The Talk of the TownComment, the Financial Page, and more stories from The New Yorker.<img src="http://feeds.newyorker.com/rss_views/talk.gif">Hendrik Hertzberg: Clinton catharsis.- August 29, 2008 The Clinton Era at the Democratic National Convention (and two days out of a four-day event is an era, maybe an epoch, possibly an age) dawned at 8:38 P.M., Mountain Time, on Tuesday. The opening act--a lapsed Republican, a retired admiral, a motley crew of governors--had come&160;.&160;.&160;.http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2008/09/08/080908ta_talk_hertzberg Philip Gourevitch: The Democrats&8217; Alaskan prospects.- August 29, 2008 Before she was running against him, Sarah Palin--the governor of Alaska and now the Republican candidate for Vice-President of the United States--thought it was pretty neat that Barack Obama was edging ahead of John McCain in her usually solidly red state. After all, she said, Obama&8217;s campaign&160;.&160;.&160;.http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2008/09/08/080908ta_talk_gourevitch David Remnick: Obama&8217;s big night.- August 29, 2008 In the summer of 1960, Norman Mailer took an assignment to cover the Democratic Convention in Los Angeles. This was when conventions could still be the scenes of smoky, unpredictable battle, and on this occasion the improbably junior senator from Massachusetts, John Kennedy, who had won most of the primaries&160;.&160;.&160;.http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2008/09/08/080908taco_talk_remnick George Packer: The troops in Denver.- August 29, 2008 Last Wednesday, on the morning of Securing America&8217;s Future day at the Democratic National Convention, Jon Kuniholm stood in the lobby of the Pepsi Center--a big man with the face of a studious boy, filling up every inch of a conservative gray suit whose right sleeve ended in a&160;.&160;.&160;.http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2008/09/08/080908ta_talk_packer Ryan Lizza: Inside the McCain war room.- August 29, 2008 Tucker Bounds and Michael Goldfarb, two of John McCain&8217;s top media operatives, were bent over laptops last Wednesday night in a glass-enclosed room a mile away from the site of the Democratic Convention. They sat, with five other campaign workers, at a conference table surrounded by eight video panels&160;.&160;.&160;.http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2008/09/08/080908ta_talk_lizza Dorothy Wickenden: An old-style, Los Angeles feminist on Obama.- August 29, 2008 Rosalind Wyman--seventy-seven years old; doughty feminist; political fund-raiser and philanthropist; hostess to J.F.K., Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton, and Hollywood types too numerous to count; youngest elected member of the Los Angeles City Council (at the age of twenty-two); first woman to run a national political&160;.&160;.&160;.http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2008/09/08/080908ta_talk_wickenden Hendrik Hertzberg: What Barack Obama is up against.- August 25, 2008 The week before the week before this week&8217;s scheduled gathering of the delegates and their media camp followers in Denver, the nominee-presumptive of the Democratic Party did something that is strongly recommended, and ought to be mandatory, for anyone who has just logged a year and a half&8217;s worth&160;.&160;.&160;.http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2008/09/01/080901taco_talk_hertzberg Ben McGrath: A picnic area in the middle of Broadway.- August 25, 2008 Congestion pricing or not, the Bloomberg administration is impressively committed to altering the flow of traffic through the center city. Such is its determination, in fact, that it has now reduced Broadway, the original Manhattan highway, to a series of what the Department of Transportation is calling &8220;pedestrian living rooms&160;.&160;.&160;.http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2008/09/01/080901ta_talk_mcgrath James Surowiecki: What drives market volatility- August 25, 2008 American investors are frazzled. True, oil prices have fallen from their most vertiginous highs, the dollar is a bit stronger, and the stock market has actually risen over the past month. But none of those things have happened in a smooth and steady fashion. The stock market&8217;s &8220;ascent,&8221; in particular&160;.&160;.&160;.http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2008/09/01/080901ta_talk_surowiecki Austin Kelley: The opening of the Sports Museum.- August 25, 2008 Between the Mitchell Report and the N.F.L.&8217;s Spygate affair, the image of sports as an arena of fun and fair competition has taken a hit lately. Even the Olympics&8217; opening ceremonies were marred by a controversy over lip-synching. So the recent inauguration, in lower Manhattan, of the Sports&160;.&160;.&160;.http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2008/09/01/080901ta_talk_kelley |