Politics: A Spat Over Secrecy | Newsweek Periscope

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY
For the Defense
8/27/2008 12:00:00 AM
As a respected Princeton historian and a committed Democrat, Wilentz should know better than anyone that now is the time when all Democrats must come together to defeat our real enemy: a Republican candidate who is pro-war, anti-choice, and so out of touch with the common man, he doesn't even know how many houses he owns. Otherwise, we will repeat one of the greatest tragedies our party has suffered in the last forty years: the razor-thin victory of Richard Nixon in 1968, which occurred after thousands of anti-war supporters of Eugene McCarthy refused to rally around Hubert Humphrey, after another exceptionally bitter primary season.
Anatomy of a Tight Race
Eleanor Clift 8/22/2008 12:00:00 AM
"Don't ask a pollster about reality, we deal in perception," joked Democratic survey expert Celinda Lake, when asked about the "reality" of Barack Obama's tax plan versus John McCain's. And the perception seems clear: voters think Obama would be better at handling the economy, and his relentless focus on middle-class tax cuts has insulated him from traditional Republican attacks on Democrats as tax-raisers.
The Power of Images
Jonathan Alter 7/14/2008 12:00:00 AM
When Harold Ross founded The New Yorker in 1925, he told potential investors that it was not edited for "the little old lady from Dubuque."
CAMPAIGN 2008
Sit Back, Relax, Get Ready to Rumble
Richard Wolffe
How do you know if Barack Obama is unhappy with what you're saying— or not saying? At meetings of his closest advisers, he likes to lean back, put his feet on the table and close his eyes. If he doesn't like how the conversation is going, he will lean forward, put his feet on the floor and "adjust his socks, kind of start tugging at them," says Michael Strautmanis, a counselor to the campaign. Obama wants people to talk, but he doesn't want to intimidate them. "If you haven't said anything, he'll call on you," says Strautmanis. "He's never said it, but he usually thinks if somebody is very quiet it's because they disagree with what everybody is saying … so Barack will call on you and say, 'You've been awfully quiet'." There are no screamers on Team Obama; one senior Obama aide says he's heard him yell only twice in four years. Obama was explicit from the beginning: there was to be "no drama," he told his aides. "I don't want elbowing or finger-pointing. We're going to rise or fall together." Obama wanted steady, calm, focused leadership; he wanted to keep out the grandstanders and make sure the quiet dissenters spoke up. A good formula for running a campaign—or a presidency.
Now On to ‘Florigan’!
Jonathan Alter
Yogi Berra, meet the Clintons. "It ain't over till it's over" neatly defines their current philosophy on the presidential race. Forget the brilliant Berra ambiguity of the word "over." How about "it"? What is the game they're now playing? The math is clear: Barack Obama will be the Democratic nominee for president unless he's caught on tape taking cash from Tony Rezko or vacationing in Hawaii with Louis Farrakhan. But the only thing dependable about the Clintons is that they never quit. Hillary has more than enough delegates to hassle Obama with the threat that she'll go all the way to the Denver convention or otherwise jeopardize party unity if he doesn't seat Florida and Michigan exactly as she wants. And she may rally her millions of supporters to demand that Obama offer her the No. 2 slot. Don't put it past her.
POLITICS
Obama: Can’t ‘Swift Boat’ Me
Mark Hosenball
The Obama campaign is planning to expand its research and rapid-response team in order to repel attacks it anticipates over his ties to 1960s radical Bill Ayers, indicted developer Antoin Rezko and other figures from his past. David Axelrod, Obama's chief strategist, tells NEWSWEEK that the Illinois senator won't let himself be "Swift Boated" like John Kerry in 2004. "He's not going to sit there and sing 'Kumbaya' as the missiles are raining in," Axelrod said. "I don't think people should mistake civility for a willingness to deal with the challenges to come." The move appears to be an acknowledgment that the Obama campaign may not have moved aggressively enough when questions about Ayers and Rezko first arose, and it comes amid fresh indications that conservative groups are preparing a wave of attack ads over the links.