For the 2012 election, the journalists Mike Allen and Evan Thomas are attempting the neat trick of chronicling the history of the campaign as a real-time serial. Their second installment on the Republican race, “Inside the Circus,” is a dishy account that tries to enliven the campaign’s well-worn themes — Mitt Romney is rich, his rivals are feckless, and God, this has gone on too long… — by feeding political junkies morsels gleaned from special access. This is the book’s implied value proposition: for $2.99, the authors are supplying the candid clashes the daily papers (save Politico, Allen’s employer) are said to have missed.
Americans may be more religious than their peers in other Western countries, but they have their limits when it comes to mixing religion and public life. According to a new survey conducted by Pew, a 38% plurality of Americans for the first time say there’s too much expression of faith in politics. That figure has [...]
Rick Santorum eked out a pair of pivotal victories in the Deep South on Tuesday night, winning hard-fought battles in Alabama and Mississippi that cement his standing as Mitt Romney’s chief challenger and could push Newt Gingrich out of the race.
“I’m learning to say ‘y’all’ and I like grits,” Mitt Romney recently told a crowd in Pascagoula, Mississippi. “Strange things are happening to me.” But has the Boston private equity executive turned Republican technocrat turned presidential front-runner, whom the latest polls shows running even with Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich in Tuesday’s southern primary states, [...]
For a guy with a grim worldview, Ron Paul is great at spotting the green shoots when it comes to his own political fortunes. When he fell to third in Iowa, he told the crowd that “we are going to keep scoring.” In New Hampshire, he told supporters that their “irate minority” was “going to [...]
January was an exhausting month for the American people. They endured four major Republican nominating contests, three dropouts, seven televised debates and the hundreds of hours of breathless cable news coverage that all those things entail. The Anyone-But-Mitt movement was dead after New Hampshire and jolted miraculously back to life by Newt Gingrich’s victory in South Carolina — only to flatline again with Romney’s rout Tuesday in Florida. But after the adrenaline rush, dutiful followers of the democratic process can now finally relax. A lull has arrived.
Mitt Romney stammered on Monday night when debate moderators asked him whether he’d release his tax returns. “I hadn’t planned on releasing tax records, because the law requires us to release all of our assets, all the things we own. That I have already released. It’s a pretty full disclosure,” he said. “But, you know, [...]
In the days before the Iowa caucus, Rick Santorum had a decision to make. Spiking in the polls and positioned for a top-three result, Santorum could try to ride the wave into New Hampshire, where legions of free media awaited, and hope a second consecutive strong finish would convince conservatives to unite around him as [...]
To the limited extent that early national polls matter in a presidential primary, here’s one that’s showing something pretty remarkable about the impact of Rick Perry’s entrance into the race: the Texas Governor has quickly become Republicans’ preferred nominee, even though a third of the party doesn’t know who he is.
If Mitt Romney has his way, Monday night’s Republican primary debate in New Hampshire will be all about Barack Obama. If Mitt Romney’s Republican rivals have their way, Monday night’s debate will be all about Mitt Romney. Herein lies the danger, and the opportunity, for Mitt Romney, who has emerged as expected as the early [...]
