scholarly journals All Politics is Still Local: McConnell vs. Lunsford in the 2008 Kentucky Senate Race

2009 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 155-172
Author(s):  
Jasmine Farrier

The political drama of the 2008 re-election of Mitch McConnell was not his eventual fifth victory, which was predictable, but the fact that he won by only six percent of the vote. Senator McConnell spent over $20 million (including $2 million in final-stretch loans) to defend his seat against a self-financed businessman who spent $11 million and had never held an elected post. The fact that this race was the second most expensive in the country in 2008 suggests that the seat was in real danger for the first time in decades and McConnell knew it (see Jacobson 1980, 1985). His first two elections in 1984 and 1990 were very close, but as he ascended in statewide and national prominence his next two elections in 1996 and 2002 were landslides. While 2008 had special twists; this type of sudden vulnerability was not unique to Senator McConnell. In fact, this “bumpy-smooth-bumpy” electoral trajectory happens in many congressional careers. Paul Herrnson writes, “although incumbents generally derive tremendous advantages from the strategic environment, the political setting in a given year can pose obstacles for some, resulting in significant numbers losing their seats”(2004, 29).

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (2020) (2) ◽  
pp. 359-394
Author(s):  
Jurij Perovšek

For Slovenes in the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes the year 1919 represented the final step to a new political beginning. With the end of the united all-Slovene liberal party organisation and the formation of separate liberal parties, the political party life faced a new era. Similar development was showing also in the Marxist camp. The Catholic camp was united. For the first time, Slovenes from all political camps took part in the state government politics and parliament work. They faced the diminishing of the independence, which was gained in the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, and the mutual fight for its preservation or abolition. This was the beginning of national-political separations in the later Yugoslav state. The year 1919 was characterized also by the establishment of the Slovene university and early occurrences of social discontent. A declaration about the new historical phenomenon – Bolshevism, had to be made. While the region of Prekmurje was integrated to the new state, the questions of the Western border and the situation with Carinthia were not resolved. For the Slovene history, the year 1919 presents a multi-transitional year.


2008 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
YAEL DARR

This article describes a crucial and fundamental stage in the transformation of Hebrew children's literature, during the late 1930s and 1940s, from a single channel of expression to a multi-layered polyphony of models and voices. It claims that for the first time in the history of Hebrew children's literature there took place a doctrinal confrontation between two groups of taste-makers. The article outlines the pedagogical and ideological designs of traditionalist Zionist educators, and suggests how these were challenged by a group of prominent writers of adult poetry, members of the Modernist movement. These writers, it is argued, advocated autonomous literary creation, and insisted on a high level of literary quality. Their intervention not only dramatically changed the repertoire of Hebrew children's literature, but also the rules of literary discourse. The article suggests that, through the Modernists’ polemical efforts, Hebrew children's literature was able to free itself from its position as an apparatus controlled by the political-educational system and to become a dynamic and multi-layered field.


2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-63
Author(s):  
Ruth Roded

Beginning in the early 1970s, Jewish and Muslim feminists, tackled “oral law”—Mishna and Talmud, in Judaism, and the parallel Hadith and Fiqh in Islam, and several analogous methodologies were devised. A parallel case study of maintenance and rebellion of wives —mezonoteha, moredet al ba?ala; nafaqa al-mar?a and nush?z—in classical Jewish and Islamic oral law demonstrates similarities in content and discourse. Differences between the two, however, were found in the application of oral law to daily life, as reflected in “responsa”—piskei halacha and fatwas. In modern times, as the state became more involved in regulating maintenance and disobedience, and Jewish law was backed for the first time in history by a state, state policy and implementation were influenced by the political system and socioeconomic circumstances of the country. Despite their similar origin in oral law, maintenance and rebellion have divergent relevance to modern Jews and Muslims.


2007 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-111
Author(s):  
Virginie Collombier

Beyond the relative opening of the political system that characterized 2005 in Egypt — with the President being elected directly for the first time and the increased competition allowed during legislative elections — the 2005 elections also constituted an opportunity to consider and evaluate the internal struggles for influence under way within the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP). In a context largely influenced by the perspective of President Husni Mubarak's succession and by calls for reform coming from both internal and external actors, changes currently occurring at the party level may have a decisive impact on the future of the Egyptian regime.


