Primary Madness: The Eternal Campaign By Larry J. Sabato
With 13 months still to go before the end of another presidential cycle that began the day after the last one finished, it's worth asking: Does it have to be this way?
Political Commentary
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October 13, 2011
October 13, 2011
The Street They Should Occupy By Froma Harrop
As "Occupy Wall Street" sweeps up attention, a smaller group is running something called Occupy K Street. If the goal is to loosen the financiers' grip over the American economy, the folks protesting on K Street are getting closer to bingo. K Street is Washington's famous boulevard of lobbyist influence, the place where money buys politicians to do money's bidding.
October 12, 2011
Euro-Debt Danger By Tony Blankley
How dangerous is the European financial condition? On Monday, while stock markets from the DAX and FTSE to the New York Stock Exchange were up sharply on report of French and German cooperative murmurs regarding sovereign debt negotiations (and on temporary easing of U.S. double-dip recession fears), the financial and political European press were warning of a coming financial crisis of unmatched dimensions.
October 11, 2011
Why We Need More Government in Health Care By Froma Harrop
"Home-Health Firms Blasted." The headline refers to a Senate Finance Committee finding that major providers of home-based services to Medicare patients were bilking the government program. Big time.
October 6, 2011
Obama Drags Feet to Avoid Offending Political Pals By Michael Barone
Leadership, said New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in his press conference Tuesday announcing he would not reverse his decision not to run for president, is something you can't be taught or learn. "Leadership today in America has to be about doing the big things and being courageous."
October 6, 2011
Herman Cain and the Non-Politician Politician By Kyle Kondik
In the last election cycle, several "non-politician politicians" -- candidates who have never held public office who ran for a major office -- went from obscurity to high office.
October 5, 2011
Good GOP Flip-Flops By Tony Blankley
William F. Buckley, Jr., founding father of the modern conservative movement, famously asserted his doctrine of voting for the most conservative candidate who is electable.
October 4, 2011
Keystone XL Pipeline Not Worth The Risks By Froma Harrop
In Washington, D.C., conference rooms, the proposed pipeline running from Alberta, Canada, to Texas refineries on the Gulf of Mexico may look rather attractive. The 1,700-mile Keystone XL pipeline would supply the United States with abundant crude from a friendly neighbor. It would create 20,000 jobs, says owner TransCanada. And it would be reasonably safe for the environment, according to a U.S. State Department study.
October 3, 2011
Is Herman Cain a Contender? By Michael Barone
Is Herman Cain a serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination? It's a question no one in the pundit world was asking until the past week.
Cain has never held public office. When he ran for the Senate in Georgia in 2004, he lost the primary by a 52 percent to 26 percent margin.
September 30, 2011
Democrats’ House Hopes Hinge on Obama By Kyle Kondik
Just a day before Election Day, the painful reality hit home for Jimmy Carter: He was toast.
September 29, 2011
Mitch Daniels Dares GOP Candidates to Be Grown-ups By Michael Barone
Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels did not attract as large a crowd when he spoke at American Enterprise Institute (where I am a resident fellow) earlier this week as he did when several months ago, before he disappointed admirers by announcing that he wouldn't run for president.
September 29, 2011
Saving Civic Culture From Online Mayhem By Froma Harrop
More speech is not necessarily a positive development. News sites' online forums have unleashed speech in quantity, for sure. But they've given a stage to swarms of moronic insults and outright lies, most cloaked in anonymity or false identities. Such comments waste our time -- but of larger concern, they degrade the civic culture and undermine thoughtful attempts to craft public policy.
September 28, 2011
President's Foreign Policy Failures Increase By Tony Blankley
President Obama, like most American presidents, is lucky that the public pays little attention to foreign policy and rarely casts its votes on the basis of presidential foreign-policy performance. It required something as dramatic as the November 1979 Iranian seizing of our diplomats as hostages, followed the next month by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan to turn Jimmy Carter's foreign policy mess into a major negative issue for him in his failed 1980 re-election bid.
September 27, 2011
The Middle Class and Its Entitlements By Froma Harrop
To what are Americans entitled? Government-guaranteed health coverage in old age? Government-guaranteed health coverage at any age? Subsidized housing if they're low income? Subsidized food? Subsidies for growing wheat but not making shoes? Subsidies for homeowning?
September 26, 2011
Still Looking for a Candidate to Replace Obama By Michael Barone
The Republicans' presidential debate Thursday night sponsored by Fox News and Google gave primary voters and caucus-goers at least one good reason to reject every candidate on the stage. The interesting question now is whether someone else will enter the race -- at just about the same point in the election cycle in which Bill Clinton entered the Democratic race in 1991.
September 22, 2011
What 'Developing' Countries Can Teach the U.S. By Michael Barone
As Barack Obama huffs and puffs about his tax plan, which is unlikely to pass in the Democratic-majority Senate much less the Republican-controlled House, Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank, has provided a much broader view of where the United States stands amid great changes in the world and some useful guidance on what direction public policy ought to take.
September 22, 2011
The Housing Bust Has a Good Side By Froma Harrop
Anyone who has seen a friend kick an addiction -- be it to alcohol, drugs or cigarettes -- knows the extreme discomfort and force of will required. America has long suffered repeated bouts of binging on real estate. The booms inevitably trigger busts, one of which we're now in deep.
September 21, 2011
Double-Dip Learning Curve By Tony Blankley
In one of the least needed reassurances in modern political history, President Obama's top political man David Plouffe, "told Democrats late last week that the White House would not suffer from overconfidence. 'What I don't want to suggest is that we're sitting around and thinking everything is great,' he said."
September 20, 2011
Obama Has It Right in Deficit Plan By Froma Harrop
President Obama's deficit-cutting plan is not perfect, but close to it. It's fiscally smart and politically smart.
September 20, 2011
Obama’s Bizarre Tax Attack By Lawrence Kudlow
It could almost make your head spin. With an economy on the front end of another recession, President Obama’s tax attack on the folks who are most likely to succeed, invest, start new businesses, and create jobs is nothing short of staggering. Only liberal-left class-warfare ideology can explain this.
