The New Republic

Campaigns despise the unpredictable nature of real world events unfolding in real time. Schedules and events are planned weeks, sometimes months in advance, resources and teams deployed, and then boom, Russia invades Georgia or a hurricane strikes the Gulf Coast, and everyone has to scramble. Case in point: Joe Biden (appropriately) scrapped plans today to march in Pittsburgh's labor day parade, and Barack Obama is back this afternoon in Chicago monitoring the storm. Here in Minneapolis what was once supposed to be a GOP coronation is being turned into a Gustav telethon. READ MORE >>

The War Room operators in the McCain campaign are used to fighting Democrats, not hurricanes. But unless Gustav changes course or stalls, it looks like this the McCain campaign will have to fight on two fronts--on the one side with Mother Nature, on the other, Barack Obama. READ MORE >>

An ad promoting nuclear non-proliferation is causing controversy at the Minneapolis airport. Clear Channel is taking the item down because Northwest Airlines considers it an "attack ad" aimed at John McCain--even though a similar ad in Denver addresses itself to Barack Obama. (Related ads also seem to be running on websites like DemConWatch.) READ MORE >>

There was a time when party platforms truly mattered. That time is not now. What happened? Seyward Darby is here to explain.   READ MORE >>

Within fourteen days of each other, two rush-hour calamities: a bridge collapse and a steam-pipe explosion. In Minneapolis, a forty-year-old bridge along highway I-35W suddenly dropped sixty feet into the Mississippi River, killing at least five people and injuring approximately one hundred more. The federal government had deemed the bridge structurally deficient in 1990, which the Minnesota Department of Transportation acknowledged in separate reports issued in 2005, 2006, and 2007, after inspecting the bridge. READ MORE >>

In the aftermath of September 11, the FBI hired Sibel Edmonds--and hundreds of others who, like her, were fluent in Middle Eastern languages--to translate thousands of hours of backlogged wiretap transcripts and other documents. Edmonds didn't stay at the FBI for very long, though. In March 2002, after she complained to her supervisor about poor management, slow progress, and even a possible spy within the translators' department, she was fired. READ MORE >>

FRIDAY, JANUARY 16, NEWTON, IOWA After a teeth-chattering ride on a propeller plane from Minneapolis, I arrive in Des Moines on Friday, three days before the Iowa caucuses. I was last here a week ago, and what a difference a week makes. Flights in are crowded with equipment from German, Japanese, and Dutch film crews. The rental-car agents at the airport buzz about catching glimpses of “Miss Paula Zahn.” Out on the roads, satellite trucks are a common sight. READ MORE >>

As you walk through the front door of the Columbia School of Journalism, the first thing you see is this paragraph, cast on a bronze plaque: READ MORE >>

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