1995 ◽  
Vol 16 (01) ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Mary Anne Perkins

A few months ago I read Peter Nicholson's The Political Philosophy of the British Idealists for the first time. In the index I found more than a hundred references to Hegel and only one to Samuel Taylor Coleridge. However, as many of the latter's writings, published for the first time in recent years, become generally accessible there is an increasing sense that he has been unfairly deprived of his due status as a philosopher. This is partly, no doubt, the syndrome of the prophet in his own country and partly the inevitable consequence of much of his later work remaining unpublished until recent years. Coleridge himself, with what some would take to be confirmation of an over-sensitivity to criticism, felt the neglect of his work went deeper and betrayed an anti-philosophical trait in British character. Despite his close reading of the work of many of his German contemporaries it seems that he did not read more than sixtyone pages of Hegel's Wissenschaft der Logik. His margin notes to this work are, on the whole, negative in their criticism. However, despite significant disagreements, there is much common ground in theme, argument and conclusion between his many drafts of the ‘Logosophia’, his intended magnum opus, and Hegel's system.


1970 ◽  
Vol 3 (03) ◽  
pp. 311-320
Author(s):  
John E. Mueller

I always vote for the man, not the party.–Trad.In its election for offices in 1969, the American Political Science Association, apparently for the first time in its rarely turbulent history, found the nominees of its Official Nominating Committee challenged by an insurgent group. In order to handle this unprecedented situation, it was decided at the annual meeting to carry out the election by mail ballot and the American Arbitration Association was engaged to administer the operation.Ballots were mailed to the 13,061 members of the Association in October, 1969. Accompanying them were materials containing statements of belief and biographies for each of the candidates. The response rate was 64 percent.The ballots carried the contestants indicated in Table 1. For each office the candidates are listed in the Table in the order of their vote result (they were listed in alphabetical order on the ballot) and for each candidate the group endorsements, as they were presented on the ballot, are indicated. Except for the group endorsements, no identifying information accompanied the names of the candidates on the ballots.


Author(s):  
Yurуi Zinko ◽  
◽  
Vitaliу Tuchinskуi ◽  

The article makes an attempt to protract the monograph of Valerii Rektut that explores the political, social and economic processes that took place in the Haisyn region in the Podolia governorate during the Hetmanate and the formation of the Directory of the Ukrainian People's Republic (April 1918- 1920). The research is based on the diverse sources, which include archive documents, presented for the first time and Ukrainian periodicals of the time. The first section of the work examines the events that took place in the Haisyn region during the Hetmanate, including the formation of local authorities, land reform, and economic difficulties. The second part is devoted to the political and social situation in the Haisyn region during the formation of the Directory of the Ukrainan People's Republic. The author focuses on describing the national-cultural processes that were being activated at the time. For instance, on the activities of Jewish, Polish and Russian political powers pursuing their political interests. The work also analyzes the Jewish pogroms of 1919-1920, their causes and consequences. A significant place is occupied by the "Haisyn Labor Republic", which existed from May to September 1919. The characteristics of the Zyatkivtsi agreement of November 6, 1919 and its political consequences are also of particular interest. The monograph deserves a highly positive assessment, as the author analyzes the most significant events of the most turbulent times in Ukrainian history.


2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 138
Author(s):  
Md. Abdul Momen Sarker ◽  
Md. Mominur Rahman

Suzanna Arundhati Roy is a post-modern sub-continental writer famous for her first novel The God of Small Things. This novel tells us the story of Ammu who is the mother of Rahel and Estha. Through the story of Ammu, the novel depicts the socio-political condition of Kerala from the late 1960s and early 1990s. The novel is about Indian culture and Hinduism is the main religion of India. One of the protagonists of this novel, Velutha, is from a low-caste community representing the dalit caste. Apart from those, between the late 1960s and early 1990s, a lot of movements took place in the history of Kerala. The Naxalites Movement is imperative amid them. Kerala is the place where communism was established for the first time in the history of the world through democratic election. Some vital issues of feminism have been brought into focus through the portrayal of the character, Ammu. In a word, this paper tends to show how Arundhati Roy has successfully manifested the multifarious as well as simultaneous influences of politics in the context of history and how those affected the lives of the marginalized. Overall, it would minutely show how historical incidents and political ups and downs go hand in hand during the political upheavals of a state.


2021 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 291-320
Author(s):  
Chiara Caradonna

Mandel’štam. Rome. Pasolini In 1972 a small volume presented for the first time a varied choice of poems by the Russian poet Osip Mandel’štam to the Italian public, translated by Serena Vitale. One of the book’s first and most enthusiastic readers was the poet, film director and intellectual Pier Paolo Pasolini, who immediately reviewed it for the Italian newspaper Il Tempo. This review shows the great significance that Mandel’štam’s poetry acquired for Pasolini in the very last years of his life. So much so, that the first verse of Mandel’štam’s late poem, With the world of the powerful …, became the motto of Pasolini’s last, unfinished novel Petrolio. While offering a reading of this poem by Mandel’štam, the present article investigates the reasons for Pasolini’s passionate interest in the Russian poet, and sheds light on the political dimension of both Mandel’štam’s and Pasolini’s œuvre.


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