The term "bully pulpit" stems from President Theodore Roosevelt's reference to the White House as a "bully pulpit," meaning a terrific platform from which to persuasively advocate an agenda. Roosevelt often used the word "bully" as an adjective meaning superb/wonderful.
The Bully Pulpit features news, reasoned discourse, opinion and some humor.
(By Bethany Mandel, Commentary) - The Wednesday before the election, Mitt Romney sent a special message to volunteers about a special project his campaign was working on: “With state of the art technology and an extremely dedicated group of volunteers, our campaign will have an unprecedented advantage on election day.” What is it they say about something that sounds too good to be true? It probably is. That was the case with the Romney campaign’s “Project ORCA.”
(By Heather Mac Donald, National Review Online) - The call for Republicans to discard their opposition to immigration amnesty will grow deafening in the wake of President Obama’s victory. Hispanics supported Obama by a margin of nearly 75 percent to 25 percent, and may have provided important margins in some swing states. If only Republicans relented on their Neanderthal views regarding the immigration rule of law, the message will run, they would release the inner Republican waiting to emerge in the Hispanic population.
If Republicans want to change their stance on immigration, they should do so on the merits, not out of a belief that only immigration policy stands between them and a Republican Hispanic majority. It is not immigration policy that creates the strong bond between Hispanics and the Democratic party, but the core Democratic principles of a more generous safety net, strong government intervention in the economy, and progressive taxation. Hispanics will prove to be even more decisive in the victory of Governor Jerry Brown’s Proposition 30, which raised upper-income taxes and the sales tax, than in the Obama election.
(By Scott Gustin, WGHP) - Gov. Mitt Romney conceded defeat to President Barack Obama, but someone apparently hasn’t given up the dream.
The transition website designed for Gov. Romney if he were elected president briefly went live on Wednesday. It featured a homepage, a “Join The Administration” page and a page dedicated to his inauguration.
(BY STEVEN HAYWARD, Powerline) - Wait, the turnout was what?! As the numbers continue to come into focus (and the final vote tally is still days or weeks away), the fact that Romney may underperform (or barely match) the listless McCain in 2008 is the real shocker of the election. Maybe we should have just run McCain/Palin again. Obama’s vote total will be down something like six to eight million from his 2008 total; it is unprecedented for a president to be re-elected without adding to his vote total from the first election. Hardly a vote of confidence.
(By Guy Benson, Townhall.com) - Many conservatives are still licking their wounds from election night, and understandably so. It was ugly almost any way you slice it. As we move beyond the initial stages of political mourning, an intense round of Righty fratricide is on the way. There will be nasty battles over the causes of Tuesday's mess, and vehement disagreements about where the Republican Party should go from here. One of the suggested paths will be to moderate on a host of issues. This approach may be wise on certain fronts, but wrong-headed on others. That's a separate discussion for another day. What will inevitably take place, though, is the media's sanctimonious tongue-clucking about the necessity of GOP leaders to stand up to their "extreme" and irrational base. A fresh round of thumb-sucking pieces about the "endangered moderate" will crop up, too. While it's true that Republican primary voters have made a handful costly mistakes in recent cycles, is it fair to suggest that the Right is more intransigent, irrational, or immoderate than the Left? Consider the cases of Missouri and Massachusetts, two states that played central roles in the 2012 Senate catastrophe...
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Hours after U.S. President Barack Obama was re-elected, the United States backed a U.N. committee's call on Wednesday to renew debate over a draft international treaty to regulate the $70 billion global conventional arms trade.
U.N. delegates and gun control activists have complained that talks collapsed in July largely because Obama feared attacks from Republican rival Mitt Romney if his administration was seen as supporting the pact, a charge Washington denies.
The month-long talks at U.N. headquarters broke off after the United States - along with Russia and other major arms producers - said it had problems with the draft treaty and asked for more time.
LAS VEGAS (CBS Las Vegas) — A Las Vegas business owner with 114 employees fired 22 workers today, apparently as a direct result of President Obama’s re-election.
“David” (he asked to remain anonymous for obvious reasons) told Host Kevin Wall on 100.5 KXNT that “elections have consequences” and that “at the end of the day, I need to survive.”
(BY JOHN HINDERAKER, Powerline) - Yesterday was a comprehensive disaster. Here in Minnesota, to add a local perspective, not only did the state go for Obama–no surprise there–but the Democrats recaptured both houses of the legislature, and voters defeated two ballot initiatives, one on gay marriage and one on voter ID. Similar losses were sustained across the nation, although there were a few bright spots here and there. So yesterday’s defeat was not about a flawed presidential candidate or presidential campaign.
