Search Results for: Republican

Jon Huntsman: The Outsider

Longreads Pick

A few weeks into the race, Huntsman looks like a protest candidate—less a figure of the current Republican Zeitgeist than a canny challenger to his party’s orthodoxy. But his lack of traction thus far doesn’t feel exactly like failure. Running from behind brings a freedom to speak one’s mind, which can affect the political conversation for the better. Like Eugene McCarthy in 1968, Bruce Babbitt in 1988, and John McCain in 2000, Huntsman seems already to have become a media darling—a thinking person’s candidate whose candor shines a light on the evasions of his rivals, even if it fails to change the outcome of the race. If he performs credibly, Huntsman stands to emerge better known, with his national reputation enhanced, and—should Obama be reelected—well positioned to run in 2016.

Source: Vogue
Published: Aug 24, 2011
Length: 14 minutes (3,604 words)

Leap of Faith

Longreads Pick

The transformation of Michele Bachmann from Tea Party insurgent and cable-news Pasionaria to serious Republican contender in the 2012 Presidential race was nearly complete by late June, when she boarded a Dassault Falcon 900, in Dulles, Virginia, and headed toward the caucus grounds of Iowa. The leased, fourteen-seat corporate jet was to serve as Bachmann’s campaign hub for the next few days, and, before the plane took off, her press secretary, Alice Stewart, announced to the six travelling chroniclers that there was one important rule. “I know everything is on the record these days,” Stewart said, “but please just don’t broadcast images of her in her casual clothes.”

Author: Ryan Lizza
Source: The New Yorker
Published: Aug 15, 2011
Length: 34 minutes (8,639 words)

Roger Ailes’ Secret Nixon-Era Blueprint for Fox News

Longreads Pick

Republican media strategist Roger Ailes launched Fox News Channel in 1996, ostensibly as a “fair and balanced” counterpoint to what he regarded as the liberal establishment media. But according to a remarkable document buried deep within the Richard Nixon Presidential Library, the intellectual forerunner for Fox News was a nakedly partisan 1970 plot by Ailes and other Nixon aides to circumvent the “prejudices of network news” and deliver “pro-administration” stories to heartland television viewers.

Author: John Cook
Source: Gawker
Published: Jun 30, 2011
Length: 14 minutes (3,580 words)

Climate of Denial

Longreads Pick

“President Obama has thus far failed to use the bully pulpit to make the case for bold action on climate change. After successfully passing his green stimulus package, he did nothing to defend it when Congress decimated its funding. After the House passed cap and trade, he did little to make passage in the Senate a priority. Senate advocates — including one Republican — felt abandoned when the president made concessions to oil and coal companies without asking for anything in return. He has also called for a massive expansion of oil drilling in the United States, apparently in an effort to defuse criticism from those who argue speciously that ‘drill, baby, drill’ is the answer to our growing dependence on foreign oil.”

Author: Al Gore
Source: Rolling Stone
Published: Jun 22, 2011
Length: 28 minutes (7,058 words)

Miss Grundy Was Fired Today

Longreads Pick

Once deified, now demonized, teachers are under assault from union-busting Republicans on the right and wealthy liberals on the left. And leading the charge from all directions is a woman most famous for losing her job: the former Washington, D.C., schools chancellor Michelle Rhee.

Published: Mar 22, 2011
Length: 20 minutes (5,212 words)

Don’t Look Back

Longreads Pick

Many politicians have committed indiscretions in earlier years: maybe they had an affair or hired an illegal immigrant as a nanny. Republican Congressman Darrell Issa, it turned out, had, among other things, been indicted for stealing a car, arrested for carrying a concealed weapon, and accused by former associates of burning down a building.

Author: Ryan Lizza
Source: The New Yorker
Published: Jan 17, 2011
Length: 31 minutes (7,968 words)

The Answer Is No

Longreads Pick

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is no longer just a popular governor; he has become a national Republican star. His focus on fiscal issues and his reluctance to wade into the culture wars—during his gubernatorial campaign, he declined Sarah Palin’s offer to stump for him—have endeared him to members of the GOP’s sane wing. “The breakthrough he’s scoring in New Jersey is hugely promising,” says David Frum, a conservative writer who fears that the Republican Party is being swallowed by the tea party.

Published: Nov 22, 2010
Length: 20 minutes (5,135 words)

The Audacity of Nope

Longreads Pick

With his perma-tan, two-pack-a-day baritone, and natty wardrobe, House Republican leader John Boehner is a backslapping, deal-making throwback to the G.O.P.’s past. But his recent “Hell, no!” anti-Obama strategy, as he seeks to ride the Tea Party wave, may point to an ugly future.

Source: Vanity Fair
Published: Oct 26, 2010
Length: 16 minutes (4,220 words)

Joseph Cao, the unlikely congressman from New Orleans

Longreads Pick

On a sultry July morning, Cao, the first-term Republican congressman from New Orleans, walks out of his house in the Venetian Isles neighborhood in the easternmost part of the city, a low tentacle of land rising, just barely, above the waters of Bayou Sauvage. A dawn fog sits heavily over the adjacent swamp; a dead palm leans in memoriam to Hurricane Katrina (or maybe Gustav; both of them devastated his house).

Source: Washington Post
Published: Oct 3, 2010
Length: 18 minutes (4,518 words)

Tea and Crackers

Longreads Pick

How corporate interests and Republican insiders built the Tea Party monster

Source: Rolling Stone
Published: Sep 28, 2010
Length: 26 minutes (6,672 words)