Bob Kuttner at the Democratic National Convention

Robert Kuttner will be at the Democratic National Convention in Denver beginning, Monday August 25. For a schedule of Bob's events at the Convention, please see the events page.

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The Latest from Robert Kuttner

Obama's Challenge, Part I: The Rhetoric

Aug 28, 2008 | 04:27 PM

Obama is said to be in a rhetorical pickle. If he talks a language of hope and inspiration, it's too general and ethereal. On the other hand, if he get too specific, he sounds like a policy wonk. And if he goes for McCain's throat, the pundits have been warning that he will evoke the dreaded specter of the Angry Black Man.

Forgotten Man

Aug 27, 2008 | 01:03 PM

Cross-posted at the HuffingtonPost

Lyndon Baines Johnson was born 100 years ago today. After Franklin Roosevelt, his record as a progressive Democrat was unsurpassed. Thanks to his leadership and passion, Congress enacted Medicare, Medicaid, federal aid to education, Headstart, the Job Corps, legal services for the poor, and countless other pocketbook measures that helped millions out of poverty and reinforced a secure middle class. And Johnson took immense risks to pass the three landmark civil rights laws. It is not an exaggeration to say that without Johnson's leadership, Barack Obama would not be accepting the Democratic nomination for president this week.

A Perfect Opening

Aug 26, 2008 | 06:22 PM

When Ted Kennedy walked to the Denver podium, flanked by his wife Vicki and his niece Caroline, the roars that Kennedy had to finally silence marked a moment of high emotion. When he echoed the most powerful words of past Kennedy moments--"The torch will be passed again to a new generation of Americans"--it was in the robust and booming voice that Democrats have come to cherish.

But Kennedy, 76, and gravely ill with brain cancer, almost didn't make this trip. When he arrived in Denver Sunday, he went straight to a hospital for a medical check. And until the moment that he set out for the convention hall, neither he nor his family could be certain whether he'd feel strong enough to speak. The magnificent short film tribute was initially conceived as a stand-in for Kennedy himself. The tears mixed with the cheers marked the fact that, barring divine intervention, this will be Kennedy's last convention.

Will the Clintons Behave?

Aug 25, 2008 | 02:23 PM

DENVER--I attended my first convention in 1964 in Atlantic City, as a college Young Democrat, when my thrill was smuggling gallery passes to Mississippi Freedom Democrats who were challenging the official all-white Mississippi delegation. The nominee, of course, was never in doubt, since Lyndon Johnson was the incumbent president. Johnson had just delivered the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act, and the demonstrations were an acute embarrassment to him. In the end, two of the Freedom delegation were offered token non-voting seats, a compromise that satisfied no one. Civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer, a sharecropper on the plantation of Mississippi Congressman Jamie Whitten, declared, "We didn't come all this way for no two seats, 'cause all of us is tired.'"

Make No Small Plans

Aug 22, 2008 | 01:16 PM

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting page-one piece today on how wages have lagged behind inflation in the US, while keeping up on Europe. This is of course because Europe has a stronger welfare state and stronger unions. Workers get a larger share of the total pie.

The End of Economics?

Aug 21, 2008 | 01:32 PM

Cross-posted at TAPPED

Columnist David Leonhardt has a piece forthcoming in the New York Times Sunday Magazine that nytimes.com posted early. The piece asks the question: where does Obama really stand on economic issues. It's the right question--but along with some useful insights Leonhardt provides some odd answers.

His Own Best Adviser

Aug 20, 2008 | 12:52 PM

This election will depend on whether Barack Obama, in the end, is able to be persuasive with working and middle-class voters who have deep economic anxieties. That means an economy of restored opportunity, decent incomes, and economic security.

Notes from the Publishing Wars

Aug 19, 2008 | 12:21 PM

Cross-posted at the HuffingtonPost

Well, Obama's Challenge (the book) is stimulating a lot of press notice, but not exactly the sort I had in mind. It set off a huge controversy about what's fair play in the publishing industry. What's fair? You decide.

Mortgage Emergency

Aug 18, 2008 | 10:17 AM

The Dodd-Frank bill to brake the collapse in housing values, signed by a reluctant President Bush just three weeks ago, is already far too weak to fix what's broken. The latest statistics are staggering. According to the firm RealtyTrac, there were 271,171 foreclosures recorded just in July. The Congressional Budget Office estimates, not disputed by Senator Dodd and Congressman Frank, that their bill, now law, will save just 400,000 homes from foreclosure over the next three years. Two to three million mortgages are projected to default this year alone.

Origins of a Book

Aug 13, 2008 | 03:15 PM

This book began with the germ of an idea for a magazine article. In the fall of 2007, I had just published a book warning of impending financial collapse (and none too soon) called The Squandering of America. Barack Obama was starting to look like he could be more than just a fresh face.

It dawned on me that by January 2009, there could be a rendezvous of a perilous economic moment with a new leader and an ideological reversal. I began reading more about great American presidents--Lincoln, FDR, the Lyndon Johnson of the civil rights era--leaders whom I thought of as transformational, who grew in office and took America places that seemed politically impossible when they began.

These transformations were the product of a rare crisis with rare leadership. I saw evidence that Obama might have the makings of such a leader. Interestingly, though John Edwards and Hillary Clinton seemed slightly to Obama's left on some issues like health insurance, many Obama supporters were willing to cut him some slack in issue positions because they saw in him a potentially transformative president.