May 18, 2008
After six weeks of continuous campaigning and media attention, it is not surprising that the atmosphere was tense as the primary arrived in Pennsylvania. Emotions were running high as the world media descended on Philadelphia. Yet I was shocked to see people yelling, screaming and pushing at one another. Representatives...
Gene Koo | Posted April 24, 2008 | Off The Bus
At about 7:45pm on Pennsylvania's primary day, at the eastern edge of Hunting Park in northern North Philadelphia, I knocked on a voter's door with a last-minute reminder to get down to the polls only three blocks over. "You mean the voting is still open?" the woman asked. Yes,...
Laura J. Mansfield | Posted April 24, 2008 | Off The Bus
PHILADELPHIA-- "This is a Hillary victory party, not an Obama loser party," shouted Mali Kigasari, a Clinton supporter from California. Hillary Clinton's victory rally at the Park Hyatt hotel in Philadelphia Tuesday night came after a long fought battle.
While she delivered an impassioned speech inside, hundreds of people gathered...
Matthew Palevsky | Posted April 24, 2008 | Politics
In the wake of the Pennsylvania primary, Democrats across America are spending their coffee breaks lamenting the vacuous politics that will inevitably drag on into June. Like a family road trip, the chattering siblings in the back seat are all wondering if were there yet -- still uncertain of the...
Joseph A. Palermo | Posted April 23, 2008 | Politics
"We the people, in order to form a more perfect union." Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America's improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who...
Laura J. Mansfield | Posted April 22, 2008 | Off The Bus
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PHILADELPHIA-- Centre City Chinatown is an Asian neighborhood located in Philadelphia. The local residents showing up to vote is increasing as the afternoon comes to a close.
The weather is sunny and warm, which is great for voting, considering the line of voters trails out the the doors...
Mayhill Fowler | Posted April 22, 2008 | Off The Bus
"Being here this morning is a gift," Hillary Clinton says to the small band of supporters, several hundred strong, gathered under the Saturday morning sun at Good Will Fire Company No. 2, Station 52 in West Chester, Pennsylvania. The Senator is late for her first event of the day; her...
Mike Barnicle | Posted April 21, 2008 | Politics
PHILADELPHIA - I spent a morning last week looking for Francis Xavier Kane on his anniversary even though I knew he was gone, lost all those years ago, exactly 40, when he was killed April 21, 1968 a few miles west of a lethal place called Quang Tri City in...
Jay Rosen | Posted April 19, 2008 | Off The Bus
The whole idea of OffTheBus is to report more of the campaign. But we're not the only ones trying to do that. Philadelphia City Paper just pitched in with two separate but exactly parallel reports, which we've reprinted here at OffTheBus:
Mike Newall | Posted April 19, 2008 | Off The Bus
Also see the companion City Paper story by Tom Namako on his time as a Clinton volunteer.
*City Paper Edit Note: The decision to do these stories with undercover reporters using pseudonyms was made because we feel this is an important story, one the public needs to hear. It's...
Tom Namako | Posted April 18, 2008 | Off The Bus
Also see the companion City Paper story by Mike Newall on his time as an Obama volunteer.
*City Paper Edit Note: The decision to do these stories with undercover reporters using pseudonyms was made because we feel this is an important story, one the public needs to hear. It's...
Chris Weigant | Posted April 18, 2008 | Politics
The twenty-first debate of the Democratic presidential nomination race happened this week. Much fulminating in the blogosphere immediately followed.
I must admit, I was kind of surprised at the ferocity of the response, myself. Because I actually expected exactly what happened during the first hour of the debate -- shallowness...
Beverly Davis | Posted April 17, 2008 | Off The Bus
Here's what I didn't learn in the debate:
Barack Obama doesn't wear a flag pin on his label but he "reveres the flag."
Hillary Clinton lied about Bosnia but she apologized for the lie -- again.
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton aren't elitists even though they are both millionaires but...
Gershom Gorenberg | Posted April 7, 2008 | Politics
If you want to understand why Rev. Jeremiah Wright said the U.S. government invented AIDS, or what Barack Obama sought to accomplish in his Philadelphia speech on race, the best commentary is political scientist Marc Howard Ross's book Cultural Contestation in Ethnic Conflict -- even if it never...
Paul Abrams | Posted April 2, 2008 | Politics
At a campaign stop in Philadelphia, PA, Hillary Clinton furthered her identification with Rocky, recalling how she once stepped into the ring against Muhammed Ali.
Clinton said that she was sent to fight Ali when no one else would. "They used to say in the White House, if the...
Ivan Katz | Posted February 19, 2008 | Entertainment
There are certain things that I am fated never to understand. I will likely go to my grave with an insufficient understanding of the Icelandic sagas, and the language of Wales will forever be a mystery to me. Similarly, I will never understand the way orchestra management is said to...
Susan Madrak | Posted December 15, 2007 | Politics
This happened two miles from my new house, and although it didn't happen in my neighborhood, it's close by and I can't tell you how very sad I am that it happened. I grew up in a racist working-class neighborhood, and it brings back some bad memories.
Let me...
Paul Helmke | Posted October 10, 2007 | Politics
Some of us think to ourselves, "It can't happen to me," or, "It can't happen here." We think, "I'm a good person and I don't hurt anybody. I live in a safe neighborhood. I couldn't possibly be a gunshot victim, and neither could my family. It can't happen to me."
...AP | September 28, 2007 12:12 AM
On Tuesday night's "Colbert Report," Stephen Colbert had fun with...
From the AP: Democrat John Edwards endorsed former rival Barack Obama on Wednesday, a...
*** UPDATED BELOW *** President Bush has said repeatedly that he would not insert himself into the...
Utterly insane goings-on tonight on...
It's a pretty well known fact that most women - attractive women -...
Just off the House floor today, the Crypt overheard House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers tell two...
Tonight, Keith Olbermann unleashed what may well have been his...
The AP reports on Obama's swift and forceful response to Bush and McCain's criticism of...
The Tennessee GOP hasn't yet had their fill of Obama dirty tricks. A few months ago,...
The Democratic Party has finally decided who's going to break it to Hillary that it's time...
Sixteen tips for getting good sleep. There's a lot of advice out there about getting good...
Joshua Cinelli | Posted April 29, 2008 | Off The Bus