Comment: On Sarah Palin’s use of language
Braden Goyett, McGill Daily
A major shift in U.S. political culture took place almost three decades ago, according to McGill Professor Gil Troy, author of Morning in America: How Ronald Reagan Invented the 1980s. Television had been around for long enough that major changes were taking place in the way [...]
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By Gil Troy, HNN, 10-30-08
In what is looking more and more like a campaign of nearly perfect pitch, Barack Obama turned in another virtuoso performance Wednesday night with his prime-time infomercial. Apparently weeks in the making, the infomercial pulled out all the stops. We saw snippets of Obama’s classic 2004 Democratic National Convention address. We [...]
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By Gil Troy, HNN, 10-29-08
Senator John McCain’s campaign should be experiencing a surge in this final week of the campaign, a narrowing of the gap between him and his opponent Senator Barack Obama. In almost every campaign since 1988, except for when Senator Bob Dole lost to President Bill Clinton in 1996, the eventual losers [...]
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Posted in HNN Blog, Politics, US Presidential Campaign, tagged Barack Obama, Canada, Elections, George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Prime Minister on October 28, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
By Gil Troy, HNN, 10-28-08
Here’s a fantasy for Americans exhausted by this endless presidential campaign. Imagine a campaign limited to six weeks. Imagine a campaign that cannot bombard voters with advertisements, because each television station makes available 390 minutes for political commercials which a broadcasting authority allots based on the various parties’ relative strengths. Imagine [...]
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By Gil Troy, HNN, 10-26-08
The “experience” argument has had a funny track record this campaign. Hillary Rodham Clinton tried to float her way to the White House based on her supposedly considerable experience – and lost. Barack Obama may be one of the least politically experienced politicians since that other Illinois pol, Abraham Lincoln, captured [...]
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By Gil Troy, HNN, 10-24-08
Where is Michelle Obama? Since the Democratic nominee’s wife delivered her warm, charming, effective address at the Democratic National Convention, she has remained remarkably low profile. The Obama campaign has used her sparingly and – to the Democrats’ good fortune – she has triggered no controversy. This quiet is a remarkable [...]
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By Gil Troy, HNN, 10-23-08
The campaign’s excitement, loyalty and zero-sum polarization has distracted Americans from a worrying thought – what if neither John McCain nor Barack Obama is qualified to be president? Both lack serious executive experience. The jump from running a senate office to running the White House, let alone the country, is like [...]
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By Gil Troy, HNN, 10-22-08
The Washington Post contradicted itself dramatically today, in a way that will feed every Republican and conservative claim about the mainstream media’s liberal bias. The Post’s editorial about the “$150 Million Man,” in reference to Barack Obama’s spectacular September fundraising results, treated Barack Obama as the people’s tribune, floating [...]
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By Gil Troy, HNN, 10-20-08
Although conflict fuels political campaigns, election contests also illuminate the political consensus. It is as important to understand where candidates agree as to see where they disagree. In the second, foreign-policy-oriented debate between the two presidential nominees, Senators John McCain and Barack Obama demonstrated that they both agree that Iran threatens [...]
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by Gil Troy, Autumn 2008 Wilson Quarterly
Despite selecting two men known for their political civility as presidential nominees, Americans in the fall of 2008 have been enduring yet another nasty political contest. By September, both candidates could easily have sung along with Britney Spears, “Oops . . . I did it again.” A bit of [...]
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