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The Fact Checking Fun House: Crossroads GPS vs. Team Obama

Have you seen the latest Crossroads GPS fact check of the Obama Campaign fact check of a Crossroads GPS ad that relies on a fact check by Politifact, but fails to point out that Politifact called the same ad “mostly false”? No? Well, then. You have come to the right place. Though we must caution: [...]

Crossroads, Super PACs and the Incumbent Advertising Gap

In a recent piece about the Obama-Romney ad wars, Michael Scherer made the smart point that this election is different from past ones in that the incumbent no longer gets a free hit on his rival during the period immediately following the primary. The reason: super PACs have the cash to cover that gap while the [...]

Roland Sledge Opens Ridiculous Ad Season With Man Peeing on Electric Fence

Someone had to go first, so why not Texas oilman (natch) Rolly Sledge, who’s running for Human Game Commissioner (OK, Railroad Commissioner) in the Lone Star State? In an effort to promote a candidacy with zero national importance, Sledge has followed trail blazers like Frankenstein’s coroner and the painfully bad Old Spice impersonator to make [...]

Old Photo of Mitt ‘Rainmaker’ Romney Used Pretty Much How You Figured It Would Be

The Obama-backing super PAC Priorities USA Action breaks out this picture from an old Bain Capital brochure to field test its general election munitions:

Campaign 2012, Where Old Media Is New Again

We live in the age of the iPhone, yet the 2012 presidential campaign has so far been run on Betamax. In the Republican primary, new media and mobile technologies are next to incidental, subsumed by a nostalgic embrace of a technology that was cutting edge in the 1960s: television.

Where Outside Spending Groups Can Go that Candidates Can’t

There have been quite a few TV ads run by Democrats in Michigan this past week criticizing Mitt Romney for opposing the 2009 auto-bailout. (Probably to limited effect in the primary.)  This one from public worker union giant AFSCME, backed by a $360,000 buy, is probably the most effective. It also happens to be an [...]

For Mitt Romney in Florida, It’s All About Character (Attacks)

Pompano Beach, Florida A political riddle presents itself on the trail with Mitt Romney: Can a true man of character constantly attack the character of another man? From the first introductions on Sunday, character was presented as the defining, most winning attribute of the former governor: Romney was touted as the candidate whose moral qualities [...]

The Once and Future Front Runner: Why Romney Is Winning in Florida and What Comes Next

Charles Dharapak / AP

In a Republican-primary season marked by political chaos, here’s something that finally seems settled: Mitt Romney will win the Tuesday, Jan. 31, Florida primary. So say the latest public polls, several of which suggest Romney has a double-digit lead over Newt Gingrich. So say Romney supporters, who have delighted in discombobulating the former Speaker with [...]

On Crazy People, the Cayman Islands and Why Democrats Are Taking Notes

The heavyweight tussle in Florida is quickly devolving into a very expensive slap fight. On one side is Mitt Romney, whose aides, having spent days tagging Newt Gingrich with labels like “erratic” and unreliable,” are now upping the ante by recasting Gingrich as a full-on crazy person. “UNHINGED!” read a Romney press release Thursday afternoon. [...]

Major League Primary: Why Florida Is the Big Show of the GOP Race

Marcus Yam / The New York Times / Redux

Newt Gingrich is promising to build NASA colonies on the moon. Mitt Romney is imagining Fidel Castro in “a nether region,” which one can only assume is a polite Mormon phrase for hell. Both men are all over the radio, putting on their best Spanish accents. No point in diluting the pandering: this is Florida, [...]