Robert David Sullivan

In Commonweal Charles Michael Andres Clark despairs that the fierce resistance to the Affordable Care Act ldquo Obamacare rdquo to the point of shutting down the federal government is part of the American political tradition Every effort to broaden the scope of ldquo all men rdquo and promo

When the Republicans kept their majority in the U S House last November the consensus was that the party would have no trouble winning again in 2014 Almost all the freshmen who won in the GOP tidal wave of 2010 made it through their first re-election campaign often the hardest and without Bara

The federal government shutdown is entering a second week with House Speaker John Boehner refusing to hold a vote on a ldquo clean continuing resolution rdquo that would reopen the government without delaying or defunding Obamacare One of the key players in this standoff is Texas Sen Ted Cruz w

As I wrote on Wednesday the shutdown of the federal government is not helping GOP change its image as a party of old white men Whether the ldquo white rdquo part will doom it in the next presidential election is a matter of much debate though I rsquo m skeptical an all-out war on Obamacare is g

You could spend all day reading news and commentary about the federal government shutdown but little of it is about the 2016 presidential race In a way that rsquo s a relief It rsquo s three years away Can rsquo t we take a break from the never-ending campaign It rsquo s also key to why the

The latest post from Robert David Sullivan at “(Un)Conventional Wisdom”

Political scientists have long argued whether there is really any ldquo mandate rdquo associated with a presidential election Are voters endorsing any specific proposals when they send someone to the White House The current fight over the implementation of Obamacare hinges on an attempt to squeez

Most pundits are predicting disaster for the Republican Party if there rsquo s a federal government shutdown partly because President Bill Clinton is perceived as having stomped GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich in the court of public opinion after the shutdowns of 1995 and 1996 This perception has