The Woman Who Would Not Be President

The recent spate of prospective presidential candidates dropping out of the Republican race and the lack of a true social conservative in the contest has led to rampant speculation of the return of everyone's favorite maverick: former governor Sarah Palin. Several other factors have led some to hope that she may be getting ready to run for the Republican nomination in 2012, but I wouldn't count her in just yet. Most of what we know about Palin points to the inescapable fact that she no longer wants to run for president.

(A fake but hilarious picture of Palin, from NewsPirates)

Get Your Government Hands Off My Medicare... Oh, Wait, That's Not What I Meant

Last night's special election in New York's 26^th Congressional District showed the political world two things: first, that Democrats aren't as hopelessly incompetent at messaging as previously thought, and second, that the Republican Party has a serious Medicare problem.

(Congresswoman-elect Kathy Hochul, from NYT)

To Mandate, or Not to Mandate: Newt Gingrich's Eternal Question

It's been a rough couple days for former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Between pulling a Romney when talking about health-care reform and undercutting the GOP's main idea man on Medicare, many party faithful are starting to wonder just whose side he's on (for the record, Democrats are still pretty confident that he's a Republican).

Gingrich's most recent mess started this past weekend when he called Congressman Paul Ryan's budget proposal, in which Medicare becomes a voucher-based system “radical... right wing social engineering” (jeez, Newt, you really don't mince words, do you?). In an interview on NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday, May 15, Gingrich criticized the Ryan proposal, specifically the fact that it imposes “radical change” on consumers instead of allowing them to choose, somehow, whether or not they want the old-style Medicare or the new vouchers. Of course, Gingrich did not specify how this choice would work, as one would guess that it would be impossible and inefficient to have both the current Medicare system and a voucher-based system—both of which do the same thing—in existence at the same time. We'll assume he was leaving that for later in the campaign.

(from Politico)

And the winner is...

This year's race for the Republican presidential nomination is one of the most wide-open contests in modern history: every frontrunner has fairly significant reasons why they likely won't win, and the whole contest is practically begging for a dark horse to come and steal the nomination. In the past few months, there has been a steady stream of candidates not running or encountering debilitating problems affecting their own chances at winning. So, where does the race stand? To find out, let's take a look at the candidates and where they stand. I'm only going to talk about candidates that I think have a legitimate chance of even making noise in the campaign; sorry if I skip over your favorite candidate, but if there are any incensed Buddy Roemer fans out there, feel free to call me an idiot in the comments section.

Welcome to "How to Win the Future"

Welcome, everyone, to the inaugural post of How to Win the Future, my new political blog. A little about me: I'm a political science student at The George Washington University (don't say “Don't you mean Georgetown?”) and while many people claim to be interested in policy, I take that nerdiness and wonkiness to a new, slightly unhealthy level. I'm interested in everything political, from your obvious presidential and midterm elections to your less well-known battles over education policy and high speed rail. No political topic is sacred. This blog is intended to be a way to share my observations and arguments about anything I've read/seen/heard/thought about, and had something original to say.


The name How to Win the Future comes from my irritation at politicians who tell us that America needs to be great, but are a little short on details. President Obama is not the first to use the phrase “win the future” and will not, I'm sure, be the last. The fact is that most people, both in politics and in the media, dumb down their opinions and speeches to appeal to a greater number of people, and to always be politically correct. Win the future, they tell us, but they always forget to tell us how, aside from generally creating jobs and improving education. That's great, guys, but what does that really mean?

Instead of yelling my opinions at Wolf Blitzer on a TV screen, I've decided to put them online to share with anyone who cares to read them. Full disclosure: I am a registered Democrat, I worked on President Obama's 2008 campaign and I plan to work for his reelection. As such, it's a safe bet that when I do discuss policy, I'll lean toward the liberal argument. However, that doesn't mean you should stop reading, even if you disagree. I promise to always do my best to see both sides, and ignore the attacks and talking points we all hear on TV; just because I have an opinion doesn't mean that's the only one I can understand. And if you think I'm doing a bad job of seeing both sides, that's the beauty of leaving comments. Don't be a troll for the sake of being a troll, but thoughtful comments will get responses as often as I can give them.

Again, welcome to my blog, and I hope you won't be disappointed. My first real post should be up soon, so we can start to understand just how it is that we are supposed to win the future.