Presidential campaigns are all about the future, yet they take place in the present and rest upon the past. A candidate’s record, and performance in debates and on the trail, are what a voter has to go on. So the records of the Republican candidates when it comes to fiscal responsibility matter, especially in a [...]
In his presidential-campaign kickoff on Aug. 13, Texas Governor Rick Perry burnished his conservative credentials by attacking the idea of deficit stimulus spending. “Washington’s insatiable desire to spend our children’s inheritance on failed stimulus plans and other misguided economic theories have given us record debt and left us with far too many unemployed,” he said. [...]
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 [...]
-1 minutes. As everyone awaits the third Republican presidential debate of the season, Bill O’Reilly is wrapping up his show on Fox News. When he threatens to call Professor Cornel West a “pinhead,” America knows. It’s go time. 0 minutes. “Thanks Bill,” says Bret Baier, the blockishly handsome anchorman with a hard-boiled name. He welcomes everybody, but [...]
If you want to see why Mitt Romney is on track to become the next Republican nominee for President, you should watch the stump speech he just delivered at the Iowa State Fair. He was electric, passionate, focused and having fun, all words that few would have used to describe Romney the last time he [...]
In a memo to his House Republican caucus released after Obama spoke on Monday afternoon, Majority Leader Eric Cantor doubled down on his insistence that there be no tax increases included in the next round of deficit negotiations. Though this position ignores the fact that taxes are set to go up automatically in 2013 if [...]
The emotional highpoint of the disastrous debt-limit negotiations last month may have come in the Oval Office, after House Majority Leader Eric Cantor offered a proposal that left the President displeased. “Eric, don’t call my bluff,” Obama said, according to Cantor. “I’m going to take this to the American people.” On Monday, with the country’s [...]
August is always Barack Obama’s darkest month. Whether it’s a faltering campaign (2007), Paris Hilton comparisons (2008), town hall rebellions (2009), or an inability to stay on message just weeks before a midterm wipeout (2010), nothing good ever seems to happen in the weeks immediately following his birthday. And this year is shaping up worse [...]
