Recent News Could Cause Panic for Obama Campaign By Michael Barone
Is it panic time at Obama headquarters in Chicago? You might get that impression from watching events -- and the polls -- over the past few weeks.
Political Commentary
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May 17, 2012
May 16, 2012
Making Life Fair By John Stossel
When my wife was a liberal, she complained that libertarian reasoning is coldhearted. Since markets produce winners and losers -- and many losers did nothing wrong -- market competition is cruel. It must seem so. President Obama used the word "fair" in his last State of the Union address nine times.
May 15, 2012
Silicon Slumming By Froma Harrop
The Victorian era gave birth to a very unpleasant custom called slumming. Parties of swells in London and New York would descend on impoverished neighborhoods as a form of entertainment. In addition to breaking up the tedium of their posh lives, the adventure made them feel superior.
May 14, 2012
Three Different Ways to Look at the 2012 Campaign By Michael Barone
Last week, I wrote about the standings in the presidential race and said it looked like a long, hard slog through about a dozen clearly identified target states, much like the contests in 2000 and 2004. Call it the 2000/2004 long, hard slog scenario.
May 11, 2012
Do Independent Voters Matter? By Todd Eberly
Todd Eberly, a political science professor at St. Mary's College of Maryland, recently wrote a report for the centrist group Third Way about independent voters. Crystal Ball senior columnist Alan Abramowitz addressed that report in a recent article, and Eberly asked to respond. His point of view differs from Abramowitz's and the inclinations of the Crystal Ball staff, but in order to present readers a full view, we agreed to give Eberly a chance to share his views.
-- The Editors
Are independent voters a myth? That is certainly the conclusion of many who study political science. Research has demonstrated that, when pressed, independent voters often reveal significant partisan preferences: They lean Democratic or lean Republican. When leaners are reclassified and grouped among their partisan peers the share of pure independents in the electorate falls -- by some accounts -- to less than 10% of the electorate.
May 11, 2012
Let's Not Overreact to the Judd Mutiny By Kyle Kondik
We would make a joke about President Obama only taking 59% of the West Virginia primary vote against a federal prison inmate named Keith Judd, but every possible one was exhausted on Twitter by Wednesday morning. Suffice it to say, it was an embarrassing performance for the president, albeit in a state he has no chance of winning in November.
May 11, 2012
What the China Crisis (and His Gay Crisis) Revealed About Mitt By Joe Conason
Just as aspiring judges ought to possess the quality known as "judicial temperament," a would-be president should have certain obvious attributes of mind and character. Two incidents tested Mitt Romney this week -- and both times, his ambition overwhelmed his judgment.
May 11, 2012
Lugar Loss Highlights Sour Relationship Between Voters and Politicians By Scott Rasmussen
When relationships go bad, an early warning sign is that one side doesn't really hear what the other is saying.
May 10, 2012
Education Should Have Second and Third Acts By Froma Harrop
On the HBO series "Girls," Hannah asks her boss at a publishing house for a salary. The 24-year-old has been working as an unpaid intern for over a year, and her parents will no longer support her.
May 10, 2012
Long, Hard Slog Ahead in Presidential Race By Michael Barone
Just as the political air is filled with talk of the inevitability of Barack Obama's re-election -- we are told that the kids at his Chicago headquarters are brimming with confidence -- in come some poll numbers showing him behind.
May 10, 2012
A Senate That’s Fit to Be Tied? Updating the Battle for Congress By Larry J. Sabato and Kyle Kondik
Some analysts have been making the case that 2012 is going to turn decisively one way or the other — perhaps evolving into a 2008-style margin for Democrats or Republicans.
May 9, 2012
Creating a Risk-Free World By John Stossel
A child leaving home alone for the first time takes a risk. So does the entrepreneur who opens a new business. I no more want government to prevent us from doing these things than I want it to keep us in padded cells.
May 8, 2012
Throwing American Tradition in the Cultural Mixmaster By Froma Harrop
The overnight rating for the Kentucky Derby telecast has slipped again, hitting a six-year low. This was despite NBC's best efforts to fill the hours with such celebrities as "Two and a Half Men" star Ashton Kutcher and Debra Messing from "Smash." Or was it because of them? A romantic 138-year tradition grown from the bluegrass soil and Southern gentility becomes a blob of homogenized commercial promotion.
May 7, 2012
Racial Preferences: Unfair and Ridiculous By Michael Barone
Washington Post editorial writer and liberal blogger Jonathan Capehart is puzzled. Why does the "non-issue" of Harvard Law professor and Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren's Native American ancestry "require so much attention?" he asked last week.
May 5, 2012
Romney Must Choose By Froma Harrop
You have to wonder why some gay advocates -- like a few believers in birth control, global warming and evolution -- remain loyal Republicans even as the right wing drags their party back to the beginning of the 20th century, if not the 19th. While governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney planted himself mostly in the future.
May 4, 2012
Trench Warfare Won't Resolve Anything in This Year's Elections By Scott Rasmussen
One hundred years ago, the European powers were hurtling down a path leading to World War I. Trench warfare became the dominant image of that war, as both sides dug in and the battle lines barely moved. Many called it the "War to End All Wars," but in the end it merely set the stage for World War II.
May 3, 2012
Obama's Chicago Politics: Thuggery Not Civility By Michael Barone
It has been reported that the Obama campaign this year, as in 2008, has disabled or chosen not to use AVS in screening contributions made by credit card. That doesn't sound very important. But it's evidence of a modus operandi that strikes me as thuggish.
May 2, 2012
Keeping Nature Exactly as Is ... Forever By John Stossel
The human brain is torn between simple intuition and the more complex hard work of figuring out the unintended consequences of any policy. Who doesn't like thinking about trees and greenery and happy animals? Who doesn't want to see steps taken to protect those things, all else being equal? But all else is not equal. Civilization doesn't work when central planners treat each tree as if its value is infinite.
May 1, 2012
Wishing the Worst for John Edwards By Froma Harrop
John Edwards allegedly misused campaign money to cover a tawdry affair while posing lovey-dovey with his dying wife for the cameras. All this happened in 2008, as the former Democratic senator from North Carolina was running for president. Accused of six felony counts for violating federal election laws, Edwards faces up to 30 years behind bars. Let's go for the max.
April 30, 2012
Obama Losing Rock-star Status Among Young Voters By Michael Barone
Last week, Barack Obama delivered speeches at universities in Chapel Hill, N.C., Iowa City, Iowa, and Boulder, Colo. The trip was, press secretary Jay Carney assured us, official government business, not political campaigning.
