We are one week into Mitt Romney’s selection of Paul Ryan. A number of polls are coming out telling a variety of stories about what it means. But one thing is clear: Barack Obama’s campaign has had several significant strategic failures this summer. And they failed to define Paul Ryan out of the gate with their Mediscare tactics. And they failed to define Mitt Romney | Read More »
One upside of President Obama’s hostility to business is that business leaders like Senator Ron Johnson from Wisconsin have come forward to share their experience. Tom Smith, the Republican Senate nominee in Pennsylvania is one of them. He is endorsed by Pat Toomey. He is up against Bobby Casey, a career politician son of a career politician. But at least his dad was willing to | Read More »
For the next several months, we are going to be focusing, naturally, on the Presidential race, Senate races, House races, and governor’s races. However, what happens down ballot is important too. And there is a lot of hope down ballot when we look around the country. Over the next several months, I hope to highlight races in unexpected places where Republicans can put points on | Read More »
I applaud House Speaker John Boehner for his letter to President Barack Obama on Russia. I also applaud him for holding fire on Obama while he was abroad at an important security summit. It much more clearly articulated Obama’s shocking behavior with respect to Russia than any other criticism to date: The Russian government has not lived up to its obligations to support the world | Read More »
The discussion of Republican Party rules reform is beginning in the aftermath of the catastrophe of the new rules that were created by the RNC leadership in 2010. Many people attribute the lengthening process to just the new rules, but I would argue that there are several other factors. Some of the obvious ones are the weakness of the candidate field and new campaign finance | Read More »
Last night President Barack Obama spoke at two “star-studded” Hollywood fundraisers. And, according to Politco, he noted to a group of people who make their quite nice livings in theatrics that “people … like … poetry” rather than the “prose” of governing. Mentioning former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo’s quip that politicians campaign in poetry and govern in prose, Obama said he’s written more of | Read More »
Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) asked Ben Bernanke at the recent Senate Budget Committee if the lack of Presidential leadership was hurting the US economy. He asked, “I’m afraid President Obama has just been phoning it in here the last couple years in terms of our debt and deficit issue. … Can you speak to how harmful that is in terms of economic growth?” Now Bernanke | Read More »
There’s an interesting scandal right now in New Mexico right now. You see, the New Mexico constitution tries to stop corruption, a real problem in the state as the Economist recently noted, by requiring that state legislators cannot draw a salary from other sources during the legislative session. But Channel KRQE has reported that there is a set of legislators who do not abide by | Read More »
So, I confess, I had to look up who Luther Campbell was, aside from a guy who came in fourth in a race for county mayor in Miami-Dade County. He was a somewhat high-profile music promoter, fronting for groups like 2 Live Crew. But it is his electoral experience, as described in his column in the Miami New Times, that draws our attention today. He | Read More »
For a number of reasons, I tend to avoid claims of media bias, as I am often reminded of Silberman’s Law, from Rumsfeld’s Rules, that notes that we often overstate “conspiracy,” while “underestimat[ing] incompetency and fortuity.” However, I have trouble explaining this one any other way. The New York Times editorial page editor, Andy Rosenthal, says, “A half-dozen times or so I’ve asked followers of my | Read More »