The American Prospect articles from March 2008

The American Prospect archives from March 2008

Bringing the race to closure.(PROSPECTS)
March 1, 2008... REMEMBER WHEN IT WAS OBVIOUS THAT THE DEMOCRATIC Party would choose a presidential nominee early this year because of the front-loaded primary schedule? Like a lot else that was oh-so-obvious about this year's election, things aren't working...

No compromising on climate change.(CORRESPONDENCE)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] IN HIS OTHERWISE ASTUTE survey of the political landscape around climate change ["This Will Mean the World to Us," January/February 2008J, Chris Mooney takes a puzzling tone toward the activists who have pushed the...

Democratizing schools.(CORRESPONDENCE)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2008... RICHARD ROTHSTEIN'S analysis of the No Child Left Behind program's enormous damage to American public schools displays his usual insight and comprehension of schooling issues ["Leaving 'No Child Left Behind' Behind," January/ February 2008]....

A better way for our kids.(CORRESPONDENCE)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2008... THE PROSPECT'S DECEMBER 2007 special report, "Life Chances: The Case for Early Investment in Our Kids," is a thoughtful examination of our nation's desperate need for a comprehensive early childhood education system. The American Federation of...

From the executive editor.(CORRESPONDENCE)(Editorial)
March 1, 2008... ONE OF THE TRICKIER ASPECTS OF EDITING A MONTHLY magazine is dealing with a rapidly evolving topic, such as a presidential election, in a timely fashion. (To keep up with the hourly back-and-forth, visit our Web site, www.prospect.org.) Imagine...

Cast into the darkness.(Up Front)
March 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] IN THE ANNALS OF THE CONSERVATIVE POLITICAL ACTION Conference, which has been convened annually since 1973, the 2008 meeting in Washington's Omni Shoreham Hotel will likely be remembered by participants as the one...

The question: what should Rudy Giuliani do now that he's dropped out of the presidential race?(Up Front)(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... "Take his $40 million delegate to a Yankees game." --Michael Gehrke, research director, Democratic National Committee "Spend more time not with his family." --Chris Beam, political reporter, Slate.com [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ...

Parody.(Up Front)(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... "Make it a hundred."--John McCain on possible U.S. length of stay (in years) in Iraq should he be elected president From: Rick Davis, campaign manager To: John McCain In response to some of the pushback you've received for your...

Our Senate problem.(THE OUT YEARS)
March 1, 2008... "THE MOST TROUBLESOME TASK OF A REFORM President," wrote Henry Adams, is "bringing the Senate back to decency." Adams was writing about the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant, which began with an Obamaesque promise of national reconciliation and...

Solidarity politics.(COMMENT)
March 1, 2008... WITH THE DEMOCRATIC FRONT-RUNNERS A woman and a black man, it's not surprising that the phrase "identity politics" is popping up all over the place. In his post-Super Tuesday analysis for The New York Times, Adam Nagourney wrote, "Surveys of...

The Democrats' choice: manager or visionary: on matters economic, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama think alike. Beyond policy, though, she promises to ride the bureaucracy; he promises to drive the mood.(Cover story)
March 1, 2008... "We have systematically diminished the role and the responsibility of our government, land we have watched our market become imbalanced," said either Senator Hillary Clinton or Senator Barack Obama. I just believe strongly that we are in great...

Can the Democrats think big? With the economic crisis becoming more dire by the day, Democrats will win on pocketbook issues only if they recover the imagination and nerve to offer remedies on a scale equal to the problems.
March 1, 2008... By the time the general election campaign is in full swing, the economy is likely to be in much deeper trouble. Historically, one of the staples of political science research is that presidential elections are backward-looking referenda and...

The 2008 veepstakes.
March 1, 2008... THOUGH THE DEMOCRATIC presidential contest has turned into a longer-running show than anyone could have imagined, it's not too early to begin the quadrennial quest for the perfect Democratic vice-presidential running mate. Accordingly, the...

The bench, etc..
March 1, 2008... Because nominating politicians for national stardom is one of those time-honored journalists' perks, there are lots of other names floating around in the ether. Former GOV. TOM VILSACK of Iowa, SEN. EVAN BAYH of Indiana, and GOV. BILL...

Address the pain, reap the gain: why our nation's future demands that political leaders take seriously the economic plight of America's young.
March 1, 2008... TODAY'S YOUNG ADULTS are very likely to be the first generation to not surpass the living standards of their parents. Evidence of their declining economic opportunity and security abound, from widespread debt to lower earnings in today's labor...

