Romney Pins Hopes on Being Different From Obama By Michael Barone
TAMPA, Fla. -- The Republicans who are assembled here have been told time and time again that Barack Obama's great advantage over Mitt Romney is likability.
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August 30, 2012
August 29, 2012
The Star of Last Night Was Ann Romney By Lawrence Kudlow
In front of a spirited crowd that packed the Tampa Times Forum, Chris Christie gave a solid speech which echoed Mitt Romney's programs consisting of substantial budget cuts, tax cuts, and entitlement reform.
August 29, 2012
The War on Drugs: Because Prohibition Worked So Well ... By John Stossel
Forty years ago, the United States locked up fewer than 200 of every 100,000 Americans. Then President Nixon declared war on drugs. Now we lock up more of our people than any other country -- more even than the authoritarian regimes in Russia and China.
August 28, 2012
Bush Is Not in Tampa, but His Ideas Are By Froma Harrop
The name of George W. Bush graces no chair at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla. The 43rd president left behind monumental deficits and an economy in tatters. Republicans hold him responsible for the party's straying from its alleged small-government ethic. They want the public to forget the man.
August 27, 2012
GOP Convention: No Suspense, Little Drama, Lots of Show By Michael Barone
Today, the 40th Republican National Convention assembles in hurricane-threatened Tampa, Fla. Seven days later, the 46th Democratic National Convention will assemble in presumably non-hurricane-threatened Charlotte, N.C. Thousands of delegates, many thousands more press personnel and even more political enthusiasts will be on hand.
August 24, 2012
The Wrong Kind of Experience: Paul Ryan's Big Foreign Policy Credential By Joe Conason
Defending himself against the perception that he has no significant foreign policy experience, Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan has drawn fresh attention to one of the most controversial acts of the past decade: the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq before U.N. weapons inspections were completed.
August 24, 2012
Romney, Obama Both Struggle to Connect By Scott Rasmussen
When Republicans formally nominate Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan next week, the race against President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden will be officially underway. Yet while the two teams represent different ideological views, different upbringings, different faith backgrounds and different experiences, neither of them has yet inspired any confidence among voters.
August 23, 2012
Akin's Consistency Is GOP's Real Problem By Froma Harrop
The political convulsion over Missouri Republican Todd Akin's bizarre talk of "legitimate rape" highlights an issue that the GOP had buried in its campaign.
While the U.S. senatorial candidate's grasp of reproductive science is shockingly lacking -- he said real rape victims rarely get pregnant -- his position that abortions be banned with no exception for rape happens to be in the new Republican Party platform. It is a stance that most Americans, including most registered Republicans, disagree with and probably didn't know was an official party position. Now they do.
August 23, 2012
GM Goes From Bad to Worse Despite Obama Bailout by Michael Barone
Readers with long memories may recall that Charles E. Wilson, president of General Motors and nominee for secretary of defense, got into trouble when he told a Senate committee, "What is good for the country is good for General Motors, and what's good for General Motors is good for the country."
August 22, 2012
Who Is Paul Ryan? By John Stossel
I wanted to like Paul Ryan. Before he was nationally known, Rep. Ryan visited me at ABC, and we went to lunch. He was terrific. He was a rare politician, one who actually cared about America's coming debt crisis and the unfairness of entitlements. He even talked about F.A. Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom"! If only more politicians thought that way.
August 21, 2012
The Delusions in Ryan's Medicare Vision By Froma Harrop
Paul Ryan has bold economic ideas. Or maybe he doesn't. It's really hard to know what Mitt Romney's VP pick thinks, since his budget plan includes Obamacare's $716 billion in Medicare savings over 10 years, but his election plan has him saying he would restore those spending cuts. Romney is accusing president Obama of "robbing" that money from today's beneficiaries.
August 20, 2012
Romney and Ryan Turn the Tables on Obama By Michael Barone
Mitt Romney's selection of Paul Ryan was supposed to be a problem for the Republicans. So said a chorus of chortling Democrats. So said a gaggle of anonymous seasoned Republican operatives. All of which was echoed gleefully by mainstream media.
August 17, 2012
Ryan's Hope: Voodoo Economics Still Isn't a Plan By Joe Conason
By naming Paul Ryan as the Republican vice presidential nominee, Mitt Romney has endorsed what used to be known as "voodoo economics" -- and restored that special brand of Republican superstition to the center of national debate.
To take Ryan seriously, as all too many pundits and politicians insist we must, requires everyone to behave as if the plans he produced as House Budget Committee chairman represent a meaningful effort to improve the nation's fiscal future. Sooner or later, however, real analysts will scrutinize the Ryan budget using honest math instead of humbug and magic.
In fact, they already have done so -- and that is where the myth of Ryan as a serious, scrupulous and bold reformer begins to disintegrate.
August 17, 2012
Reaction to Ryan: A Gap Between Mainstream America and Official Washington By Scott Rasmussen
One of the things Mitt Romney's selection of Paul Ryan as his running mate ensures is a series of polling questions over the coming months asking voters what's more important: creating jobs or cutting government spending; helping the economy or cutting deficits; repealing the president's health care law or focusing on the economy.
August 16, 2012
The Mixed Legacy of Helen Gurley Brown By Froma Harrop
It took a poor girl from the Ozarks to look upon the candy store of sex and money that was postwar urban America and rearrange the shelves. Helen Gurley Brown was she, the brains behind the racy Cosmopolitan magazine empire and author of the 1962 sensation "Sex and the Single Girl." Was her influence good, bad or an in-between thing? Answer to come.
August 15, 2012
There Ought Not to Be a Law By John Stossel
I'm a libertarian in part because I see a false choice offered by the political left and right: government control of the economy -- or government control of our personal lives.
People on both sides think of themselves as freedom lovers. The left thinks government can lessen income inequality. The right thinks government can make Americans more virtuous. I say we're best off if neither side attempts to advance its agenda via government.
August 14, 2012
Spending We Can Believe In by Froma Harrop
When Curiosity touched down on Mars, joy erupted at NASA's lab in Pasadena, Calif., and national pride swelled. America the Demoralized had briefly vanished. Our research instruments were going where no research instruments had gone before. America was back at its game.
August 13, 2012
Romney-Ryan Ticket Puts Entitlement Crisis at Center of Campaign by Michael Barone
On the USS Wisconsin in Norfolk harbor, a coatless Mitt Romney named a tieless Paul Ryan as his vice presidential nominee.
August 10, 2012
Can President Obama Survive His Economic Record? by James E. Campbell
Forget Bain Capital, tax returns, whether the President says you built your business or not, Fast and Furious, Romneycare, Obamacare, overseas gaffes and the campaign story du jour. These are side issues and distractions. This presidential election should be primarily about one thing, which is the issue that is perennially most important to American voters: the economy.
August 10, 2012
Akin Favored In Missouri by Kyle Kondik
Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) got the opponent she wanted. But she still enters the general election season as an underdog.
