Presidential campaigns have grown over-saturated with debates — there will be five more before Halloween — but some are more important than others. Thursday night’s Republican forum in Iowa feels like a big one. Several
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2012 Election
Mitt Romney Declares “Corporations Are People”
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, …
Is Iowa Pawlenty’s Last Stand?
As the Ames straw poll approaches, the chattering class is chattering about whether Tim Pawlenty can carry on after anything but a first-place finish on Saturday. I generally think the straw poll is a silly exercise, but in Pawlenty’s case I can see the grounds for this argument.
In recent weeks Pawlenty’s campaign has been working …
Not Killing Romney: The Difference Between Negativity and Incivility
[youtube=http://youtu.be/IyXgykhsCqk]
The Romney campaign, once again, proves Wednesday morning that it is the most effective and disciplined of the GOP operations this year with a rapid-response web spot, and fundraising appeal, attacking President Obama for being a civility hypocrite. Take a look at the spot.
Note the, um, …
Here Comes a Campaign Issue: The U.N. and Palestinian Statehood
The consuming debate about our debt and the economy has obscured a major foreign policy event that’s right around the corner: Next month, the United Nations general assembly is likely to approve a resolution recognizing a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital. The Obama administration strongly opposes this move, and is …
Operation “Kill Romney”
Mitt Romney’s camp is up in arms today about a Politico report that team Obama plans to “kill Romney” with a barrage of personal attacks that make him out to be a weirdo who flunks the have-a-beer-with-him test. (“Disgraceful,” Romney’s campaign manager told Fox News this morning.) Never mind that the metaphor quoted above is exceedingly …
Michele Bachmann’s Reading List
For politicians, naming a favorite book is often a chance to borrow some clout. But it can also put them in the sticky spot of having to defend ideas they’d rather not endorse. While she was a Minnesota state senator, Michele Bachmann posted a list of nine favorite works on her website. Here’s a look at her must-reads and what each …
How Rick Perry Is Changing the Rules of Politics
I always get a kick out of watching someone ignore or subvert ridiculous political traditions. So I chuckled yesterday envisioning the panic of my colleagues in the press corps desperately trying to figure out whether to cancel …
Obama by State
Gallup is out with a useful, if not timely, snapshot of presidential approval by state culled from its tracking data in the first half of the year:
Tim Pawlenty Says He Is Worse Off Than He Is
It’s always a bad sign when a candidate for President of the United States makes the case that he is actually doing worse in the polls than he is. Here is Tim Pawlenty on Fox News Sunday:
CHRIS WALLACE: You, as we just said, are third in the polls now, somewhat distant, but you are third. Don’t you have to finish at least third in Ames
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Knives Out for Rick Perry Pre-Campaign
The political news hole situated between Washington’s debt deal and the run-up to Iowa’s straw poll is being filled up by stories on the Texas governor in part because things are slow, no one else is running around renting out stadiums or getting experimental stem cell treatments, but mostly because of the orbit-altering effect his …
Four Things to Watch at Rick Perry’s Prayer Rally
We know that “The Response,” the all-day prayer gathering that Rick Perry is hosting with the American Family Association, is scheduled to take place on Saturday in Houston. But at this point, that’s about the only certainty …
Five Reasons Bachmann’s Gender Really Matters
It seems every week there is a story about Michele Bachmann that leads to a battle over whether said story was sexist. Her migraines. The money she spends on makeup. A mention of her being photogenic. Bachmann’s gender is not …