Alaska's population is about the same as the Little Rock metro area, and it's politically odd -- its separatist party and Libertarians actually get a fair number of votes in gubernatorial elections. Success in Alaska politics doesn't mean much.

And she couldn't even manage that.

Don't a lot of tin foil hat types go up there to live in the bush and pretend there is no government?

If there were perhaps the Dems could win back the votes of whites in the old Confed. southern States and also draw away a lot of moderate Republican voters who are sick of Trump, Cruz their classless act and what the GOP has turned into

I'll take that as an acknowledgement that there are no right of center Democrats, except for Mancin, who I did mention. Although there is an extraordinary Congresswoman from Hawaii, Tulsi Gabbard, who seems a square peg in the round hole of the Democratic Party. I figure Debbie will take her to the woodshed pretty soon and get her head turned around.

I think it's remarkable that whites in the quintessential southern state of South Carolina elected a Republican black Senator and a Republican female Governor whose parents came here from India. And the whites in Louisiana elected another Republican Governor whose parents came from India. Maybe something's going on down there in the old Confed. that isn't being noticed East of the Hudson and out on the Left Coast.

Popular media opinion is not always accurate. Perhaps southern whites are more conservative than racist. Who woulda thunk it.

Or the districts are gerrymandered beyond recognition.

Have you never heard of the Blue Dog Democrats, or do you just want to pretend that they don't exist?

Why is it that everything has to be one extreme or the other? What is it about the infantilization of American politics that makes compromise so difficult? Apologies, FlaeviusAetius, for picking your post as an exemplar of this, but it is the most obvious one in the last few pages of this debate.

In reality, of course, Obama has been moderately successful in re-establishing a working relationship, through international co-operation, with Iran. That's a good thing in the minds of pretty everybody else except possibly the current Israeli administration.

He has been moderately unsuccessful in taking action against ISIS - hampered in no small part by the proxy war in Syria and the posturing of Putin, which (amongst other impediments) makes it difficult to justify putting ground troops in theatre in sufficiently large numbers. But again, the approach favoured by the Obama administration has garnered significant international support, including that of several Arabic nations. Of course, there's a big questionmark over how altruistic that support really is, but the US has no monopoly on peddling influence through military intervention... However, his handling of the Russian involvement in Syria, and the US management of coalition exploits in northern Iraq - particularly the mess that has been made of the Kurdish Peshmerga situation - is pretty poor.

Would he have stood up to the Russians on Cuba? That's a very odd question, given that it was over 50 years ago, Obama was one year old at the time, adn the world has moved on quite a lot since then. He seems to have done a reasonable job of standing up to the Russians on the Ukrainian situation, given the constraints of Putin's, um, idiosyncratic policy decisions. He's done less well in taking a strong line on Russia's support of Al Assad's Syrian regime - but maybe, just maybe, he has learned the lessons from the aftermath of coalition-imposed regime change in other troubled Middle Eastern or North African countries?

And reopening diplomatic and trading ties with Cuba was very, very long overdue - becoming an agent of change through engagement has time and again proven a more sustainable foreign policy tool than trying to force change through isolation.

So, no, he's not a super-strong foreign policy hawk (thank the stars) but neither is he a limp and spineless jellyfish; his administration seems to have taken a pragmatic approach to foreign policy. It would be lovely if the Democrats could acknowledge some of the failures, and the Republicans could acknowledge some of the successes, and that the entire foreign policy debate could be had in a more adult way on both sides of the political divide.

I just watched an interview with Trump on CNN. I swear, the guy is on speed; he was always a nut, but now he's wound so tight it is utterly terrifying. If this guy is elected, he's going to start WW III.

Should I hold my breath waiting for Carly Fiorina's retraction? Or will she double down?

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/26/us...imes&smtyp=cur

Innocent until proven guilty, but this is certainly an "interesting" development.

I didn't click the link but I'll assume Carly Fiorina was a victim of Bill Cosby....

Yet Greg Abbot continues the "investigation" of Planned Parenthood. We are annoyed.

CNN Poll

Clinton lead Shrinks.