MattBai.com

Dave Thomas

mattbai — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 19:44:30 +0000

I just read a statement in your book "The Argument" where you said that conservatives "ended up running up deficits that would have been unimaginable to Jimmy Carter."

I wonder what your opinion is of the deficits under the Obama administration?

I just tossed your book in the recycling. At least I supported the used book store where I bought it, and it will serve a better purpose as recycled paper.

Diane Young

mattbai — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 20:16:19 +0000

Hi Matt, I read your interesting article on Obama in this past Sunday magazine. I believe there is an error in it. One that others have made and one which drives me crazy as a non-Rahm enthusiast (Howard Dean supporter). You seemed to give Rahm credit for the success of the Dems in 2006. Howard Dean's 50 State strategy I believe was the cause of the Dems most recent success (and Obama's) and Rahm fought him tooth and nail about it, though when it was a success he never corrected anyone who gave him credit. Nevertheless, I always enjoy your views and insight look forward to more.

I HAVE CAVED TO TECHNOLOGY

mattbai — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 20:16:27 +0000

Don't we all? Wanted to let readers know that you can now get links to my column on Twitter. No 10-second-old pearls of wisdom or updates on my coffee consumption or TV watching habits. Just links. Please follow--thanks.

Louis Proyect

mattbai — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 00:55:06 +0000

8000 words and not a single one of them about politics. What a talent you have. Did you learn to be insubstantial at Harvard, Yale or Princeton? You are really good at it, I must say.

ANNOUNCEMENT: FOR EVERYTHING THERE IS A SEASON....

mattbai — Tue, 18 May 2010 12:37:42 +0000

I've hinted at this briefly in some of my responses, but here's the deal: after eight really terrific years of writing only for the Times Magazine, which is as much a journalistic home to me as I've ever had, I'm moving over to the paper. Beginning at the end of May, I'll be writing a political column in the news pages, though I'll continue to write a few long pieces a year for the magazine. What this means for this site, I'm not exactly sure yet. I doubt it will be practical (or legal, perhaps) to post all my columns here, although of course I will have a page for that on the Times site.

An Out-of-Office Message for Republican Candidates

mattbai — Tue, 18 May 2010 12:31:12 +0000

Some 30 months from the next presidential election, the field of potential challengers to Barack Obama is like a solar system in its infancy — unformed, gaseous and lacking a dominant star. One characteristic, however, stands out. In a recent CNN poll that tested the strength of possible Republican hopefuls, only one of the seven most likely candidates (that would be Representative Ron Paul) will actually hold an elected office by the end of this year. The two leading candidates as of today, Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney, haven’t held a political job in more than three years.

Roger Soder

mattbai — Mon, 03 May 2010 12:53:45 +0000

Matt, I thought your piece in today's NYT Mag ("An Out-of-Office Message for Republican Candidates") was right on the mark. Your usual insights.

Survey Says

mattbai — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 14:10:13 +0000

Back in 2005, when Democrats in Congress fought to preserve their right to filibuster against George W. Bush’s judicial nominees, they spoke in unison about how Republicans were “changing the rules in the middle of the game,” a slogan they had tested with focus groups like a catchphrase for breakfast cereal. The idea was to turn an arcane question of process into a basic issue of fairness in the public mind, and it worked. Now, five years later, Republicans reeling from their health care defeat are trying the same tactic.

Doug Baggett

mattbai — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 01:29:46 +0000

Matt, very interesting article but I find it a little bit of a stretch (and a "little" insulting) to say that if one does not like the 17th Amendment then they must also be against women's right to vote in the 15th amendment. You should be careful. Statements like those really don't make your articles stronger, they make them weaker by ensuring that a reader on the fence stops reading dead in their tracks.

Terry

mattbai — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 21:02:45 +0000

p. 26,para. 2/the argument....by radically conservative ideology, are you speaking of our Constitution?

Jack Tennier

mattbai — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 20:02:09 +0000

You have the makings of a book. I wrote an extensive e-mail to my family today after sending them your article. I ended up asking why the Supreme Court acts like it does and I ended with this: "The Court adheres slavishly to the precise words of the Constitution as it interprets it and common sense is abandoned resulting in the above absurdities.

Lee Nason

mattbai — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 19:52:48 +0000

While I do not always agree with your conclusions, I always appreciate your
careful consideration of political issues. But I was completely in
agreement with your recent op ed from yesterday's NYT. I don't know any
lobbyists but I fully expect that they are no more corrupt than the typical
politician or the typical voter.

A Lempert

mattbai — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 19:49:53 +0000

WHY ISN'T A LOBBYIST WHO MAKES OR OFFERS TO MAKE A CONTRIBUTION TO A POLITICAL OFFICE HOLDER OR OFFICE SEEKER IN ORDER TO INFLUENCE A VOTE OF SUCH HOLDER OR SEEKER ENGAGING IN A BRIBE?

