Essential Reads
Essential Reads is your one-stop source for the top stories of the day as reported by your favorite Washington Week panelists. It's a simple way to save time and stay informed about the news you need to know. Check it out every day!
Sep 06, 2012
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How Bill Clinton does it
By John F. Harris and Jonathan Martin, PoliticoThe crowd was roaring, TV commentators were gushing, and Barack Obama himself thanked Bill Clinton for his nominating speech with a big hug as he left the stage here Wednesday night.
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Verdict is in: Obama levels more personal attacks
By John F. Harris and Alexander Burns, PoliticoA crabby, negative campaign that has been more about misleading and marginal controversies than the major challenges facing the country? Barack Obama and Mitt Romney can both claim parenthood of this ugly child.
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Platforms reveal deep divide on hot-button issues
By Major Garrett, National JournalWhile the economy dominates this presidential election, issues such as abortion, immigration, regulation, and—in a sudden and startling reversal of Democratic platform language—God and Israel, have added a dose of intrigue to the conventions.
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Biden’s speech likely to spotlight strengths, or foibles
By Peter Baker, The New York TimesFolksy and loose, passionate and sometimes off script, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. arrives onstage Thursday night as the president’s most important political partner, policy enforcer, conscience, scold and occasional albatross.
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4 years later, scarred but still confident
By Peter Baker, The New York TimesHe warned them in 2008, and when he formally opened his re-election campaign in May, he put it in his speech again. He will “never be a perfect president,” he said, a line he now repeats at stop after stop. The unspoken subtext: It’s not my fault if you didn’t listen or expected too much.
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Clinton delivers impassioned plea for Obama second term
By Jeff Zeleny and Mark Landler, The New York TimesFormer President Bill Clinton and President Obama hugged onstage Wednesday night after Mr. Clinton delivered an impassioned plea on behalf of Mr. Obama’s re-election, the 42nd president nominating the 44th to a second term with a forceful and spirited argument that Democratic values would restore the promise of the middle class.
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Bill Clinton offers forceful defense of Obama’s record
By Dan Balz and Philip Rucker, The Washington PostFormer president Bill Clinton delivered a spirited defense of President Obama’s handling of the nation’s struggling economy here Wednesday night, criticizing the agenda and philosophy of Mitt Romney and accusing the Republican Party of ideological rigidity and an unwillingness to compromise.
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Sep 05, 2012
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Obama didn't stop the middle-class free-fall
By Jim Tankersley, National JournalThe middle class in America today is not better off than it was four years ago, not better off than it was at the end of the Great Recession in 2009, not even better off than when President Clinton left office in 2001.
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‘Are you better off?’ The answer is less clear than it was in 1980
By John Harwood and Mark Landler, The New York TimesWhen Ronald Reagan asked voters a week before the 1980 election whether they were better off than four years earlier, he turned a race that had been nip-and-tuck for months into a landslide victory — and showed how a pointed question can be a lethal political weapon.
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Can Obama break D.C. gridlock if re-elected?
By Alexis Simendinger, Real Clear PoliticsPolarized, gridlocked, uncooperative, partisan, impossible. That's how Democrats -- including some of President Obama's past and current White House advisers -- described the nation's capital during several moderated discussion sessions Tuesday at the party's convention here.
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Dispatches from the Democratic National Convention
By John Dickerson, Slate MagazineBarack Obama has said that his biggest mistake in office is that he hasn't told the right story to the American public. Maybe he should have let his wife tell it. First lady Michelle Obama delivered a powerful and deft defense of her husband, wrapping him in biography and the American story. She also started the process of rebutting the previous week's attacks.
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First lady Michelle Obama lauds husband’s values, vision
By Karen Tumulty, The Washington PostFirst lady Michelle Obama declared Tuesday that her husband’s record in office has proved his values, his vision and his courage, as the Democrats opened their convention here with a wide-ranging appeal to the diverse constituencies and interests they must bring out in force to reelect the president.
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Sep 04, 2012
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Dems' time to shine at DNC convention
By John Harwood, CNBC Read more -
Obama team sees convention as paving way to victory
By Alexis Simendinger, Real Clear PoliticsPresident Obama and his campaign team believe a successful Democratic National Convention can help plow a path to victory in November. Having experienced the same phenomenon in Denver four years ago, they hope to bottle convention magic one more time.
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For Michelle Obama, a new image but an old role
By Beth Reinhard, National JournalWhen Michelle Obama spoke at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, she was warily viewed as a woman proud of her country “for the first time” and caricatured by The New Yorker as an Afroed and armed rebel soldier.
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Republicans try to counter Democrats' convention
By Sam Youngman, ReutersRepublicans prepared a counterpunch to the Democratic National Convention this week by introducing their new line of attack with a not-so-new question: "Are you better off than you were four years ago?"
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Obama makes detour to visit hurricane site
By Jackie Calmes, The New York TimesPresident Obama took a short detour from campaigning on Monday to inspect the damage wrought by Hurricane Isaac last week and the government response, a stop that took on outsized political overtones in this campaign season.
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Aug 31, 2012
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Democrats outline convention schedule
By Helene Cooper, The New York TimesJust when it seemed as if there could not possibly be any more red, white and blue speeches ringing across the airways from the convention floor, the Democrats are unveiling their counterpunch to the Republican show that has been under way all week in Tampa.
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Obama team sharpens attacks on rivals’ character
By Jackie Calmes, The New York TimesAs the Obama campaign heads into its convention next week, Democrats see openings both to fill in unpopular details of Mitt Romney’s agenda left unsaid by Republicans in Tampa this week and to raise new questions about Mr. Romney’s character after widespread criticism of misstatements by him and his running mate, Paul D. Ryan.
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The risks of Romneynomics
By Jim Tankersley, National JournalIt’s not 1981 in America. Three decades after the Reagan Revolution, the country’s economic problems have evolved. Economic data show this clearly — and so do polling data.
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