Word: caucus
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...that all this namby-pamby stuff will turn off the rank and file. It is true that after years of maverick behavior, McCain will be in the ironic position of having many of his longtime political enemies staring back at him from the convention floor. The creative-destructive caucus in the GOP is small, however, and few crave victory at the cost of self-immolation. And the prospect of an Obama-Pelosi diktat in Washington is enough to make even the most McCain-hating Republican sprint breathlessly to the polls. Ultimately it is a question of simple arithmetic...
While Coburn has been willing to bog down the Senate to try to stop pork, McCain stops short of drawing the line. He tends to bend institutions without breaking them; he never alienated his caucus enough to lose his chairmanship, and even Cochran has endorsed McCain's candidacy now that he's the Republican nominee. "McCain used to make great speeches about all the garbage in military spending bills, especially after 9/11, but he'd do nothing to stop it," says the Center for Defense Information's Winslow Wheeler, a former GOP staffer who supports Obama for President. McCain...
...this time around, Chicago's schoolchildren have as their champion the Rev. James Meeks, one of the city's most influential pastors and head of Illinois' legislative black caucus. In February, Meeks introduced a bill that would raise state income tax from 3% to 5% and ensure that a portion of the increased tax revenue goes directly to schools. Not surprisingly, the bill never gained traction, with few legislators willing to push for a tax hike. So now Meeks is spearheading the Sept. 2 protests. "This was the next step," he says. Last week, a group of Meeks supporters also...
Some of the most excited of these newcomers are, like Gilbert-Pederson, the very youngest. Homeschooled since ninth grade, mostly so he could spend more time campaigning, Gilbert-Pederson in 2006 started a Minneapolis branch of the Hip Hop Caucus, a voter-outreach group for young progressives. Touting the group in 2007 to dozens of cheering onlookers, he tried to quote Obama's 2004 DNC speech from memory, then ended with a call for canvassing: "Lend me your hands, lend me your ears, lend me your feet. We're gonna walk, we're gonna knock, we're gonna talk...
...easy puzzle. From its beginning, Obama's impressive campaign has reached upmarket. His tone is perfectly middlebrow, which has made him irresistible to the wine-and-cheese lovers of the self-consciously sensible center. Republicans saw troubling signs of this way back in January's Iowa caucuses, when they discovered, to their shock, that Obama was actually pulling some moderate Republican voters away from the GOP caucus. His success in Iowa has been so complete that it may abandon its swing-state tendencies and move firmly into Obama's column. And it's not just Iowa. Last month...