Laws for Sale?

mattbai — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 19:48:41 +0000

Plaintiffs’ lawyers must be holding their heads a little higher when they walk into P.T.A. meetings and neighborhood parties these days, knowing that corporate lobbyists have overtaken them as the most despised professionals in America. Lobbyists have never been especially popular, of course; even their most sympathetic pop-culture portrayal, in the book and better-known movie “Thank You for Smoking,” focused mostly on their moral depravity. As a candidate, Barack Obama made a point of vowing to banish them from the White House.

The Brain Mistrust

mattbai — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 18:47:00 +0000

Republicans are feeling buoyant these days, having managed to cut their deficit in the Senate down to 18 seats, which means they can now be a genuine irritant to the Democrats who run the country. And yet there are still those glass-half-empty Republicans who insist on reminding their colleagues that the party is beset by serious problems. It has no discernible governing agenda, for one thing.

Tyranny of the Majorities

mattbai — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 15:17:53 +0000

If we learned anything about Barack Obama during the now-distant campaign of 2008, it was that he was a man who valued stoicism and self-possession in himself and others. And so it was significant, in an understated way, to hear Obama’s press secretary describe him, on the day of the election in Massachusetts to fill Ted Kennedy’s former Senate seat, as “surprised and frustrated” by the collapse of the Democratic candidate, Martha Coakley, and then to hear Obama’s closest aides heaping scorn on her campaign.

The Great Unalignment

mattbai — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 18:48:36 +0000

This time last winter, Democratic Washington was crackling with confident talk of a progressive re-awakening in the land and an enduring Congressional majority. “Realignment” was the word of the moment, as in the kind of demographic and ideological shift that shaped the nation’s politics for some 60 years after the election of Franklin Roosevelt. Now Democrats are trying to figure out how they lost what was presumed to be the safest Senate seat in the country — it belonged to Ted Kennedy for 46 years — and how to avoid hemorrhaging others. A year after George W.

Kevin Lagola

mattbai — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 16:15:40 +0000

Matt, I wanted to tell you that your article about the Corzine/Christie/Daggett campaign was excellent. As a newer, 'netroots' blogger, I read tons of political prose online. Your writing exceeds most. I came across you through a New York Times Magazine article about Independents. I am looking forward to purchasing and reading your 'Argument' book.

No-Commoner Obama

mattbai — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 17:13:30 +0000

There was something discordant, even tinny, about Barack Obama’s attempt to castigate Wall Street last month. No doubt the president was trying to acknowledge and channel the resentments in his own party — and in the country — when he told CBS’s Steve Kroft during a “60 Minutes” interview, “I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat-cat bankers on Wall Street.” Yet the rhetorical slap felt a little flat.

Joel Leventhal

mattbai — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 17:08:25 +0000

very insightful as with your previous articles -- you really understand what's up and can connect D.C. to the people. I assume many influential people read what you write (maybe even Obama).....so...

Doug Weinfield

mattbai — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 17:05:16 +0000

With all due respect, it would have been worth mentioning that the reasons FDR has a much stronger legacy regarding the New Deal than Huey Long included that FDR acquiesced in a politically motivated IRS investigation of Long and his associates which essentially turned up nothing, and that Long was killed in 1935! The latter is a pretty staggering omission, I would think.

Cable Guise

mattbai — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 14:36:54 +0000

After Walter Cronkite died earlier this year, Frank Mankiewicz, the onetime Democratic operative, recalled in The Washington Post how he had proposed that George McGovern select the CBS anchorman as his running mate during the 1972 presidential campaign. Cronkite was, of course, one of the most admired men in America and a known skeptic of the war in Vietnam.

Stanford University - Journalists on Journalism: Matt Bai of the New York Times Magazine

admin — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 19:01:20 +0000

September 23, 2009

Leveraging the Obama Brand

mattbai — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 03:09:57 +0000

Earlier this month, almost a year from the day when Barack Obama rode the wave of history into Grant Park, he had one of those weeks that makes his presidency seem, at times, so confounding. First Obama endured an electoral embarrassment, watching his party lose off-year gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia, in part because many of the voters he had so successfully engaged in his presidential campaign, particularly younger voters, stayed home and made popcorn for “Dancing With the Stars” instead.

Escalations

mattbai — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:36:03 +0000

“Are we going to give up in South Vietnam?” That was the question President Kennedy posed, then tried to answer, in what would be his final news conference in 1963. “The most important program, of course, is our national security. But I don’t want the United States to have to put troops there.” Kennedy was killed eight days later, giving rise not just to 40 years of grassy-knoll conspiracy theories but also to a lingering debate over whether he might have averted his successor’s tragic plunge into the jungles of Southeast Asia.