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After running as a man last time around, Hillary Clinton is now running as a woman. Matthew Dowd, the former W. strategist who became an independent, says Hillary got it backward: She should have run as a woman in 2008, when she was beating back a feminized antiwar candidate. And she should have run as a man this time, when Americans feel beleaguered and scared and yearn for something "big and masculine and strong," as Dowd put it. Despite the deafening dearth of excitement among younger women, Hillary has cast herself as Groundbreaking Granny.

http://abcnews.go.com/video/embed?id=33571619

On Sunday's broadcast of ABC's This Week, there was a consensus moment between former President Bush's chief re-election strategist Matthew Dowd and Katrina vanden Heuvel, publisher of the liberal magazine The Nation: Dr. Ben Carson should run for president.

Arnold Schwarzenegger may have shagged the maid — but wife Maria Shriver is no June Cleaver. The Kennedy heiress was sleeping with her husband’s lead campaign strategist well before Schwarzenegger’s old affair with their housekeeper came to light, campaign staffers and other sources told The Post.And after years of playing the betrayed wife, Shriver, 58, recently trotted out her longtime lover, Matthew Dowd, 53, as if he were a new fling, sources said.

ABC News Political Analyst and former Bush/Cheney advisor Matthew Dowd attempted to downplay the impact ObamaCare will have in the 2013-midterm elections. Appearing on This Week w/ George Stephanopoulos on March 30, Dowd asserted, “2014 is going to be about the direction of the country, the economy, and how people feel in their lives. It's not going to be about ObamaCare.” Despite the bizarre prediction from the ABC analyst, conservative editor of "The Weekly Standard" Bill Kristol slapped down Dowd’s ridiculous claim and shot back that “I’m happy to have a referendum on ObamaCare… and will be good for Republicans.” See video below.]

"It is becoming clear to me -- not that it needs to be any more clear -- that the Republican establishment does not want to run against Obamacare." And as if to prove that Rush is right, Republican consultant Matthew Dowd on This Week With George Stephanopoulos rejected Obamacare as the reason for the victory of David Jolly over Alex Sink in last week's special congressional election in Florida. On Friday, Rush Limbaugh spoke extensively on his broadcast about how establishment Republicans want to downplay Obamacare as an issue in both the recent election as well in the congressional elections...

Matthew Dowd, former chief strategist for the 2004 George W. Bush campaign, apparently doesn’t have much of a soft spot for CPAC or for Sarah Palin. Appearing on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, Dowd likened CPAC to no less than two prehistoric children’s cartoons, and not so subtly compared former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to Kim Kardashian. National Review captured the one-minute statement from Dowd: “Matt, you’re just shaking your head. The whole thing, it makes you nervous, what do you say?” ABC host Martha Raddatz asked. “To me, imagery and who’s there [at CPAC] and what you say is...

ABC News' George Will slammed presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney for failing to fully release information on his tax returns and offshore accounts, saying Romney "must have calculated that there are higher costs in releasing them." "If something's going to come out, get it out in a hurry," Will said this morning on the "This Week" roundtable. "I do not know why, given that Mitt Romney knew the day that [John] McCain lost in 2008 that he was going to run for president again that he didn't get all of this out and tidy up some of his offshore...

Video here. Appearing on This Week With Christanne Amanpour George Stephanopoulos, noted theologian Matthew Dowd decried the "irony" that certain legislators and governors who "push for" gun rights also "push for" prayer in school. It actually gets better. Thus spake Dowd: "We wanna be a Christian nation and we wanna act in a Christian manner but, oh by the way, we don't believe in the 'Turn your other cheek' and we don't believe in 'Love your enemy', we believe in loading citizens and basically giving them an opportunity to shoot people." Apologies for his tortured use of the English language...

Republican pundit George Will & George W. Bush’s adviser Matthew Dowd both call-out Republican officeholders for being out of touch & out of step on the repeal of DADT. I often don’t agree with George Will, but this time, I applaud his viewpoints. He had this to say in a recent television interview: “The Supreme Court has a famous phrase they used in some opinion ‘the evolving standards of decency that mark a maturing society”. Clearly these are evolving. The case is over.” When asked what was going on with the Republicans in Congress, George Will had this to say:...

WASHINGTON – Hurricane Katrina not only pulverized the Gulf Coast in 2005, it knocked the bully pulpit out from under President George W. Bush, according to two former advisers who spoke candidly about the political impact of the government's poor handling of the natural disaster. "Katrina to me was the tipping point," said Matthew Dowd, Bush's pollster and chief strategist for the 2004 presidential campaign. "The president broke his bond with the public. Once that bond was broken, he no longer had the capacity to talk to the American public. State of the Union addresses? It didn't matter. Legislative initiatives?...

