Robert F. Bukaty / AP

In Maine, Ron Paul Vies to Extend Mitt Romney’s Losing Streak

Mitt Romney hoped to avoid a fourth straight election setback Saturday in the GOP presidential nomination race, but feisty Ron Paul could extend that losing streak with a victory in Maine's caucuses.

After Two Days of Debate, Evangelical Leaders Unite Behind Santorum

Jason Reed / Reuters

A group of 125 evangelical leaders met in Texas this weekend and after eight hours of conversation and a final ballot taken on 3 x 5 cards named Rick Santorum as their preferred GOP candidate.

Can Well-Heeled Insiders Create a Populist Third-Party Sensation?

Mark Wilson / Getty Images

In a city that thrives on power, being attacked is often a sign that you have some. So in mid-December, when President Obama’s advisers took aim at Americans Elect, a bipartisan clutch of political elites planning to bankroll a third candidate in the 2012 presidential election, the group’s members reacted with dramatized indignation that couldn’t [...]

PolitiFact’s Semantic Distinction of the Year: Ending Medicare

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

The ubiquitous fact-checking outfit PolitiFact has chosen Democrats’ charge that Paul Ryan’s budget would “end Medicare” as its Lie of the Year. This dubious honor, which follows 2009 and 2010 rulings that both went against the GOP for its health care claims, is a coup for House Republicans, who will no doubt face an onslaught [...]

Could We Be Headed Toward Yet Another Government Shutdown?

Shawn Thew / EPA

For what feels like the 624th time this year, the federal government on Friday will run out of money unless Congress acts. This deadline hasn’t gotten much ink because a) we’re all tired of writing the same fishbowl, government shutdown story, and b) congressional negotiators for once in their lives are on track to sign [...]

Re: The Supercommittee, Compromise and 2012

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:

With Supercommittee Failure, 2012 Election Offers False Hope

J. Scott Applewhite / AP

“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 [...]

Winners and Losers of the Deficit Supercommittee Deadlock

Jim Lo Scalzo / EPA

Three months closer to an election year, Congress is proving every bit as dysfunctional as it was during the debt ceiling deal that created the supercommittee in August, and looming primaries – both presidential and congressional – have put bipartisan compromise even farther out of reach. Really, there should be no shock that the committee has failed – there were too many people who stood to benefit from its demise.

Pro-life Christians Challenge Congressional Republicans on Mercury Regulation

You might not expect evangelical Christians to get involved in a political fight over mercury regulations. But when the Environmental Protection Agency proposed in March to tighten limits on industrial mercury emissions, the move caught the attention of an influential group of religious environmentalists who are now butting heads with pro-business Republicans seeking to weaken [...]

The Sisyphean Stimulus Sell: Why Obama’s Big Job Speech Will Likely Prove Unpersuasive

Jason Reed / Reuters

Governor Rick “Galileo” Perry declared at the Reagan Library last night that President Obama and his 2009 stimulus have “proven once and for all that government spending will not create one job.” Actually, in the last quarter, even though the stimulus was winding down, it created 555,029 jobs directly, and according to the nonpartisan Congressional [...]