Down in the Polls, Dems at War With Themselves by Michael Barone
Intraparty civil war. It's a story line journalists often employ, though usually about only one party, the Republicans.
Political Commentary
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May 27, 2010
May 27, 2010
May House Update By Isaac Wood
Like many beleaguered sports fans, as the calendar turned to 2010, Republicans across the country were conjuring up the same thought: “This is the year!” After disastrous House elections in 2006 and 2008, Republicans dropped from their high-water mark of 232 House seats—their largest total since 1949—to just 178—their lowest total in a decade and a half. This precipitous decline brought considerable frustration to the new minority party. 2010 appeared to offer the chance for historic rebirth—and in many ways it still does.
May 27, 2010
Greece Comes to Washington, Again by Lawrence Kudlow
One day Team Obama announces a plan for enhanced rescission authority to impound wasteful spending. The next day the House surfaces a $200 billion “stimulus” plan to spend on transfer payments for welfare, even more unemployment compensation, still more Medicaid, and a bunch of special-interest subsidies.
May 26, 2010
West of the Potomac, GOP Hopes Rise by Tony Blankley
Historically, the American public -- confident, independent and undemanding-has not expected much out of Washington. Live your silver lives of limousines, private jets, power and celebrity; just do no permanent damage to the nation.
May 25, 2010
What Were They (Politicians) Thinking? by Froma Harrop
The candidates subject themselves to all those boring chicken dinners, weekends on the road and having to flatter unpleasant people. Their campaign workers, contributors and media friends struggle to pull them over the finish line.
May 24, 2010
The Gathering Revolt Against Government Spending By Michael Barone
This month, three members of Congress have been beaten in their bids for re-election -- a Republican senator from Utah, a Democratic congressman from West Virginia and a Republican-turned-Democrat senator from Pennsylvania. Their records and their curricula vitae are different. But they all have one thing in common: They are members of an appropriations committee.
May 22, 2010
Mexico City, Washington Gang up on Phoenix By Debra J. Saunders
Mexican President Felipe Calderon got the tough new Arizona immigration law wrong when he told Congress on Thursday, "It is a law that not only ignores a reality -- but also introduces a terrible idea of racial profiling as the basis for law enforcement."
May 22, 2010
A Plan to Save Europe and World Economic Recovery By Lawrence Kudlow
U.S and world stock markets are slumping badly as intensified systemic risks from the Greek and European debt-default contagion continue to spread. Disciplinarian markets of stocks, bonds, gold and currencies are signaling the inadequacy of European Union rescue plans and the global fear that economic recovery will be blunted.
May 21, 2010
Oil Rules By Joe Conason
The more we learn about the BP oil well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, the more we ought to question the basic assumptions that led us here. Like the explosion of the housing bubble that ruptured the world economy, this human and environmental tragedy resulted from a system that encourages reckless profiteering without effective regulation.
May 21, 2010
America’s Repudiation of the Obama Agenda Continues By Howard Rich
It began last November instatewide races in Virginia and New Jersey. Then it swept through Massachusettsin a stunning U.S. Senate special election this January.
May 21, 2010
Primary Politics By Susan Estrich
The first rule of primary elections is that they are completely different from general elections. What it takes to win a primary is often exactly the opposite of what it takes to win a general, which is why potentially strong general election candidates are often especially weak primary candidates, and vice versa.
May 21, 2010
Grim Milestones in War's Headstones By Debra J. Saunders
How is it that The New York Times reported that that the toll of U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan reached the "grim milestone" of 1,000 Tuesday, but my newspaper, The Chronicle, had not bothered to report the story?
May 20, 2010
The Golden Age of Centrism Wasn't So Golden By Michael Barone
Laments about polarization are filling the air -- or at least that part of the air in which friends and family members have political discussions. It has been widely noted that every Republican member of Congress has a voting record to the right of every Democrat and every Democrat is to the left of every Republican. There is no partisan overlap anymore.
May 20, 2010
Senate Shakeup Moving Through Primary Season By Larry J. Sabato
The primary season is here, hot and heavy, and it has changed the Senate picture since our last update in April. Some of our individual race ratings have shifted, but our forecast still calls for sizeable Republican gains in November.
May 20, 2010
Superb Tuesday: The Right People Won By Froma Harrop
Guess MitchMcConnell's charm wasn't enough. The Senate minority leader's anointed man lostthe Kentucky Republican Senate primary to Rand Paul, son of tea partytoastmaster Texas Rep. Ron Paul.
May 18, 2010
Taxpayers and Housing Need a Divorce By Froma Harrop
Even though Las Vegas is full of never-sold and foreclosed-upon houses, a rumble of new home building has begun there. Similar trends are seen in other housing meltdown meccas: Phoenix, Florida and inland California.
May 18, 2010
Starving for Attention at UC Berkeley By Debra J. Saunders
When some 20 UC Berkeley students announced on May 3 that they were launching a hunger strike to protest the new Arizona immigration law, they also issued a set of "demands." They demanded that Chancellor Robert Birgeneau denounce the Arizona law, rehire laid-off janitors and drop disciplinary actions against students arrested after a violent protest.
May 17, 2010
An Obvious but Muzzled Truth: Islamist Terrorism By Michael Barone
If you want to watch someone squirm, take a look at the two-minute videotape of Attorney General Eric Holder dodging Republican Rep. Lamar Smith's question of whether "radical Islam" motivated the Times Square bomber.
May 16, 2010
Tom Campbell's Fire, Steve Poizner's Discipline By Debra J. Saunders
Some time after he bowed out of the governor's race in January and jumped into the California GOP primary to challenge Sen. Barbara Boxer, Tom Campbell turned from a mild-mannered law professor into Rambo. Professor Rambo.
