A plain blog about politics

Recall that Ron Fournier wrote a recent column about how the Republicans and Democrats are in danger of cracking up, and that Brendan Nyhan...

I've been negligent on these posts again, but catching up now. My weekend column at Salon was about the Hagel filibuster, and what it i...

Two questions about third parties. Another anonymous one: ...Mike Bloomberg wanting to run for president and going so far as to consult we...

Haven't done one of these for a while...these are items not in the news, which itself makes them newsworthy: 1. Citizen vetting: it se...

Haven't done one of these in a while...it's an occasional item about things that aren't in the news or haven't happened, whi...

Happy Birthday to Nicholas Brendon, 41. The good stuff: 1. Nice post by Jordan Ragusa on Americans Elect . 2. Bill Clinton is responsi...

What percentage of the vote will the top third party or independent candidate draw in the presidential election this November? And who will ...

A commenter asks: A lot of people think that the Republican Party is heading towards irrelevancy demographically because of its increasing ...

I didn't get around to doing this post earlier in the week, but Gary Johnson is dropping out of the battle for the Republican Party pres...

A bunch of questions about libertarian third-party runs, including: Do you see a Ron Paul third-party run happening next year? how do you i...

Here's some stuff for your weekend reading. By the way, the weekend should be normal schedule around here, and then I'd guess that n...

Over at the Washington Post, Matt Miller has been crusading for a third party candidate. Ezra Klein and Miller seem to agree on policy more ...

What if a third-party or independent candidate actually did win the White House? After all, it's highly unlikely but not entirely imposs...

So apparently within seconds of when I finished my Chris Christie item, news broke that he's not running after all. Since this is about ...

Yes, it's important to note that Matt Bai is completely wrong about what he calls "the rise of independents" -- we're liv...

Brendan Nyhan already knocked this down in up to 140 characters, but I'll take a shot too... John Heilemann spins a convoluted scenar...

I like just about half of Nate Silver's pushback against the idea that a third party serious run for the presidency is improbable ( rou...

Via Political Wire, the folks at USA Today are engaging in one of the staples of hack political journalism: hyping third parties .  The art...

See the Monkey Cage for the explanation.  And the miscreant is ( via a nice post from Yglesias)... from Brookings, Isabell Sawhill: With ...