David Gray

If I were Mitt Romney and looking to close a 19 percentage point gap with President Obama in support from women I would:

1. Develop an affirmative policy agenda of ideas that help women, and men, yet won't alienate his party base. An agenda that builds on past...

Even as our nation's unemployment rate has fallen to 8.5%, unemployment remains stubbornly high in many areas. States like California, Nevada and Mississippi, in addition to Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, experience unemployment rates significantly above the national average.

Squeezed state child care budgets are not helping....

Over the past few months there has been surprising progress made in the area of child care policy. Since the Child Care Development Block Grant (CCDBG) act became law in 1990 and was expanded and reauthorized in 1996 as part of welfare reform, there has been little real progress on...

Today at the New America Foundation in Washington we held an event on child care policy in the context of the President's recent Race to the Top challenge grant. 170 people RSVPed for the event. 141 watched on the internet. 119 attended in person. However, counting myself, there were only...

This Wednesday at noon, millions of Christians will mark the beginning of Lent with traditional Ash Wednesday midday services. Many will attend services this evening. Yet others will try to observe right from the shrine of our work desks -- mouse in hand, eyes glued to screen.

This has less...

As the New Year begins, Congress and the administration will renew their focus on jobs. From Main Street to Wall Street there is agreement that America needs more of them. Near double digit unemployment is painful and discouraging to unemployed and employed Americans. There is bipartisan agreement that employment is...

Watching the recent and upcoming GOP primaries -such as John McCain's in Arizona- and as we approach the November midterm elections, it's fascinating to think about the ideological shift in the GOP over the past two generations. McCain ran in 2000 as a relative moderate against more conservative George W....

Could you see Barack Obama being elected President for two different, separate administrations?

There is a lot of buzz now that the negative poll numbers the President is receiving could mean he loses his bid for reelection in 2012. Could you see him losing in 2012, but winning in 2016?

The story of last evening's primary elections was the success of female candidates. Arkansas Senator Blanche Lincoln, California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, California senatorial nominee Carly Fiorina, South Carolina's gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley and Nevada senatorial candidate Sharron Angle were all nominated (or at least in a runoff in Haley's...

During the 2008 campaign and as President, Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama have called for mandated paid leave as a key part of their approach to work family balance issues. U.S. Department of Labor Deputy Secretary Seth Harris testified before Congress last November that federally mandated paid leave...

Last week, writers in both The Washington Post and Daily Beast argued that having more mothers on the U.S. Supreme Court would be positive in helping the Court understand the needs of families and add an important new kind of diversity. Having a mother of school age children as...

As we approach Mother's Day, the biggest gift that many moms are looking for is a gift of time and balance. There is a mismatch between the structure of American work and the needs of most families. Fortunately, there may be increasing hope for parents and others struggling with work...

This morning, the White House announced a forum on Workplace Flexibility scheduled for March 31. For those who have worked on work life balance issues, this focus on the issue by the White House is an exciting development.

Within Congress, there are current legislative efforts to expand paid and...

Now that the main legislative push on health care is completed, the oxygen should return to the legislative process on a host of other domestic issues. Prime among them is immigration. Even as Congress was finishing its work on health care, tens of thousands of people rallied this past weekend...

This week the Advisory Council to the Obama Administration's Faith Based Office released its recommendations to the President. Its a good document and contains a lot of thoughtful recommendations.

As I read through the report and focused on the recommendations for the Fatherhood section, I was struck by the...

As January begins, attention has followed the proposed "Resolution on Reagan's Unity Principle for Support of Candidates" that may be voted on during the upcoming meeting of the Republican National Committee. If passed, this resolution would require adherence to at least eight out of ten core principles for any Republican...

It is fascinating to see the latest paid leave bill from Congressman George Miller. In response to the swine flu epidemic, Rep. Miller has introduced legislation which would require that if businesses told workers to stay at home because they were sick, the businesses had to pay for the sick...

As Thanksgiving passes and we get into the Season of Advent on the Christian calendar, I am thankful for the spiritual disciple of patience that Advent brings us. We need the reminder that we do not control time and that good things come to those who wait.

Republican moderates have to cheer last evening's electoral results in Virginia, New Jersey and New York. In Virginia, Bob McDonnell took the state house by campaigning as a moderate Republican, toning down his conservative positions on social issues and focusing on pragmatic issues, like jobs, rather than ideological ones.