Indiana Republicans go to the polls tomorrow to decide whether to re-nominate 80-year-old 36-year Senate veteran Richard Lugar or to pick instead State Treasurer Richard Mourdock, running as the conservative alternative. In the usual course of events, my advice for activists and pundits alike in these races is to not forget that every race is unique, based on the individual candidates, the state or district, | Read More »
One year ago today, a Navy SEAL team killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, the culmination of many years of intelligence-gathering. The operation was personally authorized by President Obama, over the objections of Vice President Joe Biden. While national security leaders had, properly, publicly downplayed the importance of getting bin Laden – it was more important to focus on dismantling the operational network of Al | Read More »
Multiple news sources confirming the news, with a 2pm press conference in Gettysburg to follow. The news comes on the heels of word that his chronically ill daughter Bella was hospitalized again over the weekend. Santorum has already called Mitt Romney to concede. In my view, it’s the right time for Santorum to drop out. His family needs him now, the delegate math precluded him | Read More »
I’ve previously looked in detail at the breakdown of GOP primary votes here, here and here; for purposes of this series, I’ve broken out the votes in three groups – the five conservative candidates (Santorum, Gingrich, Perry, Bachmann and Cain), the two moderate candidates (Romney and Hunstman) and the libertarian (Paul) – for reasons explained in the first post. In my second post, I detailed | Read More »
Charles Fried has suddenly become a very popular fellow on the Left. The former Reagan Solicitor General and Bill Weld appointee to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court is being touted by the Washington Post’s in-house left-wing activists Greg Sargent and Ezra Klein, as well as ThinkProgress and Media Matters and its frenetic professional tweeters Eric Boehlert and Oliver Willis over Professor Fried’s support for the | Read More »
The GOP’s national leadership – including the presidential candidates stumping today in Louisiana – may be uninspiring, but the GOP governors continue to roll. Bobby Jindal last night just scored another victory with the passage through the Louisiana House of a landmark school choice bill (the bill still awaits action from the LA Senate), before proceeding to debate a second bill that tightens teacher tenure | Read More »
How has the popular vote differed in the 2012 GOP primary if you break out the states by their track record in recent presidential elections? It turns out that there are some distinct patterns, patterns that provide both good and bad news for a GOP contemplating a general election behind Mitt Romney. Let’s start with the 13 “Red” states (i.e., the states won by the | Read More »
On February 26 in a suburb of Orlando, a Hispanic man, George Zimmerman, shot to death an unarmed African-American teenager, Trayvon Martin. Zimmerman was on neighborhood watch, carrying a pistol. “Zimmerman spotted Martin as he was patrolling his neighborhood on a rainy evening and called 911 to report a suspicious person. Against the advice of the 911 dispatcher, Zimmerman then followed Martin, who was walking | Read More »
After last night’s contests, it’s time to update my running tallies of the popular vote in the GOP presidential primary and see what further conclusions can be drawn. I continue to break out the votes in three groups – the five conservative candidates (Santorum, Gingrich, Perry, Bachmann and Cain), the two moderate candidates (Romney and Hunstman) and the libertarian (Paul) – for reasons explained in | Read More »
Fred Barnes, who is nothing if not plugged in to the thinking of leading Beltway Republicans, looks at how the Congressional GOP plans to work with the presidential nominee: Republicans would like to revive party unity and repeat the Reagan-Kemp success story. House speaker John Boehner and Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell are planning to confer with the Republican nominee, once one emerges. Their aim: | Read More »
The voting is over, and so for the most part is the counting. The delegate math, I leave to others; let’s take a look at how the popular vote has shaped up over the course of this primary season and what conclusions we can draw. First, the overall popular vote before Super Tuesday, on Super Tuesday, and to date.* In addition to listing the candidates’ | Read More »
It can be difficult to summarize in one place all of Mitt Romney’s problems as a candidate and as a potential President. I have tried; I wrote, back in 2007, a series so lengthy on Romney’s flaws (some 15,000 words, Part I, II, III, IV & V) that I can’t possibly hope to rewrite the whole thing now, and explained why I preferred McCain to | Read More »
Here’s why tomorrow’s Michigan primary is so important: it’s about establishment confidence in Mitt Romney and the last outside chance of getting another entrant in the race. There are, as I’ve noted previously, a number of different types of “establishment” vs “grassroots” divides in the GOP, but you don’t have to have any particular definition of ‘establishment’ to recognize that Romney’s candidacy leans heavily on | Read More »
At the CNN GOP debate last night in Arizona, the candidates were asked this question: Since birth control is the latest hot topic, which candidate believes in birth control, and if not, why? The question was roundly booed by the audience. Republicans hated this line of questioning when it was aired in a debate a few weeks back by former Democratic White House Communications Director | Read More »
It’s time for Democratic politicians like Elizabeth Warren who are courting Catholic voters, or who – like Senator Bob Casey – profess the Catholic faith themselves, to distance themselves from Daily Kos over the anti-Catholic Know-Nothing bigotry of Contributing Editor David Waldman. Waldman, @KagroX on Twitter, is one of the leading figures at Daily Kos, the largest left-wing blog; a former Hotline staffer, he’s a | Read More »
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