Jamal Simmons

Rick Santorum's wife has a problem: Rick Santorum's mouth.

Sunday on Meet the Press, Santorum said his wife "is a very good governor for me" after she reprimanded him for calling President Obama "a snob" because he wants all American youth to have the opportunity to go...

Deciding not to run for president puts a check in the judgment column for Chris Christie. The barriers to success are just too high this year. Organizing a staff, raising the money, boning up on the issues and overcoming his overwhelming reluctance to running are just too many obstacles to...

Unless Chris Christie has been in a secret presidential candidate camp for the last year, it's just too late for him to start running for president. Ideally a candidate needs to decide two years before the first primary to run an effective campaign, one year earlier at the minimum. Before...

It feels a bit cliché to keep comparing Michele Bachmann to Sarah Palin, but it's hard to escape the trap. Sarah Palin looms as such a large figure among Republicans and the two women are just similar enough. Married for decades each with five children a piece, they are both...

Rule #1 for the Republican candidates in last night's CNN/WMUR debate surely was to do oneself no harm. It's virtually impossible to win the entire campaign by one good early debate performance, but a huge mistake could end it. Every candidate except Tim Pawlenty either held their position last night...

It's been almost two weeks since President Barack Obama waded into the debate around the so-called mosque to be built near Ground Zero and I really tried to stay out of it because the short-term politics are a loser, but I saw people screaming about it in New York this...

I spent many days in junior high school sweeping floors and emptying coin machines around my stepfather's family's laundromat, apartment building and grocery store on Lenox Avenue and 120th Street in Harlem. A popular pastime for many of the people who frequented the businesses was "playing the numbers," the illegal...

...If we were a sports team, this would be the moment for the tough-talking coach to talk straight about the hard work required at training camp to win. After the bank bailouts and bonuses, the nation needs to know that we are all in this together, so the millionaires will...

In 2001 I went to work for former U.S. Senator Max Cleland who lost three limbs in Vietnam after a grenade exploded in his hand. Before getting to know Max, I had given little thought to the Americans with Disabilities Act which ensures "equal opportunity for...

Today, the Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives launched America Speaking Out, a "grassroots" effort to hear from the American people about what they want Congress and their government to do. As a Democrat who is profoundly concerned about the direction of the country, I hope...

Today, New York Times columnist Tom Friedman points out that President Obama is wasting the crisis British Petroleum has unleashed with its oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico which should serve as an opportunity to get America focused on our energy, security and environmental problems that stem...

Today, the Republicans in the Senate voted for the third time to stop the Senate from debating Wall Street Reform on the floor. The Republicans still won't do their part to rebuild the trust between Washington and the American people and are willing to risk America's economic safety and stability...

In 2003 I stood in the doorway of a motel in South Carolina with U.S. Senator Bob Graham while he was running for president and listened to a middle aged woman tell him that someone had to fix the two-tiered system she saw developing in the United States. She did...

From my piece in Politico today...

If President Barack Obama bases his 2012 reelection campaign in Chicago, he will make history once again. Basing a challenger campaign outside the Washington area has been one of the historical markers of success, but there has not been a presidential reelection...

I have been wondering about this since 2004. Who are the black people that look to Don King for political advice?

This is not my joke but this was too funny not to let others know about it.

This morning, my favorite morning comedian, Huggy Lowdown ripped Republican candidate...

Last week, John Gibson actually called for white people to have more babies to fight off the onslaught of Hispanics in the country (Media Matters summary is below). This is a call to arms for white people to defend the homeland by having more unprotected sex.

There is also...

When Attorney General Alberto Gonzales testified before the Judiciary Committee on February 6th he said that the wiretapping program that had recently been leaked was "all that he (the President) has authorized." On March 1st, Gonzales then sent a letter clarifying that his remarks were confined only to that program...

Surely you remember the dust-up over Bill Clinton's portrait not showing his wedding ring prominently. Well, where is our current President's outward sign of eternal betrothal as he leers down at Katherine Harris?

I don't usually blog on behalf of clients of my consulting business (and I believe it is only ethical to let you know they are clients up front), but I thought I would make this exception since the issue of genocide is so important.

This Sunday in Washington, DC,...

As The American Prospect covers Al Gore, I still think his heroism during the Katrina crisis is evidence that Gore is the most passionate national Democrat out there right now -- speaking his mind, but also ACTING on his convictions. Whether he runs for President again or not, he...