Matt Towery from Creators Syndicate

The Most Dangerous Topic: Race for 03/20/2008

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0700

As a pollster, I truly don't care who wins the presidency. I can't allow myself to do that. This makes my former Republican colleagues angry and Democrats suspicious.

What I offer is analytical opinions, and I'll offer one on Barack Obama and his pastor.

First, an admission on my part. Unlike the other two major presidential candidates, I have never spent time with Sen. Obama, or ...

Updated: Thu Mar 20, 2008

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CBS Obama Poll Misleading, Flawed and Biased for 03/25/2008

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Last week I wrote that it would be hard to determine the political impact of either Barack Obama's pastor's comments, or Obama's subsequent speech about those various comments. I also wrote that our own polling firm would attempt to measure exactly that.

(For the record, our polls have correctly polled the winner in every presidential primary race we've surveyed this year, except the Ten ...

Updated: Tue Mar 25, 2008

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Will McCain Be Given The Bob Dole Treatment? for 03/27/2008

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0700

As Hillary Clinton starts to fade away, or so it appears, John McCain faces both new obstacles and opportunities in his quest for the White House. The question is, will he be "helped" in the same way Bob Dole was in 1996?

Dole was one of the better nominees the GOP has put forth in modern times. He was (and is) bright, witty, conservative and independent.

Oops. Did I say ...

Updated: Thu Mar 27, 2008

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InsiderAdvantage Poll in Pennsylvania May Signal an End to Clinton Campaign for 04/03/2008

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

The elite of her own Democratic Party are turning on her. The media generally are undercutting her campaign. Her campaign coffers are looking barer every day.

Now a new poll suggests that the April 22 Pennsylvania Democratic primary could be the straw that breaks the back of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.

It is well known that for Sen. Clinton to have even a sporting cha ...

Updated: Thu Apr 03, 2008

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Rino Rage for 04/09/2008

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

In last week's column I suggested that John McCain might be given "the (Bob) Dole" treatment by party insiders — halfhearted support, in other words.

That led to the usual emails from around the country. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but often I don't know where they even come from. But usually I can tell in which newspaper or on which website the email senders have ...

Updated: Wed Apr 09, 2008

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End Withholding, and Let Buffet and Gates Pay The Difference for 04/16/2008

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

This column isn't going to read very profound or intellectual. And I'm sure others have written before what I'm writing again now. But read on, and let's have a little fun.

During this tax-filing week, I've overheard the annoyed mutterings of several of my employees as they return from their visits to the tax preparation offices.

My co-workers are pretty smart. They already know t ...

Updated: Wed Apr 16, 2008

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Pitifully Biased Media Stung Again By Clinton Win in Pennsylvania for 04/24/2008

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

As our InsiderAdvantage polling showed over the past week, there was never any doubt that Hillary Clinton would win the Pennsylvania Democratic Primary by a margin of between 7 and 10 points.

That, my friends, is a big win.

But to hear the pundits on most of the news networks in their coverage early Tuesday night — excepting at least FoxNews and MSNBC — Hillary Clinton ...

Updated: Thu Apr 24, 2008

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Delta Deal Not Riding So High in Its Own Hometown for 05/01/2008

Thu, 01 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

ATLANTA — Residents of Minneapolis-St. Paul, Memphis and dozens of other cities around the nation who are opposed to the merger of Atlanta-based Delta Airlines with Northwest Airlines may be shocked to learn that less than 50 percent of Georgians are supportive of the proposal. Delta is based in Atlanta.

An InsiderAdvantage/Majority Opinion survey conducted April 17 shows that 40 p ...

Updated: Thu May 01, 2008

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The Florida House of Cards Starts to Collapse: Clinton Can't Survive the Coup for 05/08/2008

Thu, 08 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

It was over a year and a half ago that I wrote the first story suggesting that a move in the date of the Florida presidential primary, then just a rumor in Tallahassee, would likely shake up the entire presidential race.

It did.

Had the Republican-dominated Florida legislature not moved up the date of that state's primary, to precede the 23 Super Tuesday states by a week, the enti ...

Updated: Thu May 08, 2008

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Mississippi Burning: GOP Should Heed Gingrich's Warnings for 05/15/2008

Thu, 15 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

In another recent example of a Republican-leaning congressional seat in the Deep South going Democrat, the battle to replace Mississippi Congressman Roger Wicker proved bad news for the GOP. He lost a special election this week.

