Yale on the Trail

NASHUA, N.H., 1:45 p.m. — Indeed, Arizona Senator John McCain’s campaign still has the Vietnam War feel.
Middle-aged men in trenchcoats and sneakers cruise the peripheries. Old CIA types and red-tie, blue-suit Republicans squeeze through the crowd. Even the Crowne Plaza hotel, where his victory rally was held last night, seemed to cling to the retro […]

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NORMAN, Okla., 5:50 p.m. — Considering what many voters perceive as the often disingenuous, self-interested and intricate nature of modern political campaigns, it is no surprise that game theorists — those who study strategic interactions between agents — have turned to American politics as a field ripe with opportunities for analysis.
Yale’s own Justin Fox, a […]

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WASHINGTON, D.C., 8:35 p.m. — A new CNN-WMUR poll released this evening shows Senator Barack Obama with a commanding 10-point lead over Senator Hillary Clinton LAW ‘73 among likely Democratic primary voters two days before Granite State voters cast their ballots.
The poll, conducted Saturday and today, suggests Obama may be capitalizing on the momentum from […]

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MANCHESTER, N.H., 6:23 p.m. — As if it weren’t obvious already, the New Hampshire primary is going to come down to the wire.
A new poll released minutes ago by CNN and WMUR, a Manchester television station, places Senator Barack Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton LAW’73 in a statistical tie among likely voters in this state, […]

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DES MOINES, Iowa, 2:45 p.m. - “It’s like the morning after a party,” Iowa State Republican Party Exectuive Director Chuck Laudner says, surveying the phone banking room that looks like a fraternity ripped through it. “Everyone just picks up and goes home, and we’ve got to clean up.”
And that’s just what it is: the morning […]

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WEST CALDWELL, New Jersey, 2:45 p.m. — So you say you want a revolution?

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DES MOINES, Iowa, 4 a.m. - Iowa holds a special place in American political life. It is routinely the first state in which presidential candidates are tested and chosen, and has been since 1972.
Iowans seem to regard their civic responsibility with utmost seriousness. They are aware that the eyes of the world are […]

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NORMAN, Oklahoma, 10:45 a.m. — I didn’t think I would have a reading assignment while on winter break. Then again, I also hadn’t planned on interviewing Ted Marmor.
I wanted the School of Management and political science professor’s opinion on the presidential candidates’ positions on healthcare. Marmor, after all, has testified before Congress on healthcare reform, […]

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WASHINGTON, D.C., 9:50 p.m. — Illinois Senator Barack Obama and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee will both leave Iowa and head to New Hampshire tomorrow with the wind at their backs but facing vastly different political terrain as the Granite State’s Jan. 8 primary approaches.
Obama, riding a wave of support among first-time and college-age caucus-goers […]

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DES MOINES, Iowa, 5:22 PM – Would you like some creamer with that Richardson? How about a little sugar in your Huckabee? You say you want a half-caff skim peppermint Hillary latte?
Such is the scene at Zanzibar’s Coffee Adventure in Des Moines, on Ingersall Avenue, where the owners have set up a “Coffee Caucus” to […]

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WEST DES MOINES, Iowa, 9:56 a.m. — “These teams in the WAC conference, you get one team like Boise beating Utah and all of a sudden they’re like, ‘Let us play for a national championship.’ Then you put a team like Hawaii up against Georgia, you say, ‘Here you go, try playing a BCS against […]

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WEST DES MOINES, Iowa, 9:08 p.m. — Underneath a deck of gaudy turquoise and hot-pink stage lights at the Val Air Ballroom in West Des Moines, Mike Huckabee seems strangely out of place. His is a candidacy that never should have made it this far. As the adage goes, politics does not favor the decent. […]

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