President Obama chose to begin his State of the Union address last week with a quotation from President Kennedy. It was appropriate and well-chosen. However, the agenda that he presented to the nation brought to mind another of Kennedy's quotes, this one from his 1960 campaign. A standard line in...

Earlier this month, hundreds of alumni of Bill Clinton's campaign and White House gathered in Little Rock to mark the 20th anniversary of the launch of his presidential run. They revisited their old haunts, watched a screening of the "War Room," and listened to the strains of Fleetwood Mac's "Don't...

Candidates for office, it has been said, will show up for the opening of an envelope. This is especially true for those seeking an office like state treasurer. So it was that in early October of last year I found myself waiting for my turn to speak at the Yavapai...

Consider this: since Andrew Jackson - the father of the modern Democratic Party - left the White House, only two other Democrats (Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson) have convinced at least 51 percent of the country to back them for president. Being the party of change is never easy, but...

Let me say one thing at the outset: if they had been passing out D minuses on the report card at Pixieland Kindergarten, I would have received one in arts and crafts. Asking me to take a pair of scissors and cut a straight line across a piece of paper...

I'm going on the Colbert Report tonight to talk about my new book, The Candy Bombers: The Untold Story of the Berlin Airlift and America's Finest Hour. So far the advice I've received is:

* Be funny
* Don't be funny
* Come with a joke prepared

What would happen if one of the people in charge of the American military had gone mad? What if it happened while we were on the brink of World War III and no one knew about it?

Those questions are not the stuff of thrillers, but of America's history. As...

To see part 1 of this sneak peek of my upcoming book, The Candy Bombers, click here.

I didn't set out to write a book about American politics. In fact, I was trying to avoid it. I've been in the thick of it as a former aide in...

Its been almost exactly three years since Arianna asked me to join her soon to launch group blog and, while I've been excited to see the Huffington Post grow, I've only been able to write intermittently. I have my excuses (marriage, fatherhood, starting a new journal), but my main...

In my upcoming book, The Candy Bombers, I tell the story of how Harry Truman's election campaign in 1948 intersected with the war scare surrounding the Soviet blockade of Berlin. Contrary to conventional wisdom, it was not economic populism or personality contrasts that were - first and foremost -...

I spent the day yesterday back in Salem with Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton -- the two candidates who, most likely, will end up in second place when the votes in New Hampshire have been counted. But rather than seeing two contenders on their last legs, I came away convinced...

I spent the day today in Salem, New Hampshire, a wonderful town of white-steepled churches and houses with porches, all shrouded in snow. There, John McCain and Barack Obama both held events -- separated by two blocks and three hours.

Both men were at the top of their games. McCain's...

As the big crowd stuffed itself into the cafeteria/auditorium of the Londonderry Middle School, the Dunkin Donuts were snapped up immediately. And there were no carrot sticks to be found. This is clearly not Mike Huckabee's natural constituency.

But there is something in the turnout that shows that guitar-playing,...

Four years ago, I was with John Kerry as he turned his victory in the Iowa caucuses into a clear road to the Democratic nomination. The question in this coming week is whether Barack Obama will be able to do the same.

John Edwards may have come in second, but...

In the 24 hours since we released the Winter 2008 issue of Democracy, there's been a lot of discussion over my ending essay about the debate over the term "War on Terror." Many have agreed with the points I laid out, some have disagreed, but this is clearly...

When the toll of the repercussions of the Bush administration's missteps and failures finally gets tallied up, one item on that long list will surely have be that too often Democrats and progressives were so purblind with justifiable anger that we allowed sputtering denunciations to take the place of thoughtful...

Reading the transcript of the HuffPost Live Chat with Matt Bai got me thinking about the swirl of discussion and debate surrounding his new book The Argument. While the book has been critically acclaimed, it has run into the same buzz saw of criticism that many...

Let me get one thing straight at the outset: I have no animosity for Bob Shrum. He is an engaging, interesting guy with great stories to tell from years at the center of American politics. As many of you may know, during much of the time I was working for...

On the one year anniversary of Katrina, the news media is rightfully remembering all the victims and recalling the Bush Administration's bureaucratic bungling. They are right to do so -- in fact, they should be doing even more of this. But there's more to the story.

We need to be...

When we started up Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, I knew we wouldn't be popular in some quarters. After all, conservatives have had the corner on putting forward breakthrough ideas for most of the past generation. And they have grown used it.

Progressives have let them get away with...