This presidential election is like no other.
Most election years around this time, I do a TV show on nasty political commercials. Pundits explain which ads worked, which didn't, and who won because he raised more money and spent more on negative ads.
"It's a suicide mission," said the Republican Party Chairman.
No matter what one thinks of this often surreal presidential primary campaign, it has been a hit at the ballot box.
Republicans have already smashed their record of 20.8 million ballots, set in 2008. Through the May 10 contests, the 2016 GOP primary turnout stands at 26.1 million and counting.
A rare point of universal agreement in all this trenchant political acrimony: No matter what you think of Donald Trump, the political environment in which the flashy real estate mogul has so brilliantly thrived was created entirely by President Obama.
We must frankly face the fact that the front runners in both political parties represent a new low, at a time of domestic polarization and unprecedented nuclear dangers internationally. This year's general election will offer a choice between a thoroughly corrupt liar and an utterly irresponsible egomaniac.
What's your benchmark? What is the historical era with which you compare life in contemporary America?
After an election season in which nothing they predicted came true -- their confidence that Donald Trump would never be the Republican nominee comes to mind -- you'd think our losing-streak corporate pundits would be reluctant to underestimate Trump's chance of winning the presidency in November.
An irresistible force meets an immoveable object.
The irresistible force is the sense of discontent with how things have been going during this young century. Americans are displeased with a sluggish economy that fell into a deep recession and with foreign policies that seem to have produced disappointing results.
"No modern precedent exists for the revival of a party so badly defeated, so intensely discredited, and so essentially split as the Republican Party is today."
When a presidential campaign wants to signal that it is turning from the nomination clash to the general election, “sources close to the campaign” make it known the Veep search has begun. Right on schedule, as Donald Trump has become the Republican nominee-presumptive and Hillary Clinton has maintained an unassailable mathematical lead on the Democratic side, both campaigns have reportedly hinted that they have started to vet possible vice presidential options.
President Obama's proudest accomplishment is increasing the number of Americans with health insurance. A better idea would be to help people escape government care altogether.
Social media giant Twitter's got 99 problems, yet the politically correct company is far more worried about the "optics" of cooperating with federal agents trying to stop jihadist plotters online.
The economy is gasping, the world shudders in violence, invaders heave across our southern border, and despair is etched on the faces of the American people. So, in the final year of his reign, what does our great Prophet of Hope and Change give us?
Bathroom liberation. Pee free or die! Equality before the commode!
John Quincy Adams, our greatest secretary of state (sorry, Hillary Clinton fans), thought that Cuba would inevitably become part of the United States. It hasn't, at least not yet, but two Cuban-Americans were serious presidential contenders this year.
Jason Riley has now joined the long and distinguished list of people invited -- and then disinvited -- to give a talk on a college campus, in this case Virginia Tech.
Forty-eight hours after Donald Trump wrapped up the Republican nomination with a smashing victory in the Indiana primary, House Speaker Paul Ryan announced that he could not yet support Trump.
Hey, Bernie supporters: Hillary has a talking point for you.
Republican party leaders may have worried that Donald Trump would not only lose the general election for the presidency, but would so poison the image of the party as to cause Republican candidates for Congress and for state and local offices to also lose. Now they seem to be trying to patch things up, in order to present an image of unity before the general elections this fall.
So Republicans now have a presumptive nominee -- one headed to a clear delegate majority without visible opposition -- sooner than the Democrats. It's another way in which this year's presidential race has defied expectations and ignored precedent.
"The two living Republican past presidents, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush, have no plans to endorse Trump, according to their spokesmen." So said the lead story in The Washington Post.
