Blog Profile / Lexington's Notebook
| URL : | http://www.economist.com/blogs/lexington | |
|---|---|---|
| Filed Under: | Politics / US Politics | |
| Posts on Regator: | 190 | |
| Posts / Week: | 1.7 | |
| Archived Since: | April 18, 2011 | |
Blog Post Archive
The beginning of the end
SOMETIMES a heckler can be a politician’s best friend. Giving his fullest account of counter-terrorism policy for some years in an hour-long speech to the National Defense University on May 23rd, President Barack Obama was repeatedly...Show More Summary
Rand Paul's presidential chances
MY PRINT column this week considers Rand Paul's viability as a presidential contender.
Lessons from three scandals
MY PRINT column this week considers the three scandals lapping at the doors of the White House this week. It suggests that Republican rage over Benghazi is overblown, and that this explains why President Barack Obama's opponents have switched tack, and started denouncing him as a bullying tyrant.
No American cavalry for now
FOR all the warm words about coordination and shared approaches, when David Cameron and Barack Obama talked Syria at the White House on May 13th, striking differences could be heard. The British prime minister’s tone was urgent, even impatient. Show More Summary
Barack Obama's "Brigadoon" problem
MY PRINT column this week ponders why President Barack Obama finds it so hard to push through his agenda, even in policy areas where he speaks for a nationwide majority. It draws a parallel with the 1947 Broadway hit (and not terribly good 1954 film) "Brigadoon".
Barack Obama's best 2012 friends: enthusiastic black pensioners, and apathetic white youths
THE US Census Bureau published its definitive guide to turnout and voting trends in 2012 this afternoon, and the headline for many will be the fact that African-American turnout exceeded white turnout for the first time in 2012. In fact,...Show More Summary
Dithering in Syria
MY PRINT column this week is on Syria and Barack Obama's foreign policy.
Time to save a transatlantic trade pact
MY PRINT column this week urges leaders in America and the European Union to save a transatlantic trade pact that makes great sense but is in serious trouble.
A week of violence, and responses to violence
MY PRINT column this week considers America's response to the Boston bombings, and the failed Senate vote on gun control.
The strains of staying non-partisan
IN HIS brief statement hours after the fatal bombings at the Boston marathon, President Barack Obama quite properly struck a bipartisan note. "I've updated leaders of Congress in both parties, and we reaffirmed that on days like this there are no Republicans or Democrats," he told press gathered at the White House. Show More Summary
The Democrats' Texas-sized dilemma
MY PRINT column this week comes from Texas, and ponders a question obsessing Republicans and Democrats alike: with Hispanics on course to become the largest single group in the state by 2020 (and a majority about a decade later), does...Show More Summary
Running from Goldwater's ghost
RAND PAUL, the libertarian pin-up and Republican senator from Kentucky, today travelled the short distance from Capitol Hill in Washington to Howard University, a historically black college, to pose an important question. How, Mr Paul...Show More Summary
Revealing tributes
AMERICAN politicians of right and left paid Margaret Thatcher a rare compliment today. They praised her for her record at home and abroad but also—unusually—hailed her as a spine-stiffening friend who had at vital moments nudged America to be true to its own self. Show More Summary
Being right is not enough
MY PRINT column this week looks at the rise of various centrist and bipartisan movements trying to temper the partisan ferocity of American politics, and argues that some are wiser than others.
Texas by numbers
LEXINGTON is in Texas, researching a question with large implications for this large state but also for national politics. With Hispanics on course to become a majority of the Texas population within the next few years, can this solidly Republican-red state be turned blue, or at least purple. Show More Summary
America's gun divide
"NOTHING is more powerful than millions of voices calling for change," President Barack Obama said on March 28th, as he pushed—perhaps more for form's sake than with any hope of success—for tighter gun controls in the wake of last December's school shooting in Newtown. Show More Summary
Two political earthquakes: gay marriage and immigration
MY PRINT column this week looks at parallels between the debate on gay marriage and the push for comprehensive immigration reform.
Why Fox News is less to blame for polarised politics than you think
AMERICAN pundits spend a good deal of their time pondering partisan intensity, and how it has sharply increased over the years. At some point in such discussions, it is traditional to note that the sorting of America into ever-more flinty...Show More Summary
The price of detachment
MY PRINT column this week asks a question about President Barack Obama's foreign policy: If America grows unwilling to carry a big stick, will speaking softly work? Written as the president was on the way to the Middle East, it looks...Show More Summary
Are white Americans unusually individualistic?
THERE is no mystery about the Republican Party's ambitions to win more Hispanic votes. Since the presidential election last November, Republicans have been arguing about whether new policies are the key to wooing Latinos, or whether—to borrow an old Ronald Reagan line—Hispanics are conservatives who just don't know it yet. Show More Summary