Brad Rourke

Category: politics

  • Running Ethical — And Winning — Campaigns

    I’m in the middle of a four-day bipartisan candidate training program that is put on by the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership at the University of Virginia. As far as I know, this program is unique. It is relentlessly bipartisan, for one thing. More important, though, is that it is entirely ethics-based. I was one…

  • Many Agencies Miss Obama's Deadline For Openness

    According to Doug Ward’s excellent OpenGovBlog, the first deadline under President Obama’s “Open Government Directive” has come and gone with 26 agencies failing to meet the Directive’s requirements. Here’s what Obama is requiring: “Within 45 days, each agency shall identify and publish online in an open format at least three high-value data sets and register…

  • State Of The Union: In Name Only

    My latest article on my blog at the Washington Times Communities, Public Square Today, is now live: State Of The Union: In Name Only Tonight, Barack Obama delivers his very first State Of The Union message to Congress. As is the custom with newly-inaugurated presidents, President Obama did speak to Congress last year, but that is…

  • Donate Services To A Candidate?

    My latest article on my blog at the Washington Times Communities, Public Square Today, is now live: Donate Services To A Candidate? A good friend asks: In your experience, are most services used by local candidates donated? A candidate for the . . . State House, whose staffer attended my recent social networking class, asked me…

  • Memory Of 9/11, From A Distance

    I recall I was at LAX, on my way home to Maine. Our flight was being held, no one on the plane knew why. Shortly it became clear that something terrible had happened. Air traffic was grounded for the ensuing week. So many were far more deeply affected than I was. Friends of mine lost loved…

  • Questions On The Occasion Of A Presidential Address

    Just to be clear: I regard it as a glorious thing that the president plans to address students in schools directly. The controversy that has brewed over whether this is indoctrination seems ill-founded. President Obama is not trying to control the thoughts of our young ones. He’s using the bully pulpit to urge them to…

  • Ducking Trade Offs In Public Life

    I love the first day of the month. There are two things I do on the morning of every first day. First, I say “Rabbit, Rabbit.” That’s a tradition that I learned sometime back in the eighties: if, on the first day of the month, the first words out of your mouth are “Rabbit, Rabbit,”…