizabeth's death Tuesday at 61, from the cancer she had fought since 2004, was the presence of her estranged husband, John. She spent two years trying to make the marriage work after learning of his affair with Rielle Hunter, the videographer for his 2008 presidential ...
Tax-Cut Deal: If It's Good for Regular Americans, Isn't That Good Enough for Now?
"Absolute disaster." "Legislative blackmail." "Almost moral corruptness." We get it. Democrats in Congress really, really don't like President Obama's tax deal with the Republicans. But is it truly as apocalyptically bad as all that? Please, people, take a deep breath, step back and stop working yourselves into a lather about cave-ins and core principles and lines in the sand. Earlier this week, I said we should wait to see what Obama got from Republicans in tax negotiations before convicting him of terminal wimpiness. He may have dispelled that image at his combative news conference Tuesday ...
Obama Should Put on 'Manly Man' T-Shirt and Learn to Love Politics
The other day in Afghanistan, Gen. David Petraeus handed President Barack Obama what he called "a manly man T-shirt" from the 101st Airborne and told him, "No one will mess with you if you wear this." Talk about a well-timed gift. It just so happens that everyone -- Republicans in Congress, liberal activists, swing-state voters, foreign nations, Julian Assange – seems to be messing with Obama these days. The new conventional wisdom is that Obama is weak and could lose in 2012. Larry Sabato, head of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, crystallized it in one Twitter post: ...
The Left and the Coming Fiscal Crisis: Get In the Game Before It's Over
The debt reduction plan produced by President Obama's bipartisan fiscal commission has been met with scorn, dismissiveness and outrage from many liberals. But they might want to think about getting in the game while they still have a Democratic Senate and White House. By that I do not mean proposing to reduce the $1.3 trillion deficit or $13.8 trillion debt by means of a public health insurance option (designed to drive down health care costs) or a cap-and-trade system (designed to raise money by capping carbon emissions and selling permits to pollute). Obama and a heavily Democratic ...
Deficit Commission Votes 11-7 for Spending Cuts, Tax Changes
President Obama's bipartisan debt commission voted 11-7 Friday to approve a controversial plan to shave deficits by nearly $4 trillion over the next decade. That fell short of the 14 votes that would formalize its recommendations and send them to the House and Senate floors for an up or down vote. But Democrats and Republicans alike said there is substantial support for much of the plan and that it will lead to a solution to the nation's crushing debt. The package would overhaul the tax code, reducing both tax rates and tax breaks. It would cut back spending on Social Security, Medicare, ...
Will Republicans Pick a Woman to Lead Party? The Odds Are Getting Better
The names of three women are in the mix to lead the Republican National Committee, giving committee members a chance to make their second consecutive departure from tradition when they elect a chairman in January. Two years ago, the 168 RNC members chose Michael Steele as their first black chairman. Steele's tenure has been problematic, to put it mildly. It's unclear if he will run for re-election, but a number of party figures are planning or already mounting bids to succeed him. The most intriguing development is the emergence of two -- and possibly three -- women as real contenders, after ...
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