Political Commentary

Most Recent Releases

March 2, 2012Romney's Budget-balancing for Dummies By Joe Conason
Seeking applause from a right-wing audience in Michigan, Mitt Romney vowed on Saturday: "I will cut spending, I will cap spending, and I will finally balance the budget," saying that he will end federal funding for all the usual Republican budgetary scapegoats -- the Public Broadcasting System, the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He has said much the same thing many times in recent months, hoping to woo the tea party extremists who keep rejecting his candidacy.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                
                                
                
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                            March 2, 2012Why Politicians Can't Connect With the Middle Class By Scott Rasmussen
Nearly every national political campaign emphasizes the importance of connecting with the middle class. So how come in the 2012 presidential race, none of the candidates are able to make that connection? A hint may be found in the results of a Rasmussen Reports survey showing that just 27 percent of voters nationwide believe government management of the economy actually helps the economy. Fifty percent think government economic activism does more harm than good.
March 1, 2012Tax the Rich ... First By Froma Harrop
We who've been going on and on about the need to raise taxes on the rich need to catch our breath. There's no need to reverse course, but also no obligation to totally love President Obama's approach for doing what we've been asking for. An explanation is in order.
March 1, 2012Why Liberals Like Taxing the Wealthy By Michael Barone
I have long been puzzled by the enthusiasm with which many young liberal bloggers cheer on proposals to raise tax rates on high earners. I can understand why they might favor them, but not why they seem to invest so much psychic energy in the issue.   
Some of this may just be team ball: You cheer when your side puts up numbers on the scoreboard. So Democratic cheerleaders are rah-rahing what they insist on calling repeal of the Bush tax cuts (which have been in effect now longer than the Clinton tax increases they rolled back).   
March 1, 2012Romney's Sigh of Relief By Larry Sabato, Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley
Phew! The sound you hear is the loud sigh of relief from the Romney campaign. A great deal was on the line for Mitt Romney in the oddest of places -- the state of his birth, the state where his dad served as governor, the state he won against John McCain four years ago. A few months ago, no one could have imagined Mitt Romney being hard-pressed in Michigan, and yet it happened.
February 29, 2012Prohibition By John Stossel
Unlike Bill Clinton, President Obama admits he inhaled!. "Frequently," he said. "That was the point."
People laugh when politicians talk about their drug use. The audience laughed during a 2003 CNN Democratic presidential primary debate when John Kerry, John Edwards and Howard Dean admitted smoking weed. 
Yet those same politicians oversee a cruel system that now stages SWAT raids on people's homes more than 100 times a day. People die in these raids -- some weren't even the intended targets of the police.
February 28, 2012Racial Preferences in College Admissions: Time to Go By Froma Harrop
Nothing the Supreme Court deals with is not political. But a case over affirmative action in college admissions has arrived at an especially political time. This is an election year. Working-class whites are considered swing voters, and the president running for re-election is both African-American and a beneficiary of the finest higher education our country offers. Come early fall, the Supreme Court will probably hear a case in which a white student, Abigail Fisher, claims that a race-conscious policy for admissions to the University of Texas violated her constitutional rights.
February 27, 2012Romney, Santorum Represent Different White Americas By Michael Barone
If you were listening reasonably carefully to last Wednesday's Republican presidential candidate debate, you heard Rick Santorum say, "Charles Murray just wrote a book about this."
The question was about Santorum's remarks on contraception, but his answer addressed the broader issue of "the increasing number of children being born out of wedlock in America." That is indeed one of the subjects -- but only one -- of Murray's new book "Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960 to 2010."
February 24, 2012I Tried to Open a Lemonade Stand By John Stossel
Want to open a business in America? It isn't easy.
In Midway, Ga., a 14-year-old girl and her 10-year-old sister sold lemonade from their front yard. Two police officers bought some. But the next day, different officers ordered them to close their stand.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                
                                
                
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                            February 24, 2012Trickle Down Environmentalism Has Little Public Support By Scott Rasmussen
As a candidate in 2008, Barack Obama declared his support for green energy development. "For the sake of our economy, our security and the future of our planet," he said, "we must end the age of oil in our time."
February 23, 2012Santorum's Loose Lips Can Turn Convictions to Controversy By Michael Barone
A candidate's strengths can also be his weaknesses. Take the case of Rick Santorum.
One of his strengths is perseverance. For more than a year, he made hundreds of appearances in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, with no visible result in the polls.
He persevered and ended up finishing first in the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 3. Then, after poor showings in New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida and Nevada, he finished first in Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado on Feb. 7.
February 23, 2012The Santorum Surge And Its Larger Meaning By Larry J Sabato
Real votes make clear what polls cannot fully pick up. The Republican election season has been shaped by two forces, other than the obvious one to oust President Obama. First, the strongest potential candidates did not enter the fray, and the remaining contenders do not satisfy most GOP voters.
February 22, 2012Politicians Fiddle While Fiscal Crisis Looms By John Stossel
Imagine this family budget:
Last year, you earned $24,700. But you spent $37,900, incurring $13,300 in debt, and you were already $153,500 in debt.
February 21, 2012Liberal Elite to Blame for Working-class Woes??? By Froma Harrop
The white working class is in big trouble, and the liberal elite is largely to blame. So says Charles Murray in his latest book, "Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010." As a scholar at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, and this being an election year, wouldn't he just.
February 20, 2012Prudence Is Key to Reversing Obama's 'Soft Despotism' By Michael Barone
Many Republican House members, and the bloggers and tea partiers who cheered their victory in gaining a majority in November 2010, seem to be seething with discontent and eager for confrontation.
February 17, 2012Missiles Aimed at Social Security and Medicare By Froma Harrop
Missiles are pointed at Social Security and Medicare, the broad-based programs for older Americans. Some are stealth missiles. Some are misguided missiles. But both parties are pointing them.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                
                                
                
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                            February 17, 2012Numbers Suggest Santorum Could Be Romney's Worst Nightmare
In a campaign defined by Republican reluctance to embrace Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum has emerged as the latest not-Romney candidate to surge ahead. While it's impossible to predict what will happen in this volatile election season, the data suggests that Santorum might be more of a challenge for Romney than earlier flavors of the month.
February 16, 2012Will Catholic Bishops and the Religious Right Save Obama? By Joe Conason
What is most striking about the showdown over contraceptive freedom is not the political victory that President Obama earned by standing up for women's reproductive rights, although his Republican adversaries are certainly helping him to make the most of it. Those adversaries don't seem to realize they have fallen into a trap, whether the White House set them up intentionally or not.
February 16, 2012A Failure of Imagination Put Metro on Wrong Track By Michael Barone
Believers in central planning should take a look at Washington's Metro rail transit system. While they will find many things to like, they will also see examples of how central planners -- and especially rail transit planners -- can get things disastrously and expensively wrong.
February 15, 2012Never Trust Government Numbers By John Stossel
President Obama said in his State of the Union speech, "We've already agreed to more than $2 trillion in cuts and savings."