After a similar debacle for Republicans just weeks earlier in Louisiana, my old colleague, Newt Gingrich, wrote a piece for Human Events that cautioned his fello ...

Updated: Thu May 15, 2008

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Hamilton Jordan Taught Them a Lesson ... Many Lessons for 05/22/2008

Thu, 22 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

In the early evening of May 20, a massive thunderstorm swept across the northern sections of Metro Atlanta. It struck almost without warning, and within an hour it was gone.

As I sat at home with no power, enjoying the rare quiet that comes when there are no electronic distractions, my cell phone rang, reminding me that there is no way to turn everything off these days.

It was a f ...

Updated: Thu May 22, 2008

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There's More Than One Kind of Discrimination for 05/29/2008

Thu, 29 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

OK, let me get this out first. Do I think it's still tough being an African-American? Absolutely. I'm not na?ve. Things aren't nearly as troublesome for American blacks as they were, say, back in the 1940s and '50s. But there are sure plenty of prejudices and other barriers, mostly economic, that remain for people in the United States who happen to enter the world with certain skin pigmentation ...

Updated: Thu May 29, 2008

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Once Stupid, Always Stupid for 06/05/2008

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

My late paternal grandfather was quite a character. I could probably write volumes on him. He had a wacky set of catch phrases — one of which was to say of someone who made a mistake, "Once stupid, always stupid."

We can't know yet if the Democratic Party is brilliant or deluded in choosing Obama. He is fairly inexperienced as a U.S. senator, but he is a spellbinding orat ...

Updated: Thu Jun 05, 2008

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A Book You Should "Reed" for 06/12/2008

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Does any of this sound familiar? A Democratic presidential nomination is essentially taken away from a candidate because of a fight over delegates' credentials at a national nominating convention.

How about the first ever African-American nominee for president? Or an election that ends with no candidate having the requisite number of electoral votes? Or a shrewd U.S. speaker of the House ...

Updated: Thu Jun 12, 2008

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Airline Politics for 06/19/2008

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Weeks ago, our InsiderAdvantage survey indicated that the nation's ninth largest state, Georgia, with its 15 electoral votes, might be up for grabs in the 2008 presidential contest. In recent elections, the state has been a Republican lock.

Consider that metropolitan Atlanta has among its 5 million people a disproportionately large voting population of people under 30 years old. And Geor ...

Updated: Thu Jun 19, 2008

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The Unfair Attack on Charlie Black for 06/26/2008

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Let's get one thing straight. Last week, our polling firm, InsiderAdvantage, released a poll for the Southern Political Report and this syndicated column that showed Barack Obama and John McCain tied in Georgia.

The news from this generally Republican state triggered quite an uproar, and I'm sure the poll won no praise from the John McCain camp.

The combination of a high African-A ...

Updated: Thu Jun 26, 2008

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Independence Day and The Politics of Oil for 07/03/2008

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Oil and gasoline are on everybody's minds as Americans take to the roads for the July Fourth holiday weekend.

John McCain has taken the subject head-on with his proposal to allow individual states to choose how and whether to increase oil and natural gas drilling off their coastlines.

But first let's take a peek at Iraq. Its government recently awarded several major oil companies ...

Updated: Thu Jul 03, 2008

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Let McCain be McCain for 07/10/2008

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

I saw this one coming a mile away. Slowly but surely, the crew that battled and outsmarted the GOP establishment to propel John McCain to the Republican presidential nomination is being shoved aside and replaced by old-hand Bush-Cheney political operatives. Oh, happy days for McCain.

It's all about money. Up until the changes in staff that put longtime Bush folks in charge, the "est ...

Updated: Thu Jul 10, 2008

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Will Bob Barr Fly or Flop As A Factor In The Presidential Race? for 07/17/2008

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Many folks don't even know who Bob Barr is, much less that he is running for president as the Libertarian nominee. The question is whether enough people will come to know the former Republican congressman by November to allow Barr's candidacy to really matter.

In many ways it's in Barr's hands whether he ends up becoming a material factor.

The former Georgia congressman, who led t ...

Updated: Thu Jul 17, 2008

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Obama Needs Steak, McCain Sizzle for 07/24/2008

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

The media already have gone over the top with their coverage of Sen. Barack Obama's international man-of-mystery tour. The endless photo sessions with the troops, foreign leaders, waving crowds — it's just the most contrived pack of junk I've ever seen.

But shame on the folks running the McCain campaign. They knew this week of endless glory for Obama was coming. Their response? The ...

Updated: Thu Jul 24, 2008

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