Sen. John McCain, given up for dead a few weeks ago as he ran a cash-starved, disorganized campaign, today is viewed by canny Republican professionals as the best bet to win the party's presidential nomination.
There should be no question what the top story of the year was: America's counterinsurgency campaign in Iraq, the Democrats' hapless efforts to sabotage it, and the Western mainstream media's stubborn refusal to own up to military progress.
Against all odds, and despite the usual drumbeat of criticism, President George W. Bush has had a very good year. The troop surge in Iraq is succeeding.
Wouldn't it be fun to do a money-dance around town, throwing borrowed hundred dollar bills to passersby, while arranging to have others pay for the adventure?
Outrage over the CIA's destruction of interrogation tapes is but one element of the distress about the agency by Republican intelligence watchdogs in Congress.
Supporters of Sen. Hillary Clinton's presidential candidacy are privately blaming
aggressive campaigning by Bill Clinton for her recent decline in Iowa's pre-caucus polls.
On the issues, not very much separates the front-runners for the Democratic nomination. What's interesting is that all of them are running well to the left of the only Democratic presidents in the last 40 years, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter.
Truly important election years for the U.S. House of Representatives come around only every so often-years when party control is at stake and the House actually changes hands or the balance of power is significantly altered one way or the other.
There are two underlying trends that have emerged when examining recent poll results.
Sound familiar? A young, charismatic candidate campaigns calling for change and new directions. Defying the traditional prejudices that have kept his ilk out of the White House, his effortless good looks and measured cadence attract voters to his vision of new possibilities.
Look at recent history. The Senate has changed party control six times: in 1980 (D to R), 1986 (R to D), 1994 (D to R), 2001 (R to D), 2002 (D to R), and 2006 (R to D).
The era of celebrity endorsements ended some time ago. We no longer buy the shaving cream that Derek Jeter tells us to use; nor do we vote as some Hollywood actor suggests.
I have argued for the last couple of months that the Democratic primary race has been static, representing a strong, if not dominant position for Hillary Clinton.
Bill Clinton’s poll ratings are very high so Hillary figures he can be of great help to her on the campaign trail. So far, so good — but then they extrapolate that view and conclude that he would be a good person to make her negative attacks on opponents, to answer charges against her and to take the media to task for their coverage. And that’s where they are wrong.
It now seems possible, and some would say probable, that both front-runners for their party nominations will be wiped out in the early caucuses and primaries.
"It's always easier the second time around," goes the lyrics of the old song. But while that may be true in love and romance, it is certainly not the case in presidential politics.
Several recent polls and the Real Clear Politics Averages have suggested that Hillary Clinton no longer leads the Democratic race in Iowa, raising questions about her inevitability as the Democratic nominee.
This is not a good time to be Mitt Romney. After almost a year of having the Iowa and New Hampshire airwaves to himself, he is now facing a challenge on the right from Mike Huckabee and Fred Thompson and on the left from Rudy Giuliani.
This week, the Crystal Ball publishes another installment in our intermittent series of observations on the 2008 campaign and the politics of the day.
The new Rasmussen Iowa numbers taken together with earlier polls taken by ABC News and the Washington Post, throw many assumptions about the likely result of the Republican Presidential primary into doubt.
