William Kristol is an American neoconservative writer. A frequent commentator on several networks including CNN, he was the founder and editor-at-large of the political magazine The Weekly Standard. Kristol is now editor-at-large of the center-right publication The Bulwark and has been the host of Conversations with Bill Kristol, an interview web program, since 2014.
Chester James Carville Jr. is an American political consultant, author, and occasional actor who has strategized for candidates for public office in the United States and in at least 23 nations abroad. A Democrat, he is a pundit in U.S. elections who appears frequently on cable news programs, podcasts, and public speeches.
Mary Joe Matalin is an American political consultant well known for her work with the Republican Party. She has served under President Ronald Reagan, was campaign director for George H. W. Bush, was an assistant to President George W. Bush, and counselor to Vice President Dick Cheney until 2003. Matalin has been chief editor of Threshold Editions, a conservative publishing imprint at Simon & Schuster, since March 2005. She is married to Democratic political consultant James Carville. She appears in the award-winning documentary film Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story and also played herself, opposite her husband, James Carville, John Slattery, and Mary McCormack in the short lived HBO series K Street.
The 2000 presidential campaign of George W. Bush, then governor of Texas, was formally launched on June 14, 1999 as Governor Bush, the eldest son of former President George H. W. Bush, announced his intention to seek the Republican Party nomination for the presidency of the United States in the 2000 presidential election.
The 2008 United States presidential election was the 56th quadrennial presidential election, held on November 4, 2008. The Democratic ticket of Barack Obama, the junior senator from Illinois, and Joe Biden, the senior senator from Delaware, defeated the Republican ticket of John McCain, the senior senator from Arizona, and Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska. Obama became the first African American to be elected to the presidency, as well as being only the third sitting United States senator elected president, joining Warren G. Harding and John F. Kennedy. Meanwhile, this was only the second successful all-senator ticket since the 1960 election and is the only election where both major party nominees were sitting senators. This was the first election since 1952 in which neither the incumbent president nor vice president was on the ballot, as well as the first election since 1928 in which neither ran for the nomination.
The War Room is a 1993 American documentary film about Bill Clinton's campaign for President of the United States during the 1992 United States presidential election. Directed by Chris Hegedus and D. A. Pennebaker, the film was released on December 5, 1993. It was eventually nominated for the Best Documentary Feature Academy Award.
"Read my lips: no new taxes" is a phrase spoken by American presidential candidate George H. W. Bush at the 1988 Republican National Convention as he accepted the nomination on August 18. Written by speechwriter Peggy Noonan, the line was the most prominent sound bite from the speech. The pledge not to tax the American people further had been a consistent part of Bush's 1988 election platform, and its prominent inclusion in his speech cemented it in the public consciousness.
Robert M. "Bob" Shrum is the director of the Center for the Political Future and the Carmen H. and Louis Warschaw Chair in Practical Politics at the University of Southern California, where he is a professor of political science in the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. He is a former American political consultant, who has worked on numerous Democratic campaigns, including as senior advisor to the Kerry-Edwards campaign in 2004 and to the Gore-Lieberman campaign in 2000. Shrum wrote the famous speech Ted Kennedy gave at the 1980 Democratic National Convention conceding to and supporting President Jimmy Carter. He has been described as "the most sought-after consultant in the Democratic Party." Shrum served as speechwriter to New York Mayor John V. Lindsay from 1970 to 1971, speechwriter to Senator George McGovern's 1972 presidential campaign and speechwriter and press secretary to Senator Edward M. Kennedy from 1980 to 1984 and political consultant until 2009.
"The economy, stupid" is a phrase that was coined by Jim Carville in 1992. It is often quoted from a televised quip by Carville as "It’s the economy, stupid." Carville was a strategist in Bill Clinton's successful 1992 U.S. presidential election against incumbent George H. W. Bush. His phrase was directed at the campaign's workers and intended as one of three messages for them to focus on. The others were "Change vs. more of the same" and "Don't forget health care."
Mark Evan Halperin is an American journalist, television cable host, and commentator for Newsmax TV. Halperin previously had worked as the political director for ABC News, where he also served as the editor of the Washington, D.C., newsletter The Note. In 2010, Halperin joined MSNBC, becoming the senior political analyst and a contributor. Along with John Heilemann, Halperin served as co-managing editor of Bloomberg Politics. Halperin and Heilemann co-wrote Game Change and Double Down: Game Change 2012, were co-hosts of MSNBC and Bloomberg's With All Due Respect, and produced and co-starred with Mark McKinnon in Showtime's The Circus: Inside the Greatest Political Show on Earth, which followed the presidential candidates behind the scenes of their campaigns in the 2016 United States Presidential Election.
The term swiftboating is a pejorative American neologism used to describe an unfair or untrue political attack. The term is derived from the name of the organization "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" because of their widely publicized—and later discredited—political smear campaign against 2004 U.S. presidential candidate John Kerry. Since the 2004 election, the term has come to commonly refer to a political attack that is dishonest, personal, and unfair.
Michael Ellis Murphy is a Republican political consultant, entertainment industry writer, and producer. He advised Republicans including John McCain, Jeb Bush, David Dreier, John Engler, Tommy Thompson, Spencer Abraham, Christine Whitman, Lamar Alexander, Meg Whitman, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Until January 2006, he was an adviser to Republican Mitt Romney. Murphy resigned his position with Romney when his former client John McCain made it clear he would also pursue the Republicans presidential nomination in 2008; Murphy decided to be neutral in the contest between them. Murphy is a vocal Republican critic of President Donald Trump. He endorsed Democratic candidate Joe Biden in the 2020 U.S. Presidential election.
Nicolle Wallace is an American television political commentator and author. She is the anchor of the MSNBC news and politics program Deadline: White House and a former co-host of the ABC daytime talk show The View. Wallace is a political analyst for MSNBC and NBC News. She was previously a frequent on-air contributor to the programs Today, The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle, and Morning Joe, before hosting her own program on MSNBC.
Chicken George was a campaign tactic in the 1992 U.S. presidential election, where one or more people in chicken costumes heckled President George H. W. Bush over his refusal to participate in a debate with Democratic candidate Bill Clinton.
The following is a timeline of major events leading up to and immediately following the United States presidential election of 2008. The election was the 56th quadrennial United States presidential election. It was held on November 4, 2008, but its significant events and background date back to about 2002. The Democratic Party nominee, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, defeated the Republican Party's nominee, Senator John McCain of Arizona.
The 2000 presidential campaign of John McCain, the United States Senator from Arizona, began in September 1999. He announced his run for the Republican Party nomination for the presidency of the United States in the 2000 presidential election.
Charles R. Black Jr. is an American lobbyist and businessman, who is the Founding Chairman of Prime Policy Group, a public affairs firm which is now a subsidiary of Burson Cohn & Wolfe. Prime Policy Group was formed with the merger of Martin B. Gold's Gold & Liebengood with the Washington, DC-based lobbying firm he co-founded—BMSK—with Paul Manafort, Roger J. Stone, and Peter G. Kelly. In 2010, Black was inducted into the American Association of Political Consultants (AAPC) Hall of Fame.
Senator John McCain, the Republican Party nominee, was endorsed or supported by some members of the Democratic Party and by some political figures holding liberal views in the 2008 United States presidential election. McCain Democrat and McCainocrat are terms applied to Democrats who supported McCain.
The 2008 United States presidential election in Pennsylvania was part of the 2008 United States presidential election, which took place on November 4, 2008, throughout all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Voters chose 21 representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
