If the 2012 election were held today, Republicans could very well have their heads handed to them. I do not think this alone. Their debt-ceiling high jinks were no doubt immensely amusing to the tea party fringe, but to those of us not getting the joke, they were an appalling attack on a fragile economy.
What is there to say about Barack Obama's speech to Congress Thursday night and the so-called American Jobs Act he said Congress must pass? Several thoughts occur, all starting with P.
Who would have really expected a 300-point stock market plunge on the day after President Obama’s so-called jobs speech?
Straw polls, real polls, debates, caucuses and primaries — these comprise the public side of presidential campaigns 14 months before Election Day. But behind the scenes, strategists for President Obama and his major Republican opponents are already focused like a laser on the Electoral College.
I remember Sept. 10, too. On that crisp night 10 years ago, friends and I went to hear Les Paul at a basement club in Times Square. The place was packed, and as was my habit in such settings, I quickly noted the fire exits.
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney joined me in Las Vegas yesterday to discuss his new jobs and economic plan. He also shared some thoughts on his new Republican rival, Texas Governor Rick Perry.
The race for the Republican presidential nomination finally seems to be gelling. On Wednesday night, candidates debated at the Reagan Library in California -- the first of five scheduled debates over the next five weeks.
In the last few weeks, leading Democrats in Congress have called Tea Party constituents terrorists, said they should go to hell and accused them of wanting to lynch black people.
Please, everyone, stop monkeying around with Social Security and Medicare. We mean you, Republicans, and you, Democrats. No one's saying that Social Security can't be slightly recalibrated to keep the program on a sound footing or that significant savings can't be found in Medicare waste. We're saying that if Americans are not vigilant, these programs can be undermined by seemingly small "fixes."
I can't remember a more stunning rebuke of a president by a congressional leader than House Speaker John Boehner's refusal to agree to President Barack Obama's demand -- er, request -- that he summon a joint session of Congress to hear the president's latest speech on the economy at 8 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, Sept. 7.
No sooner had President Obama shocked the political world with a gloomy economic forecast -- projecting 9.1 percent unemployment for this year and a reelection-killing 9 percent for 2012 -- than the dismal August jobs report arrived showing no gain in nonfarm payrolls. That’s right, no gain at all. Private jobs increased a scant 17,000, while hours worked and wages actually declined. Obama’s economic policies have failed.
If volunteerism is suddenly unpatriotic and even "socialist," that will come as a nasty surprise to many of the Republicans and conservatives who always have supported such efforts, notably including both presidents named Bush.
With Barack Obama's 2012 renomination speech in Charlotte now about a year away, here's a very simple political question with a potentially complex answer: In his 2012 bid to win re-election, what messages and themes will the president employ?
The third week in July, Republican Gov. Rick Perry said that the U.S. Constitution -- whose 10th Amendment limits federal power -- gives states the right to decide on such matters as abortion and gay marriage. The fourth week in July, the Texan recanted. He now supports a federal ban on abortion and gay marriage. Social conservatives told him they didn't cotton to giving states the right to defy their views on things they care about.
The recent decision by ex-Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) not to seek the seat of his retiring colleague, Democratic Sen. Herb Kohl, was a big moment for Republicans because it gave them yet another clean shot at a Democratic-held Senate seat. Feingold, still popular despite his reelection loss last year, would have been a favored quasi-incumbent had he run. Instead, his decision is just another piece of miserable news for Democrats in this cycle's race for the Senate.
President Obama's post-Labor Day "jobs" speech will be his last chance to launch an economic policy with any chance of manifesting its effect -- both economic and political -- before the November 2012 elections.
"It's not the consumers' job to know what they want" -- Steve Jobs
Some of society's most intractable problems come not from its failures but from its successes. Often you can't get a good thing without paying a bad price.
When Scott Brown was elected U.S. senator from Massachusetts in a special election last year, Republicans rejoiced. They had wrested the Senate seat held by the late liberal icon Edward Kennedy in a Democratic stronghold.
In the vengeful world of politics, what goes around often comes around.
