Last week, I canceled my room reservation for the week of the Iowa straw poll. I am not going to Ames.
With Mitt Romney, Rick Perry and Jon Huntsman not participating in what is already an event of dubious predictive value, the Ames event became little more than…
Anyone with kids has spent a lot of time reading books with fewer than 10 words on a page. But as the political environment heats up, what looks like a harmless bedtime story can turn into a hidden political message or even astute political analysis.
At least, if…
Well, that was fast. Just days after Congress raised the debt ceiling and finalized a deficit reduction deal, reality slapped the nation in the face in the form of a 500-point drop in the Dow Jones industrial average.
Thank you. We needed that.
The economic news isn’t…
Congress, we hear from voters of all stripes on television and in print, is a disaster, unable even to address important questions let alone find good answers. Even with the deal to raise the debt limit and avoid a default, voters surely will punish all incumbents next November, won’t…
After months of posturing, promising and threatening, the endgame on raising the debt ceiling and shrinking the deficit is approaching.
But after talking during the past few days with a variety of participants and observers, I can find no consensus on exactly what the final result will be.
…There is an old joke, attributed to both Winston Churchill and George Bernard Shaw. It goes something like this:
Churchill: Madam, would you sleep with me for 5 million pounds?
Woman: My goodness, Mr. Churchill ... Well, I suppose ... we would have to discuss terms, of…
While the Republican presidential race has only just begun, it’s already clear that two early one-on-one skirmishes will be crucial for the serious contenders.
The first battle, Iowa, is shaping up as a fight between former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann.
Pawlenty has…
I avoid back-and-forth public arguments, believing that after I’ve made my case readers can decide for themselves who and what they believe. But I’m making an exception with this follow-up column.
I recently challenged those who argue that unpopular Republican governors seriously damage the prospects of the eventual…
On their face, President Barack Obama's poll numbers are mediocre but not terrible. His 46 percent job approval in the June 15-19 Pew Research Center survey is far better than President George W. Bush's worst Pew Research Center job numbers, for example.
In March of 2006, Bush's job…
With his trip to Davenport, Iowa, on Tuesday, President Barack Obama returns to a media market that he shunned in the 2008 presidential contest.
Even though Iowa is traditionally a swing state, the Obama campaign refused to air television ads in the general election in the Quad Cities…
