Steven Waldman

It was assumed last night that Obama must have been fuming over Hillary Clinton’s non-concession speech. This was, the pundits noted, the one night when the national audience was watching, and she chose to withhold support. I’m not so sure. Hillary’s speech makes it much easier for Obama to not choose her as running mate.…

John Hagee’s recent Hitler comments were entirely consistent with his theology and should not have come as any surprise to Jewish groups. Fulfilling Biblical prophecy has always been at the root of Mr. Hagee’s support of Israel. Many Jews understood that but bargained that the motives for his support were less important than the fact…

How would Barack Obama deal with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? The first clue was in how he dealt with Hillary Clinton. No, I’m not equating Hillary with Holocaust-denying thugs but this is Obama’s first high profile negotiation with a tough adversary. How’d he do? At first blush, Obama’s team made a number of poor negotiating moves. In…

Below is John Hagee’s speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in 2007. Listen to the rousing reception. He’s been repeatedly been honored for supporting Israel. The question is: how do Jews feel about Hagee now that they have heard that Hagee believes Hitler was sent by God to drive Jews to Israel in…

The New York Times Magazine published an interesting piece this week about how Sen. John McCain’s Vietnam experience has shaped his Iraq policy. But it left out a highly salient factor: His father. Sen. McCain told the reporter, Matt Bai, that we could have won in Vietnam had we realized that in 1968 a new…

It’s true Oregon has an unusually high percentage of people who say they’re unaffiliated or not religious, and Obama did very well with that group (a point emphasized by William Schneider last night on CNN). One imagines a massive movement of tree hugging Wiccans and Taoists flooding the polls. But the novelty of that can…

In the past few primaries, pollsters have spliced the numbers so we could see to what extent white voters said race was an important factor in their vote. Below, the first number is the percent of white voters who said race was important; the second number is Obama’s margin of victory or defeat: Oregon: 7%…

So based on the results yesterday, we can see that Hillary Clinton wins among working class, less educated, whites, union members, Catholics, the economically suffering and rural voters, and Barack Obama wins among affluent, well educated, independent and African Americans. Oh, except for the fact that in Oregon, Obama won…. Whites (Obama 57%, Clinton 43%)…

Last night, CNN’s William Schneider said Obama won Oregon because it’s “very well educated state.” Everyone talks as if there are two basic educational categories: high school graduates and college graduates, with the former going for Clinton and the latter for Obama. Actually, the real battle has been over a third group – one of…

In case you couldn’t read the fine print on the faith-based pamphlet Barack Obama is distributing in Kentucky, here’s the key line (next to the big headline “COMMITTED CHRISTIAN”): “Obama forged a profound connection with the people of these communities [in Chicago]. At their encouragement, he visited a local church one Sunday. That day Obama…

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