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Political Commentary

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October 19, 2010

Sex, Violence and the Female Voter by Froma Harrop

The line between crazy and creepy is not always a dark one.

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October 19, 2010

Life Gets Better; Politics Get Worse by Debra J.Saunders

"High school, for me, it sucked," Kristel, a 27-year-old lesbian who grew up in Honolulu, confided in her videotape; it was "kind of a hostile environment."

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October 18, 2010

Dems Find Careers Threatened by Obamacare Votes by Michael Barone

Seven months ago, Speaker Nancy Pelosi spent a busy week rounding up votes to pass the Senate version of the Democrats' health care legislation.

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October 17, 2010

Harmer Tries To Re-Swing McNerney's House Seat By Debra J. Saunders

In 2006, voters in California's 11th Congressional District, which meanders from San Ramon to Stockton, fired Rep. Richard Pombo, once a highly popular congressman first elected in 1992. Pombo got caught up in a wave that cost the GOP 31 seats and its control of the House.

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October 16, 2010

Phoenix Rising By Susan Estrich

It was one of those moments. My son, a would-be engineer, saw it as a triumph of the very spirit of engineers: the can-do, we-can-solve-anything guts and genius that could figure out how to keep 33 men alive for two months while forging a plan to hoist them up from half a mile underground in a bullet-shaped device linked to a pulley.

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October 16, 2010

Big-Bucks Whitman Versus Bike-Lane Brown By Debra J. Saunders

Californians do not face an easy choice in the race for governor -- as was clear in Tuesday night's debate at Dominican University in San Rafael.

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October 15, 2010

The Democratic 'D' Now Stands for Demagoguery By Michael Barone

I've been in campaign meetings. Sometimes the atmosphere is grim. Your side is down, and you're looking to turn things around.

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October 15, 2010

The Folly of “Stimulation” by Howard Rich

No public official has been more integrally involved in the federal government’s “Great Intervention” than U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.

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October 15, 2010

House Ratings Changes By Isaac Woods

Polling, independent expenditures, and the general intensification of campaigns across the country provide us with new clues about the November outcome that is in store. Our overall view of the Republican wave remains the same, at a GOP net pick-up of 47 seats, but we now know more about which seats are truly endangered and where each side was just tilting at windmills.

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October 14, 2010

Obama the Alien By Lawrence Kudlow

Believe it or not, with jobs falling for four consecutive months and unemployment stubbornly high near 10 percent, President Obama is out on the campaign trail bashing businesses and promoting class warfare. Huh? (Oh my gosh is he off message.

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October 14, 2010

A Generation of Termites by Joe Conason

When American politicians talk about the legacy we are leaving to the next generation, their usual theme is financial deficits, as if there were no other kind.

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October 14, 2010

The Outlook for November 2nd By Larry J. Sabato

As alert readers of the Crystal Ball will note, we have not changed our projection of +47 Republican net House seats in many weeks.

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October 13, 2010

The White House Bunker So Soon? by Tony Blankley

Based on the recent appointments of the two most powerful staff positions in the White House, and on various statements, it would appear that the White House is descending deeper into the bunker in anticipation of the expected shift in congressional majorities next year.

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October 13, 2010

Traffic Jams by Susan Estrich

There's an old joke in California that if you want attention, stage your event on the freeway.

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October 12, 2010

Real Patriots Demand Clean Energy by Froma Harrop

Those orange fireballs you see in the news are NATO oil tankers exploding along the Khyber Pass.

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October 12, 2010

Law School Is Obamaland's Boot Camp by Debra J. Saunders

Even though America is fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, members of President Obama's Cabinet are three times more likely to have attended law school than boot camp.

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October 11, 2010

Can Skinflint Mitch Daniels Win the Presidency? by Michael Barone

It's an ornate office in Indiana's beautifully maintained mid-19th century Capitol, but the 49th governor of Indiana, Mitch Daniels, is not dressed to match the setting.

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October 10, 2010

Boxer's Fiction vs. Fiorina's Facts By Debra J. Saunders

There aren't a lot of walls around Carly Fiorina. While politicos have marveled at the missteps of Meg Whitman's $140 million Titanic of a campaign for California Governor, Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO, has made herself accessible to journalists in her bid to unseat Sen. Barbara Boxer.

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October 10, 2010

The Money Race in California By Susan Estrich

If there were one contest Meg Whitman didn't need to win in her bid to become governor of California, it was the race to collect the most money from individuals and businesses that do business with the state of California.

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October 9, 2010

The “Toxic” Truth About TARP By Howard Rich

As the infamous Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) winds down this week, Republicans and Democrats in Washington, D.C. are patting themselves on the back for a job well done. Not only are they claiming to have saved the nation from a “Second Great Depression,” this so-called economic miracle was apparently purchased at a bargain basement price.