It's piling on time, |
It's really the policy. And policies that presidents are committed to are discarded only with great reluctance - and most often not at all. |
It's window dressing for the benefit of social conservatives, ... The president may feel that whatever support he will lose among fiscal conservatives, he will win from conservatives proud of him for bootlegging vouchers in the relief plan. |
My sense would be that they're really saving their ammunition for somebody they think is beyond the pale, and they see a possibility of that happening. |
New York and New Jersey politicians will continue to beat up on this for a long time. Especially the Democrats, who don't hold many strong cards on national security. This has been like nectar in the desert for them. |
One of the things that members strive to do, and in large measure are successful, is to achieve a situation that voters do in fact look at them as people who do good things for the district. |
One was a payoff to the economic conservatives, the other to the social conservatives. The interests of the two groups are not always compatible. |
Politics is an enterprise in which disagreement is very frequently overlooked in the pursuit of political success. |
Republicans, however loyal they may have been in the past, are now taking an every-man-for-himself attitude. |
She's the original stealth candidate. It was a shrewd choice for Bush. If you can't ram somebody through who's got a higher profile, you do an end run around the opposition. |
So long as he is a free man, still a member of the House and participating in the conference, his influence is going to remain considerable. |
That's a very ominous sign for Bush, |
The ground rules of the congressional district configuration in the state are rigged in favor of incumbents of both parties. |
The payoffs are enormous. If you pay a lobbyist a few hundred thousand dollars, or even millions of dollars, it's pocket change compared to what you can make with a casino. |
The political fallout is potentially enormous. This is a program that touches tens of millions of people. And anytime that a government program is working poorly, and is affecting adversely so many people, it's bound to have huge consequences. |