The New Republic: on Principles & Values
George Allen:
Conservative alternative to McCain in presidential jockeying
Senator George Allen is the only person in Virginia who wears cowboy boots. It's a warm and bright spring day at the annual Virginia political fest known as Shad Planking. Once a whites-only event where state Democrats picked their nominees, Shad
Planking is now a multiracial affair where candidates from both parties come to show off their regular-guy bona fides and trade lighthearted barbs. Beer flows freely. Knots of tailgaters gossip about state politics. In a clearing amid tall pines, shad
is cooked on long wooden boards. Though the two Democrats fighting for a shot to challenge Allen this year in his Senate reelection campaign both show up for the event, Allen clearly owns the crowd, as the sea of royal blue Allen T-shirts and baseball
caps makes clear. The senator has emerged as the principal conservative alternative to John McCain in the early jockeying among 2008 Republican presidential candidates, and today's event is a reminder of what conservatives love about him.
Source: 2008 speculation: Ryan Lizza, The New Republic
May 8, 2006
Justin Amash:
Partisanship undercutting our constitutional basis
Amash announced that he was leaving the Republican Party, his political home of the last ten years. Amash framed his decision as a classic pox-on-both-houses jeremiad, with the headline declaring: "Our politics is in a partisan death spiral.
That's why I'm leaving the GOP." In his Post op-ed, Amash wrote that devotion to party over principle had undermined "the most basic tenets of our constitutional order: separation of powers, federalism, and the rule of law."
Source: The New Republic magazine on 2020 presidential hopefuls
Jul 29, 2019
Marcia Fudge:
Stop limiting black cabinet members to HUD or Labor
Almost exactly one month ago, in an interview with Politico, Ohio Representative Marcia Fudge criticized how former presidents were expected to assemble their Cabinets. "As this country becomes more and more diverse,
we're going to have to stop looking at only certain agencies as those that people like me fit in. You know, it's always 'we want to put the Black person in Labor or HUD,'" said Fudge, who is Black.
Source: The New Republic on Biden Cabinet
Dec 14, 2020
Pete Buttigieg:
Tension between capitalism and democracy America's challenge
More often than not, he splits the difference between the party's extremes. In a Vox interview he said, "You have one generation that grew up associating socialism with communism like they're the same thing, and therefore also assuming that capitalism
and democracy were inseparable. I've grown up in a time when you can pretty much tell that there's tension between capitalism and democracy, and negotiating that tension is probably the biggest challenge for America right now."
Source: The New Republic magazine, articles on 2020 candidates
Mar 29, 2019
Rahm Emanuel:
Politicians are usually gray; I am not
Q: Robert Gates called you in his book: "a whirling dervish with attention deficit disorder."EMANUEL: Yeah, so? What are you wondering?
Q: Do you pursue this style and image because it has advantages in governing?
EMANUEL: The assumption is that
I only have one gear. I have more than one gear. Here is what I think about you guys.
Q: The media?
EMANUEL: Look, politicians are usually gray. I am not. So little things stand out because they are magnified against that backdrop. I will say this.
I am driven to fulfill the responsibility I have. I owe the people who voted to fulfill the pledges I made.
Q: The portrait of you in your brother Zeke's new book made it seem as if you care about getting things done no matter the details.
In one scene, doctors bring up malpractice reform and you sort of say, 'Screw this.'
EMANUEL: You asked me about style. Now you are asking me a different question.
Q: Yes.
EMANUEL: Don't mix the answers with the questions.
Q: I promise not to.
Source: The New Republic 2014 coverage of 2016 presidential hopefuls
Apr 6, 2014
Rahm Emanuel:
Washington is not broken; the GOP is broken
Q: How do you think the GOP has changed since you left Washington in 2011?EMANUEL: It has been going downhill. Washington is not broken. The GOP is broken.
They need a Bill Clinton moment with someone to figure things out. If George W. Bush had never gotten in the disastrous Iraq war, he was trying to modernize the party on a series of fronts. But on tax and foreign policy, everything cratered.
Q: Chris Christie was going to be the savior.
EMANUEL: He "was." You said it in past tense.
Q: Do you think it is past tense?
EMANUEL: I do. Nothing is ever absolute in politics, but I am willing to go out on a limb and join you. It may take more than an immediate time frame for him to recover, and he doesn't have more than that.
Source: The New Republic 2014 coverage of 2016 presidential hopefuls
Apr 6, 2014
JD Vance:
OpEd: Vance explains the economically precarious white voter
J.D. Vance is the man of the hour, maybe the year. His memoir Hillbilly Elegy is a New York Times bestseller, acclaimed for its colorful and at times moving account of life in a dysfunctional clan of eastern Kentucky natives. It has received positive
reviews across the board, with the Times calling it "a compassionate, discerning sociological analysis of the white underclass." In the rise of Donald Trump, it has become a kind of Rosetta Stone for blue America to interpret that most mysterious of
species: the economically precarious white voter.Vance's influence has been everywhere this campaign season, shaping our conception of what motivates these voters. And it is already playing a role in how liberals are responding to Donald Trump's
victory in the presidential election, which was accomplished in part by a defection of downscale whites from the Democratic Party. Appalachia overwhelmingly voted for Trump, and Vance has since emerged as one of the media's favorite Trump explainers.
Source: The New Republic magazine on Hillbilly Elegy
Nov 17, 2016
Page last updated: Aug 06, 2024