Matt Bai's Blog, page 3

Tyranny of the Majorities

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 ...

The Great Unalignment

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 ...

Kevin Lagola

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

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.

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Joel Leventhal

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...

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Doug Weinfield

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

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.

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

September 23, 2009

Leveraging the Obama Brand

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 t...