Some people are having a debate about whether social media are playing an important role in political unrest in the Middle East. Two of the people involved in the debate share the goal of being important public thinkers, so the issue is getting more attention than it should. But if you’re still reading, here’s the score.
First, …
Five-term congressman from Arizona’s 6th district Jeff Flake has announced his bid for the Senate seat that will be vacated by retiring fellow Republican Jon Kyl next year. As the former head of the Goldwater Institute, Flake has iron-clad fiscal conservative credentials and is already being cheered on by the Club For Growth. But his …
On the heels of a high-profile speech at CPAC, an appearance on Fox News Sunday and with the press beginning to dig into his lobbying days, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour is taking the natural next step:
In another sign that he’s moving toward a presidential bid, Haley Barbour will visit Iowa next month, POLITICO has learned.
The
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–The Obama administration released its FY 2012 budget proposal today. As Jay explains, it’s really the opening bid in a back-and-forth between the White House and House Republicans that will last for months., You can read it here at 10:30 a.m. ET. Of the $1.1 trillion in …
Starting this week deficits and spending will take center stage in Washington. And barring a total meltdown in the Middle East, they will hog the stage for the next three months. The stakes are high. Odds of a government shutdown are getting better as are the chances the U.S. could default on its debt. Odds that President Obama will …
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour made the case Sunday on Fox News that his career as a high-powered federal lobbyist for domestic corporations and foreign governments would be an asset if he ran for President in 2012.
I can tell you what we did when I was there. We represented Switzerland. We represented Macedonia because the Clinton
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In the ArenaUncategorized
An interesting weekend in Washington. Two conventions claiming 11,000 attendees each. One, the CPAC convention was heavily reported in the press–including by me, below; the other was the annual Teach For America alumni conference, where I moderated a panel after I’d spent three days listening to the Republican presidential candidates at …
For the second year in a row, Texas congressman Ron Paul won the Conservsative Political Action Conference’s presidential straw poll with about 30% of the vote while Mitt Romney again took second. No one else cracked double digits.
The results are as much a measure of who’s made an organized effort to win it as they are a barometer of …
Daniels’ national political presence has come to be defined by something he said to the Weekly Standard last June: Debt and deficits pose such a national danger, he argued, that everything else should take a backseat. “[The next president] would have to call a truce on the so-called social issues,” he told Andrew Ferguson. “We’re …
In the ArenaUncategorized
While the eyes of the world have been on Egypt the past few days–congratulations to the heroes of Tahrir Square!–my eyes have been fixed on the parade of Republican presidential hopefuls selling their wares at the Conservative Political Action Conference. Their speeches have ranged from the substantive (Mitch Daniels, who courageously …
That’s Vice President Biden with Slovenian Prime Minister Borut Pahor at the White House on Wednesday. (REUTERS/Jason Reed)
If cliches are the enemy of good writing, they can also be the core of successful speeches. Putative presidential contender Tim Pawlenty killed the crowd at CPAC this afternoon, and perhaps no line drew more applause than this string of platitudes. “We’ve had enough of the hype and speeches filled with rhetoric that soars — but takes us …
While potential 2012 candidates were cracking the occasional crowd-pleaser on CPAC’s main stage — “The closest I’ve come to being on a reality TV show is C-SPAN’s coverage of the Senate floor,” Sen. John Thune said at a certain Mama Grizzly’s expense — professional comedians were trying out various means of conversion elsewhere around …
