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The Republican Presidential candidates will gather tonight for their eleventh televised debate, and as usual the media mob is teeming with predictions and storylines to watch. I can’t help but wonder if the power of debates has peaked, and we’re headed into a more traditional, and less cheaply theatrical, stage of the primary campaign.
Awkwardness ensues:
In a barrage that marks a new phase of the presidential campaign, Mitt Romney has used his first paid media ad to assail Barack Obama, welcoming the President to New Hampshire today with a withering TV ad and open letter that blast Obama for his “failure” to reignite the sputtering U.S. economy.
Romney’s first paid TV ad, which is set for a six figure buy in New Hampshire: (The quote “If we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose” was Obama playfully channeling the McCain campaign.) Obama says he’ll veto any effort to dismantle the supercommittee’s automatic cuts. The short-term question following the committee’s failure is whether [...]
The U.S. Federal Reserve has been pumping billions of dollars into the European banking system in recent weeks in an attempt to help stabilize the continent’s financial crisis. And while the effort remains small, it is likely to grow in coming days as Europe’s banks struggle to find lenders willing to help them service their [...]
With the demise of the supercomittee today, there’s a certain section of Washington that is mourning the death of bipartisan compromise, too. Michael Scherer deftly writes its eulogy with an eye to the next election:
“Good riddance!” say the pundits on both left and right. The Super Committee is dead, and with it any short-term hope of a solution to the nation’s long-term deficit woes. For the right, this is a victory, because no tax increases were bartered away. “Good for America,” says Republican presidential contender Newt Gingrich. For the [...]
The serial self-immolation of Rick Perry and Herman Cain has produced a growing desperation on the right as Republicans face the prospect of the base-smothering candidacy of centrist Mitt Romney. The latest example of the panic is the devotion of the entire five columns above the fold of today’s Wall Street Journal opinion page to [...]
You can always tell the rookie Pentagon reporter. He, or she, is the one who whispers: “They told me they’re planning for war with Iran!” That’s when the vets around the building have to say: “They’ve been doing that for decades. Somewhere along these 17 miles of corridors, they have plans for everything.” At least [...]
How to interpret the supercommittee. Gingrich fully takes over the 20% Not Romney vote. New Hampshire’s biggest paper runs a column from May by his daughter debunking his ‘deathbed divorce.’ Romney ramps up in Iowa. Can conservative media get behind him?
