All indications are that Barack Obama wants Hillary Clinton to serve as his secretary of state and that, pending some touchy but not overly problematic haggling over the finances of her husband’s foundation, he will soon formally offer her the job – which she will accept. After all, word of the prospective move broke last week and neither of the principals has sought to squelch the speculation.

But there have also been reports that Mrs. Clinton, well into her second term in the Senate, has conflicted feelings about joining the administration. If she does still harbor presidential aspirations, such a reaction would be perfectly understandable.  read more »

After affixing his signature to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Lyndon Johnson famously quipped that he’d just signed away the South, a prophecy that was affirmed in that year’s election – when Republican Barry Goldwater won five historically Democratic states in the deep South while suffering blowout losses everywhere else – and in elections for decades to come.

In the post-Civil Rights era, Democrats were told over and over that their path to the presidency was basic: Nominate a candidate who could win back the South, or at least part of it. And sure enough, for 40 years after L.B.J., the only victorious Democrats at the presidential level, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, were southerners, while one northern liberal after another was shut out in the region – and locked out of the White House.  read more »

There was plenty of chatter this fall about the role (or lack thereof) of Bill Clinton in Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. Why, many observers wondered, wasn’t the Democratic presidential nominee more interested in taking pointers from the only Democratic nominee since Jimmy Carter to win a national election?

In the end, of course, Mr. Obama’s refusal to go to Clinton School didn’t hurt him on Election Day. But now, as he transitions from campaigning to governing, Mr. Obama would be very wise to consider very carefully the example of Mr. Clinton – and to make sure he doesn’t emulate it, at least not in the early days of his administration.  read more »

Right up until the very end of the 1980 campaign, when polls still showed Jimmy Carter running even with Ronald Reagan despite high unemployment and inflation and fading national confidence, it was taken as an article of faith among Democrats – and more than a few establishment Republicans – that the country would never turn to a candidate as “extreme” as Reagan. Election Day disabused them of this notion: Reagan won 44 states and his party posted a stunning gain of 12 Senate seats.

The New Deal and Great Society philosophies had become victims of their own success, as the new suburban masses, liberated from the dependence on government that had marked their parents’ lives, revolted against high taxes, big government and the Democratic Party that had come to symbolize them.  read more »

Polls showed him trailing by anywhere between five and twelve points, but on the eve of the 1988 presidential election Michael Dukakis nonetheless predicted to cheering supporters that "Tomorrow, we're going to have a November surprise!"

Less than 24 hours later, he had officially lost 40 states - and the election. It just goes to show you: Among true believers, optimism lingers until the very end.

That same spirit is evident these days in John McCain and some of his most vehement backers (or, perhaps more accurately, some of Barack Obama's most relentless critics). The evidence from national and individual state polls is clear: Mr.  read more »

A week ago, John McCain seemed poised to devote the final weeks of what could be the final campaign he ever runs to slash-and-burn politics.

His running-mate, Sarah Palin, was deputized to accuse Obama of “palling around with terrorists.” Speakers at McCain-Palin events took to invoking Barack Obama’s middle name as if it were an epithet, and the Republican campaign cut an ad that played up Mr. Obama’s tenuous association with Bill Ayers, an aging ’60s radical. Finally, Mr. McCain himself played the Ayers card at one of his town hall meetings – which only prompted his supporters at the event, in an extraordinary scene, to appeal to him to launch even harsher attacks.  read more »

As of this moment, this election is shaping up as a thorough beating for the G.O.P. at the presidential and Congressional levels.

The good news for the Republicans, if they are defeated comprehensively this year, is that it will lead to a much-needed overhaul of the party.

The bad news: They could be out in the wilderness for a while. When the G.O.P. lost the House in 1954, for example, it took 40 years for them to win back the chamber—and the basic question of which faces and which issues would define a post-Bush (and post-McCain) Republican Party figures to prompt protracted, and probably contentious, soul-searching within the party.  read more »

This is what can happen when you gamble in politics. Last Wednesday, John McCain “suspended” his campaign – an action that sounded a lot more substantial than it actually was – to return to Washington and insert himself into the Congressional debate over a financial rescue package.

The results, for Mr. McCain and (if most financial experts are to be believed) for the economy, have been ghastly, culminating in the House’s stunning rejection of a compromise plan on Monday, which sent the Dow plummeting and Mr. McCain scrambling to save face.

It’s not that Mr. McCain’s impulse to do something “dramatic” was necessarily wrong.  read more »

Especially in the era of the 24-hour news cycle, it’s easy to overstate the significance of any given event on the presidential campaign trail—except when it comes to televised debates.  read more »

The chaos on Wall Street that exploded over the weekend – and caused to Dow to drop by more than 500 points on Monday alone – is, obviously, bad news for just about everyone. But strictly in terms of the looming election, now fewer than 50 days away, the timing may be something of a gift to Barack Obama and the Democrats, who have watched in bafflement since late August as their once-dominant political position has eroded.

Long before this week, the economy had already emerged as the top issue – by far – on the minds of voters. Now, Americans will be inundated with stories about the potentially devastating fallout from the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the sale of Merrill Lynch and the perilous footing of A.  read more »