Liz Elsewhere

Among many political commentators, the meme du jour regarding the 2012 presidential race is that President Obama’s real opponent is the economy; who Republicans nominate is of limited importance.
On its face, this characterization makes sense. As Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson note in their book about the 2008 election, as early as spring 2007, focus groups were turning out results that showed deep pessimism about the country’s direction, with economic worries overshadowing all...

Last month, Sen. Arlen Specter, together with fellow Pennsylvania Sen. Robert Casey, introduced a bill called the Biosecurity and Vaccine Development Improvement Act.
This is legislation ostensibly intended to “ensure our country has the resources necessary to protect the American people in the event of a disease outbreak or terrorist attack.”
However, it could have another major implication: Keeping money flowing to one of recently deceased Rep. Jack...

The Iraq and Afghanistan wars have been plagued by large numbers of complex, hard-to-treat combat-related injuries—a circumstance that has increasingly put the topic of electronic health record systems in the spotlight. However, fresh scrutiny of government procurement efforts relating to EHR systems has raised serious questions about what is being done to ensure that those returning home from combat receive the best possible care—something that is not the foregone conclusion one...

In recent election cycles, political campaigns’ successful leveraging and integration of technology into their political, communications and fundraising work has been increasingly evident. However, many political operations continue to treat online as simply a box that needs to be checked, or something done just to communicate with younger voters. The prevalence of both conclusions is a pet peeve of all online strategists, but data that emerged this week suggests that the latter should...