The cheerful, jaded, sneering question de jour from liberal journalists and Democratic Party commentators (I know, there's a pretty fine distinction) is, "What will the Republican Party do if it gets back the House?" The question is phrased along the line of what a car-chasing dog would do if it caught the car.
Trust Republicans to go too far. They take a good idea -- such as the notion that the federal government should enforce immigration laws, and states should be able to help -- and then drive it into the fringes. Witness a Fox News interview in which Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., declared, "We should change our Constitution and say if you come here illegally, and you have a child, that child is automatically not a citizen."
Republicans are starting to think about how to answer the Robert Redford question.
There are two kinds of people in California politics: those who want Sacramento to ban plastic grocery bags and those who just want state pols to pass a budget.
With the disappointingly soft jobs report for July and a faltering recovery overall, is Team Obama getting ready for some sort of new, liberal-left, Keynesian, big-bang stimulus package? Will it be desperate to "do something"?
Every campaign season is filled with the good, the bad, and the ugly—enough to fill a book. Here’s an interim selection of examples as we prepare to enter the full-blown general election season.
Will higher tax penalties on investment really spur jobs and faster economic growth? Most commentators would say no. It's really a matter of economic common sense. But Tim Geithner says, Yes!
"Are you really a Democrat?" someone wrote to me recently, after I wrote a column criticizing the president's decision to go on vacation in Martha's Vineyard while so many people -- especially in the tourist-challenged Gulf -- are suffering.
Democrats will "drain the swamp of Washington" if they win control of the House. So promised California Rep. Nancy Pelosi before the 2006 election that led to her becoming speaker of the House.
Everyone already knows the 2010 elections are significant and competitive. Let’s add record-setting to that description. Why?
Four years ago, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi promised to “drain the swamp” of corruption in Washington, D.C., but after failing miserably to do so it now appears she’s choosing to ignore it – while letting her colleagues sweep it under the rug.
"Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license," federal Judge Vaughn Walker wrote. So one judge overturned a measure approved by 52 percent of California voters in 2008 and upheld by the California Supreme Court in a 6-1 ruling.
No recent controversy has so plainly revealed the hollow values of the American right than the effort to prevent the construction of a community center in Lower Manhattan because it will include a mosque. Arguments in opposition range from a professed concern for the sensitivities of the Sept. 11 victims' families to a primitive battle cry against Islam -- but what they all share is an arrant disregard for our country's founding principles.
Everybody, even White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, agrees that Republicans are going to pick up seats in the House and Senate elections this year. The disagreement is about how many.
The House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct -- also known as the House ethics committee -- issued a Statement of Alleged Violation last week to Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y. To sum it up, Rangel thought he could skirt the rules and get away with it.
The conventional wisdom these days is that the best shot for Democrats heading into the November elections in marginal districts is for the president to raise money and lower his profile. Just send checks. Events after 7 p.m. Closed to the press. This is not an election Democrats want to "nationalize." Better to keep it local. Better to run as your own man or woman, not as the president's best friend.
"Wiki" is a cute Hawaiian word for "quick" -- borrowed by Ward Cunningham, creator of the first Internet wiki -- from the name of a fast little interterminal shuttle at Honolulu International Airport.
Arizona commands front and center stage in the national drama over illegal immigration. But the real action lies elsewhere. For those who prefer dealing with the problem in a more humane way, the news out of backstage is encouraging.
Let's put government on a diet. That's what voters seem to be saying in response to the Barack Obama Democrats' vast expansion of the size and scope of government.
No, I wasn't invited. I shouldn't be. I'm a friend of her parents. They aren't getting married. She is. The rule that invited guests should have a personal relationship with the bride or the groom is only the latest example of how good the Clintons (and the Mezvinskys) have been at the most important job in the world: being parents.
