Tag: Tip O’Neill

“A border wall is immoral.” – Democrat Nancy Pelosi. The “why can’t we compromise” crowd is right, for example, about DACA and the Wall. But once Pelosi declared the Wall “immoral,” we left politics behind for the realm of religion. And for progressives, politics is their religion. A fixed border barrier isn’t good or bad. Is it a good way to reduce illegal border crossings? But “immoral”? And, once again, don’t blame Donald Trump. Or Pelosi or Schumer, for that matter. Blame the millions of their voters watching back home on TV … and cheering them on.

You’ve heard about the three conversation topics to avoid in polite company — money, religion and politics. Politics is/are a noun that can either be used with a singular or plural verb. Like a tie-breaking legislative vote, politics can go either way. The following rules we discuss for politics can be applied to any of the -ics family of academic words: mathematics, ethics, optics, economics, physics, et. al. Here are a few examples: One of my least favorite things to talk about is politics, especially with my family. Politics is a dirty business. Do you believe how mainstream her politics are? She’ll never make it through the primaries in this political climate. Whether politics is singular or plural, conservative or liberal, one thing’s for sure: American politics is a tricky subject to navigate these days.

Unfortunately for Bachrach, Joseph Kennedy II—Robert Kennedy’s son—soon entered the race, as well. Kennedy won endorsements from O’Neill, Boston Mayor Ray Flynn, the Boston Herald, and The Boston Globe, and went on to win. In O’Neill’s famous dictum, all politics really was local. Capuano, Kennedy’s successor, was born in Somerville, in the heart of the Eighth (now the Seventh) District. He garnered the endorsements of Boston’s top Democrats. It didn’t matter that Capuano had the stronger Boston accent and Boston lineage. And in 2018, regional identity matters less than it once did and ideological identity matters more. But overall, as the University of Pennsylvania political scientist Dan Hopkins argues in his book The Increasingly United States: How and Why American Political Behavior Nationalized, “the debates in states and even some localities have taken on a national hue.” Party platforms don’t differ much by region anymore. Which helps explain why Democrats in Texas increasingly resemble Democrats in Massachusetts. Ayanna Pressley may not have as strong a Boston accent as Michael Capuano.

Steve Kornacki, MSNBC political correspondent, discusses Ayanna Pressley's upset Democratic primary victory that leaves her poised to take a historic seat whose lineage includes J.F.K. and Tip O'Neill, and add to that history the first African-American to serve in the…

And the idea of all politics being local has been especially wrong for the last three years. Since June 16, 2015, all politics has been neither local nor national. And both Democrats and Republicans are following the news closely. The question of who controls Congress next year is driving votes. Sixty-one percent of Democrats see their vote as a vote against President Trump. A majority of Republicans see theirs as votes for him. Trump looms larger than Obama in the media landscape despite coverage that is overwhelmingly hostile to him. Trump's polarization of the electorate explains a lot. Then there is the larger question of what America might look like after four—and very possibly eight—years of Trumpitude. When all politics is Trump, politics assumes Trump's characteristics.

That’s why Justin Fareed, a Republican congressional candidate in Santa Barbara, is running on an issue that does get the local voters stirred up: widening Highway 101. “For far too long, politicians have used U.S. Highway 101 as a pawn in their bids for election and re-election,” Fareed, who is seeking a rematch of his 2016 loss to Democratic Rep. Salud Carbajal, said in a campaign email. “I will work to ensure your tax dollars are spent the way they were proposed.” Former House Speaker Tip O’Neill famously said that “All politics is local,” and in Santa Barbara County, it doesn’t get more local — or more political — than the fight over Highway 101, the region’s main north-south artery. It’s also far from clear exactly what a member of Congress can do in a battle that’s essentially between California and Santa Barbara County. If an issue is important to voters, it’s important to them. — John Wildermuth Republican no more: Former Republican state insurance commissioner and 2010 gubernatorial candidate Steve Poizner is running for his old job again, this time as an independent candidate. Of course, there’s no better time pick to up the pioneering spirit and shed the Republican label in California than when the leader of the party — one President Trump — is highly unpopular in California. Aside from a Republican who starred in the movie “Terminator,” the last Republican to be elected statewide in California was a guy named Steve Poizner, when he won the office of insurance commissioner in 2006. But Poizner insisted Friday that his new lack of affiliation isn’t politically opportunistic. “I don’t feel any pressure to endorse anybody or to take positions on every little thing coming out of Washington.