If I told you that the Oakland A’s or the Pittsburgh Pirates would be in the Major League Baseball playoffs this year instead of the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, Philadelphia Phillies, Texas Rangers or Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, you’d probably have me institutionalized. At the very least, you would dismiss me as […]
Politics, for all of the focus on issues, symbols and ideology, is a deeply personal business. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) doesn’t feel deep affection for fellow Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla.). Mississippi Republican Sens. Trent Lott and Thad Cochran had no love lost when they served together. And the rivalry and animosity […]
For all the hoopla over former Sen. Rick Santorum’s (Pa.) Tuesday sweep of Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri (and the breathless coverage over at CNN on Tuesday night was a great example of hype trumping serious analysis), the dynamics of the Republican presidential race have changed little. While former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney seems unable to […]
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has adopted a Southern Strategy that he hopes will keep his campaign alive. It’s only a long shot, but Gingrich doesn’t have many better options. After winning the South Carolina primary, Gingrich figures he can sweep most of the South and add victories (and delegates) in other conservative states, stopping […]
The conventional wisdom now is that, even with the Republican nomination slipping further and further away, former Speaker Newt Gingrich will fight tooth and nail all the way to Tampa, making life miserable for the party’s likely nominee, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. That scenario certainly is possible, and Democrats surely would benefit from seven […]
The idea probably is somewhere between nutty and delusional, but given the weird ups and downs this cycle, nutty isn’t impossible. As Republican insiders of various ideological bent, from the more moderate to the uncompromisingly conservative, watch the presidential nominating process with increasing alarm, there is more than a whiff of talk about a white […]
In 1964, an angry Republican Party threw caution to the wind and nominated conservative Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater for president. Eight years later, Democrats rallied behind South Dakota Sen. George McGovern, an unapologetic liberal. In each case, the party’s rank and file embraced what it thought was a truth-teller who reflected the core values of […]
The combination of Mitt Romney’s 16-point victory in New Hampshire and his rousing election night speech launched the former Massachusetts governor toward South Carolina with the kind of old-fashioned momentum that any candidate for high office would love. Of course, Romney’s competitors are not without their assets. Former Speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.) is a world-class […]