The match-up that matters: Rick Perry vs. Mitt Romney by the numbers. They’re already blowing kisses at each another. Perry issues Gardasil mea culpa; accuses Ben Bernanke of treason; uses regrettable shirt-ironing line.
Who would’ve thought that the talk of London would be the Ames straw poll? Apparently, the only American more fascinating to Brits than Bill Bratton is Michele Bachmann. I have a post on our sister blog, Global Spin, about the U.K.’s growing fascination with the U.S. primaries.
Barack Obama hit the road Monday for his three-day Midwestern bus tour toting an array of political baggage: a downgraded national credit rating, a faltering economy, a stretch of wild market vicissitudes, an approval rating that by one measure has slumped to a historical low of 39%. Those problems seemed to vanish on the flight [...]
–President Obama’s response to Republicans’ use of the term “ObamaCare” to refer to the Patient Protection And Affordable Care Act.
O.K. The nonsense of the Iowa straw poll is behind us. We’ve had another GOP debate. We have one more candidate (Rick Perry) and one fewer (Tim Pawlenty). Here are some thoughts as the nomination contest gets going: Tim Pawlenty’s candidacy was a painful, dreadful thing to watch as he attempted to shoehorn himself into [...]
As Adam mentioned, on paper, Tim Pawlenty fit the profile of the perfect Republican presidential candidate: A blue-state governor with blue-collar roots, a conservative evangelical with potential appeal to the Tea Party and establishment wings of the GOP. (Was his staff really that savvy? I’ll have to take Adam’s word for it.) But Pawlenty had another [...]
Perry wows Waterloo while Bachmann ruffles feathers. Is it now a three-person race or a two-way? Is Perry the frontrunner or doomed to fail? Douthat pines for Christie.
Say what you will about the Iowa straw poll. (“Good-natured fraud,” says Walter Shapiro. “Not very predictive,” says Jon Stewart. “Overhyped, underwhelming,” says Michael Crowley.) But no one can deny that the event is consequential. Thanks to Iowa Republican chair Matt Strawn’s vote-buying carnival, more has happened in the past week to change the Republican [...]
Former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty dropped out of the presidential race on Sunday, citing a failure to capture momentum from Saturday’s Iowa straw poll and dim fundraising prospects. “We needed to get some lift to continue on and to have a pathway forward,” he told ABC News. “That didn’t happen.” A finalist for John McCain’s [...]
Updated, 9:03 a.m. Republican Presidential candidate Michele Bachmann claimed victory at Saturday’s Ames straw poll in Iowa, edging out second-place finisher Ron Paul for the symbolic early-state trophy and crushing third-place finisher Tim Pawlenty, who was heavily invested in the event, by more than a 2-to-1 margin. But for all its fanfare, the Ames straw [...]
