We live in the Divided Era of American politics. Nearly equal numbers of people are now on the side of almost every political issue. This phenomenon of partisanship is neither accidental nor temporary. Throughout all of history, the larger the stakes the more divided a people and the larger the government, the larger the stakes. This year, the presidential election is taking America to new partisan heights.
President Obama tanked in the last debate. Good.
Now maybe people will listen when Mitt Romney says things like, "The genius of America is the free enterprise system, and freedom, and the fact that people can go out there and start a business. ... The private market and individual responsibility always work best."
"It's not easy to debate a liar," complained an email from one observer of the first presidential debate -- and there was no question about which candidate he meant. Prevarication, falsification, fabrication are all familiar tactics that have been employed by Mitt Romney without much consequence to him ever since he entered public life, thanks to the inviolable taboo in the mainstream media against calling out a liar (unless, of course, he lies about sex).
It can't be by accident that Obama campaign adviser Robert Gibbs made the Sunday talk-show rounds using the word "masterful" to describe Mitt Romney's performance at the presidential debate. True, President Obama looked tired, while Romney was brimming with old ideas. But Romney's master-of-the-universe act was not universally admired. It will be turned on him.
Wednesday night's presidential debate in which Mitt Romney shellacked Barack Obama attracted the biggest audience since the debate between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan seven days before the 1980 election.
While other gubernatorial races may get closer as Election Day nears, right now the top gubernatorial tilts in the country are in two small but politically active states: New Hampshire and Montana.
Throughout this year’s presidential campaign, the competitive portion of the electoral map has been limited to about 12 or 13 states. There are the nine that flipped from Republican George W. Bush in 2004 to Democrat Barack Obama in 2008, plus four or so others -- Michigan, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin come quickly to mind -- that voted Democratic the last two presidential elections but narrowly so in 2004.
The first presidential debate of 2012 is now behind us. The reviews suggest that many were surprised at how well Mitt Romney did and how weakly President Obama performed.
Leslie Stahl's face evinces shock as Arnold Schwarzenegger talks about cheating on his wife, Maria Kennedy Shriver, on a CBS "60 Minutes" interview. The former bodybuilder and California governor was sorry that "I inflicted tremendous pain on Maria" -- but obviously not very. There was no show of like or dislike for the wife, but the most infuriating response of all -- indifference.
It’s pretty obvious who turned in a stronger performance in the first presidential debate last night. And it certainly wasn’t the incumbent. This may have been Mitt Romney’s best debate ever, and it almost certainly was Barack Obama’s worst. The question is, will it matter and, if so, how much will it matter?
"There are no jobs!" That is what people told me outside a government "jobs center" in New York City.
To check this out, I sent four researchers around the area. They quickly found 40 job openings. Twenty-four were entry-level positions. One restaurant owner told me he would hire 12 people if workers would just apply.
Republicans were supposed to have an easy time of it in North Dakota's U.S. Senate race. The multi-term Democrat, Kent Conrad, wasn't running for re-election, and this region is supposed to be Republican in its conservative soul. Thus, according to the script, Republican Rep. Rick Berg should have had this Senate seat in the bag -- as his Democratic foe, Heidi Heitkamp, tried to crawl uphill with a heavy D on her back. Contrary to these expectations, the RealClearPolitics poll average rates this race a "tossup."
As a recovering pollster (I worked for Democratic pollster Peter Hart from 1974 to 1981), let me weigh in on the controversy over whether the polls are accurate. Many conservatives are claiming that multiple polls have overly Democratic samples, and some charge that media pollsters are trying to discourage Republican voters.
Amid the ongoing uproar over Mitt Romney's snooty remarks at a Florida fundraiser concerning the "47 percent" who pay no federal income taxes, the party's high-rolling host hasn't drawn quite as much attention as he deserves. As the head of private equity firm Sun Capital Partners, Marc Leder is a longtime associate of the Republican nominee -- and a practitioner of the same dubious behavior that has smudged Romney's reputation.
The presidential debate season is upon us with President Obama and his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, scheduled to square off Wednesday night in the Political Class version of a cage match.
Last week, the most-read items on the RealClearPolitics website were complaints about the "mainstream media." Basically, it was Mitt Romney supporters claiming that their man was behind in polls because the so-called mainstream media were biased against conservatives. On the left, meanwhile, the beefs tend to focus on "what the media aren't reporting" -- most often plundering by big business. About 11 out of 10 times these commentators know "what the media aren't reporting" because they read about it ... where?
In 2008, voters under 30 preferred Barack Obama over John McCain by a 66 to 32 percent margin. Among older voters, Obama led McCain by 50 to 49 percent.
The Chicago teachers strike is over, but the public didn't win. Schools will still transfer bad teachers to other schools because it's nearly impossible to fire them. When bad teachers go from school to school, principals call it "the dance of the lemons." It would be funny if those teachers didn't slowly wreck children's lives.
The basic issue is: Who decides how to manage a workplace? Unions say it's good that they protect American workers from arbitrary dismissal and make sure everyone is treated equally.
LADY LAKE, Fla. -- Lunching at Applebee's in this hyper-groomed shopping center, I'm tempted to buttonhole some of the retirees enjoying their leisure as Fox News jabbers down from the bar. This, after all, is a gathering place near the storied retirement community known as The Villages, a huge conservative enclave smack in the middle of Florida's I-4 corridor.
"The most important lesson I've learned is that you can't change Washington from the inside," Barack Obama said in an interview Thursday on the Spanish-language Univision network. "You can only change it from the outside."
A better way to put it is that Barack Obama has proved he can't change Washington from the inside.
One case in point is the comprehensive immigration legislation Obama promised to steer to passage in his first term. The Univision interviewers, who asked tougher questions than the president has been getting from David Letterman or various rappers, zeroed in on this issue.