A new deal of their own: social policy once helped the young join the middle class. Today, government aid is mainly for the elderly and the poor.
March 1, 2008... AMERICA DOES NOT DO WELL BY its young. For years government data and social-science research have demonstrated persistently high levels of poverty and related problems among children. In a UNICEF study last year measuring the well-being of...

Progressive Re-Generation: at times in American political history, young generations have formed lasting ties to parties and idealogies. Is 2008 one of those times?
March 1, 2008... CHARISMATIC LEADERS AND TIDAL shifts in public policy have always shaped the party allegiance and policy preferences of generations that come of age at critical moments. After enduring the Depression, the Greatest Generation developed a...

Big vote on campus: progressive groups increase their focus on colleges--and not just the usual suspects.(MOBILIZING MILLENNIALS)
March 1, 2008... IN 2004, KEVIN KILLER WATCHED AS his fellow Oglala Sioux Tribe members were turned away at the voting booth in South Dakota when poll volunteers misconstrued new voter identification procedures and rejected tribal identification cards. A Denver...

Another kind of youth movement: a new generation with new economic stresses rediscovers the benefits of an old idea--trade unionism.(MOBILIZING MILLENNIALS)
March 1, 2008... IN RECENT MONTHS, LABOR ACTIVISM has presented a younger, hipper face. Based on media coverage of the Writers Guild of America strike in Hollywood and the uprising of MTV and VH1 long-term, full-time Web "freelancers" in New York City, you'd...

Democracy versus debt: students are getting serious about organizing to change the rules of the game that leave young adults burdened with college and credit-card debt.(MOBILIZING MILLENNIALS)
March 1, 2008... ANTHONY DANIELS IS THE CHAIRPERSON of the National Education Association's student program but is saddled with nearly $58,000 of debt in student loans from his undergraduate and master's programs. He's considering getting out of teaching. With...

An economic compact for the young: improving the economic horizons of America's young adults will require a sustained commitment and serious resources. But it will pay huge dividends.(MOBILIZING MILLENNIALS)
March 1, 2008... AS THE OTHER ARTICLES IN THIS special report have made clear, the economic deck is stacked against America's young. For a quarter-century, policies that once promoted entry into the middle class, such as affordable college tuition and support...

Black and brown together: in Mississippi, African American leaders are the foremost champions of the state's growing Latino immigrant population. Some day soon, they hope, the new alliance will transform the state's reactionary politics.(MOBILIZING MILLENNIALS)
March 1, 2008... In 1991, seeking to boost its never robust economy, the state of Mississippi passed a law permitting casino gambling. In short order, immigrant construction workers arrived from Florida to build the casinos, and the casinos themselves began...

Politicians bet the farm: faced with tough budget decisions, many states are turning to gambling as an answer to their economic woes. But most end up getting far more than they bargained for.
March 1, 2008... Last spring, Kansas politicians decided to take government promotion of gambling to a new level, voting to make the state the first to actually own Las Vegas-style casinos. Not content, as other states, to merely tax the revenues of commercial...

Black Hawk's gamble: how one small town in Colorado found out the hard way that the house always wins.
March 1, 2008... It has been less than a week since Fran Fry was in Black Hawk, Colorado, a town of more than 20 casinos and fewer than 200 residents, and she cannot stop thinking about the place. Still wearing a nametag ("25 years of service") from the...

Accounting for Kristol: when The New York Times hired Bill Kristol as an op-ed columnist, its readers' sensibilities and interests didn't matter a damn.(MEDIA)
March 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] PRETEND FOR A MOMENT YOU'RE a close friend of New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. The two of you are finishing off a nice dinner at say, the Century Club, about to reach for the cognac tray, when Arthur...

Zealots of our time.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... THEY KNEW THEY WERE RIGHT: THE RISE OF THE NEOCONS BY JACOB HEILBRUNN, Doubleday, 320 pages, $26.00 NOT LONG AGO THE TERM "NEO-CONSERVATIVE" seemed ripe for retirement. The label was originally applied in the 1960s and 1970s to the...

Power grab.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... TAKEOVER: THE RETURN OF THE IMPERIAL PRESIDENCY AND THE SUBVERSION OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY BY CHARLIE SAVAGE Little, Brown and Company, 400 pages, $25.99 THE TERROR PRESIDENCY: LAW AND JUDGMENT INSIDE THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION BY JACK...

Going nowhere fast.(THE CLOSER)
March 1, 2008... TO GET AMERICA BACK ON THE RIGHT ROAD, I WISH Henry Clay's Whig Party might come back and fix the roads again. Today, we need the "internal improvements" that the Whigs promoted every bit as much as we did in the 1830s and 1840s, when...