Rove explained that he and McCain “got to know each other during the 2004 campaign.” In a separate interview, Mehlman noted that “McCain was completely loyal to the president in 2004 and worked incredibly hard to help him get elected.” According to Taylor, “The Bush Republicans here in town are excited for John McCain.”

Supporters of a proposed ballot initiative to alter California's legislative term limits announced Monday that they are submitting about 1.1 million voter signatures - 400,000 more than necessary - to qualify for the Feb. 5 ballot. Launched by Gale Kaufman and Matthew Dowd, political strategists for Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, respectively, the initiative campaign needs 694,354 valid voter signatures. Kaufman announced Monday that the initiative petitions are being submitted to elections officials for certification. "Representing the people of California is honorable work," Núñez said in a written statement. "This initiative with its bipartisan coalition of supporters...

April 5, 2007 | As he tells it, Matthew Dowd's conversion from true believer in George W. Bush to disenchanted critic is a chapter in a "Pilgrim's Progress" through the wilderness of this world. His long quest for agape, as related to a New York Times reporter, begins about a decade ago with Dowd in the Slough of Despond, "frustrated about Washington, the inability for people to get stuff done and bridge divides," when suddenly a great-hearted figure appears who lights a candle in the darkness. "It's almost like you fall in love," Dowd professed. But his dream turns to...

Making a Palm Sunday splash on the front page of the New York Times, Matthew Dowd, ex-aid to President Bush, says that because he has lost faith in Bush he must “speak out now.” Dowd, a former Democrat turned Republican turned Democrat, says that Bush’s my-way-or-the-highway style of leadership has failed “not only the American people, but the Iraqi people and the diverse peoples of the world.” Dowd, a self-described member of Bush’s inner circle, dismisses the suggestion that he has turned on the President because Karl Rove, and not Dowd, remains the president’s most trusted advisor. Rumors have circulated...

A MAN who played a key role in securing US President George W. Bush's re-election has become the first member of the president's inner circle to publicly break with the adminstration's policies. Matthew Dowd, who was the president's chief campaign strategist in 2004, is insisting that Bush's 2004 rival, Democratic Senator John Kerry, was right on Iraq, The New York Times reported on its website. The newspaper said Mr Dowd now says his faith in Mr Bush was misplaced and that Mr Kerry was correct in calling for a withdrawal from Iraq. In a wide-ranging interview in Austin, Texas, Mr...

It's April Fool's Day, but this ain't funny. The New York Times is all a-twitter about President Bush's former pollster coming out against the Iraq war and saying John Kerry was right. To the drive-by media, this is just one more way to gig Bush. And, of course, unable (for many years now) to conduct serious political analysis, they miss the whole point, which is: how long did Dowd oppose the war and did that opposition shape the "analysis" and polling information he gave the President? Since 2002, at least, many of us here have been arguing that the War...

AUSTIN, Tex., March 29 — In 1999, Matthew Dowd became a symbol of George W. Bush’s early success at positioning himself as a Republican with Democratic appeal. A top strategist for the Texas Democrats who was disappointed by the Bill Clinton years, Mr. Dowd was impressed by the pledge of Mr. Bush, then governor of Texas, to bring a spirit of cooperation to Washington. He switched parties, joined Mr. Bush’s political brain trust and dedicated the next six years to getting him to the Oval Office and keeping him there. In 2004, he was appointed the president’s chief campaign strategist....

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Gin or vodka? Ford or BMW? Perrier or Fiji water? Does the car you buy or what's in your fridge say anything about how you'll vote? Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's campaign thinks so. Employing technology honed in President Bush's 2004 victory, the Republican governor's re-election team has created a massive computer storehouse of data on personal buying habits and voter records to scout up likely supporters. Campaign officials say the operation, run in cooperation with the state Republican Party, is the largest of its kind in any state, at any time. Some strategists believe the consumer information...

The Talk Shows Sunday, September 3rd, 2006 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C., and Arlen Specter, R-Pa.; Washington Redskins coach Joe Gibbs.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., and his Democratic challenger, state treasurer Robert Casey. FACE THE NATION (CBS): Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean; Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. THIS WEEK (ABC): Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del.; Sen. Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I., and his primary challenger, Cranston Mayor Stephen Laffey; actress and animal rights activist Bo Derek. LATE EDITION (CNN) : Rep. Christopher Shays,...