All posts tagged: little chance

What long-shot candidates know – The Atlantic

What long-shot candidates know – The Atlantic

Published by skeptic

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Several long-shot Republican candidates have quit the presidential race in recent weeks. Why did they hang on for this long—and why are they dropping out now? First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic: Peppered With Upsets The start of the year marked the end of several 2024 presidential campaigns. First Chris Christie called it quits. Then Vivek Ramaswamy dropped out of the race. And after garnering zero delegates in Iowa this week, Asa Hutchinson dropped out too. These men never had a good shot at winning, so I wasn’t shocked to see them quit over the past week. More surprising was how long they’d stuck around. Why had they launched and maintained these long-shot campaigns? In American election cycles, especially in the past decade, it has not been uncommon for candidates who seem on paper to have …

Trump Wants to Create a National University?

Trump Wants to Create a National University?

Published by skeptic

In his final annual address to Congress, George Washington was convinced that America needed new colleges. Two institutions in particular occupied his mind: a national university and a military academy. “The desirableness of both these institutions has so constantly increased with every new view I have taken of the subject that I can not omit the opportunity of once for all recalling your attention to them,” Washington said in his speech. He was among a minority of the Founders—including Benjamin Rush, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison—who believed that such institutions were necessary to build national character. “The assembly to which I address myself,” Washington told members of Congress, “is too enlightened not to be fully sensible how much a flourishing state of the arts and sciences contributes to national prosperity and reputation.” Earlier this month, in an announcement that surprised both liberal and conservative observers of federal education policy, former President Donald Trump proposed his own sort of national university: the American Academy—a free, online institution intended to compete directly with the nation’s existing colleges. …

Did Humans Ever Live in Peace?

Did Humans Ever Live in Peace?

Published by skeptic

For millions of years, the river Ebro has sloshed south from Spain’s jagged Cantabrian Mountains, carving out a broad valley that is now home to one of the country’s most fertile wine regions. Between its sprawling vineyards, the landscape rises steeply to hilltop medieval towns. Laguardia is the best known, on account of its high walls, cobblestones, and cavernous wine cellars. But the town’s rustic grandeur conceals a deep history of violence. More than 2,000 years ago, Celtic tribes fought a decades-long series of wars in this region, part of a brutal last stand against the invading Romans—and for Laguardia, even those conflicts were of relatively recent vintage. Some years ago, just outside the town walls, workmen at a construction site were operating a bulldozer when one of them spotted bones sticking up through the disturbed earth. Archaeologists were dispatched to the scene. Careful brushwork revealed not one human skeleton but 90, along with pieces of more than 200 others, all dated to a little more than 5,000 years ago. A new analysis of the …

Does Iowa Matter To Republican Candidates?

Does Iowa Matter To Republican Candidates?

Published by skeptic

The recent history of the Iowa Republican caucus offers the candidates chasing former President Donald Trump one big reason for optimism. But that history also presents them with an even larger reason for concern. In each of the past three contested GOP nomination fights, Iowa Republicans have rejected the candidate considered the national front-runner in the race, as Trump is now. Instead, in each of those three past caucuses, Iowa Republicans delivered victory to an alternative who relied primarily on support from the state’s powerful bloc of evangelical Christian conservatives. Read: The GOP primary is a field of broken dreams But each of those three recent Iowa winners failed to capture the Republican presidential nomination or, in the end, even to come very close. All three of them were eventually defeated, handily, by the front-runner that they beat in Iowa. That pattern played out in 2008 when Mike Huckabee won Iowa but then lost the nomination to John McCain, in 2012 when Rick Santorum won Iowa but lost the nomination to Mitt Romney, and in …

Is Ben Wikler the Most Important Democrat in America?

Is Ben Wikler the Most Important Democrat in America?

Published by skeptic

The man who has been hailed as “the best state chair in the country” is not a national household name. He’s not even a household name in his own state. But on a recent afternoon in the small village of Grafton, Wisconsin, Ben Wikler might as well have been Bono. Two dozen middle-aged and retired volunteers stood in line to clutch the hand of the chair of the Wisconsin Democrats. “Thank you for everything you do,” they said, beaming at Wikler as he took a lap through the Ozaukee County party headquarters. “We’re so happy you’re here.” Like proud children before an admiring parent, the volunteers told him how much money they’d raised and how many doors they’d knocked on this summer. “This is Connie,” someone said, patting a woman’s shoulder. “She just won the school-board race.” “Yay, school board!” Wikler cheered. He was there to kick off the last day of door knocking for a Wisconsin state-assembly candidate who had very little chance of winning in solid-red Ozaukee County, an exurban district on the …