From Monica to the D.C. Madam, some of my all-time favorite stories on politics, sex and power: 1. ‘The Gary Hart Story: How It Happened,’ by Jim McGee, Tom Fiedler and James Savage (The Miami Herald, May 10, 1987) and ‘The Gary Hart Story: Part Two’ Gary Hart was frontrunner for the 1988 Democratic presidential […]
politics
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Longreads Guest Pick: Michael Macher on 'Putin's Rasputin'
Michael is the associate publisher at The Awl network. “Earlier this week, Vladislav Surkov—also known by his nickname, the ‘gray cardinal’—resigned (i.e. was fired) from his position as a leading cabinet official in Medvedev’s government. As a character, Surkov is endlessly fascinating. On one hand he’s a ruthless political operator whose genius maneuvers have drawn […]
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Longreads Guest Pick: Christian Lorentzen on 'The Last White Election?'
Today’s guest pick comes from Christian Lorentzen, editor for the London Review of Books, who recommends “The Last White Election?” by Mike Davis in the New Left Review: “Mike Davis’s essay is the most thorough analysis I’ve seen of the 2012 election and what it portends for the future. Written from outside the Washington consensusphere, […]
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“Anthony Weiner and Huma Abedin’s Post-Scandal Playbook.” Johnathan Van Meter, New York Times Magazine.
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The presidential bully pulpit isn’t as effective as one would think. Evidence shows that the louder a president speaks to support an issue or bill, the more committed the opposing party will be to ensure that it won’t pass: To test her theory, she created a database of eighty-six hundred Senate votes between 1981 and […]
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On the 1988 presidential campaign: Among those who traveled regularly with the campaigns, in other words, it was taken for granted that these “events” they were covering, and on which they were in fact filing, were not merely meaningless but deliberately so: occasions on which film could be shot and no mistakes made (“They hope […]