WONDERING ABOUT THE BESPECTACLED OLD WHITE GUY on the campaign plane with Senator John McCain? Former Texas senator Phil Gramm is McCain’s economic brain, doing much of the policy thinking in regard to that subject for the Republican presidential nominee, who admits that finance and the economy are weaknesses he needs to master. If most […]

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“THE REPUBLICANS BEGAN TO THINK OF BILL CLINTON as Godzilla,” a senior member of the House Judiciary Committee told me during an interview four years ago. “No matter what they did to him, or how hard they knocked him down, he got back up and kept coming at them.” Stuff his health-care reform plan and […]

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JOHN MCCAIN NEEDED AN EVANGELICAL TO EMBRACE and send a message to the Christian right that he will do their bidding, even if he’s not quite one of them. He settled on San Antonio End-Timer John Hagee. McCain has never been tight with the nation’s evangelical community. While running for the Republican presidential nomination in […]

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Render Unto Caesar—As ranking minority member of the Senate Finance Committee, Chuck Grassley (R-IA) has requested the financial records of six multimillion-dollar evangelical ministries, none of whose pastors earn even half the salary the Rev. John Hagee does. Three of the ministries have provided some financial information, while the other three have refused to comply with the […]

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Editor’s note: Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank, who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, got his “say-on-pay” bill through the House last year by a 269-134 vote. A companion bill in the Senate, filed by Barack Obama, has been blocked by Republicans. President Bush threatens to veto the bill, if it does get through the Senate, […]

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