One of the difficulties of print journalism is that news just keeps happening, sometimes right after your deadline–and so it was last night. I had just put to bed a column about the accelerating foolishness of the Republican …
2012 Election
More Mr. Nice Guy: Perry Struggles to Maintain a Positive Message
A lot of comparisons have been drawn between George W. Bush and Rick Perry. Critics have said both Texas governors weren’t smart enough to be President and relied too heavily on a circle of smart advisers. But in Texas, pols say those criticisms are too simplistic and there are significant differences between the two, the first being …
What Primary? Obama-Allied Super PAC Continues Singular Campaign Against Romney
Continuing the barrage of attacks against Mitt Romney, an outside group allied with President Obama on Wednesday unveiled a web ad depicting the former Massachusetts governor as a candidate who would put corporate and Tea Party interests ahead of the middle class.
Cain Unable: Have Harassment Claims Spoiled the GOP’s Last Chance for Inspiration in 2012?
At the lowest point of his quixotic campaign for president, Herman Cain burst into song, bringing a baritone rendition of an old Dottie Rambo gospel classic to the National Press Club. “He looked beyond all my faults,” …
Dick Morris, Herman Cain and Dubs the Patriotic Dog
Fox News’s “Hannity” was something special on Monday night with Dick Morris–yes, that Dick Morris–showing up to condemn media coverage of Herman Cain’s alleged sexual harassment episodes. Morris himself has become something special, a Tea Party profiteer extraordinaire, as Brad Plumer ably explained in TNR recently. I found this moment …
Will Harassment Allegations Hurt Cain in Early Primary States?
The sexual-harassment story enveloping Herman Cain is still unfolding, and its trajectory over the coming days will determine whether it winds up being a minor hiccup for Cain’s surging campaign or the beginning of its end. But …
Rick Perry’s Flat Tax Math
Bloomberg’s Ramesh Ponnuru neatly explains the revenue problem with the right’s hottest fiscal fashion:
The Other Cain Scandal: Campaign Transactions May Have Broken Federal Law
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ran a stunning piece on Monday unraveling the twisted, potentially illegal financial spider web connecting Herman Cain’s presidential campaign and Prosperity USA, a Wisconsin corporation founded …
Can Occupy Wall Street Be Used Against Obama?
The Republican National Committee seems to think the answer is yes. Here the tear gas in Oakland is shown to describe instability in Obama’s America, and the Occupy protesters are used to demonstrate dissatisfaction with Obama.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MJj4lDmxUw]
Cain Game: Why Sexual-Harassment Allegations Won’t Sink Herman’s Campaign
It’s been such a long time since we’ve had a good, full-blown, as it were, presidential-campaign sex scandal that I feel the need to restate my position on such episodes: I never touch the stuff. Fleeting moments of human frailty, especially of the testosterone-addled kind, are inevitable and should remain private, absent extenuating …
Facing a Media Scrum, Cain Boisterously Denies Harassment Allegations
If there’s anything the political press loves more than a sex scandal, it’s one that dethrones a figure deemed to be riding too high. And so, in a fortuitous scheduling twist, reporters on Monday swarmed the National Press Club …
Cain’s Planned Parenthood ‘Genocide’ Remark
Somewhat lost in the firestorm of sexual harassment allegations were Herman Cain’s comments on Sunday’s Face the Nation regarding abortion – chiefly, that Planned Parenthood clinics are intentionally placed in black neighborhoods to perpetrate genocide. They actually reflect a view that’s regaining traction among socially …
Tongue-Tied Texan: The New Rick Perry Sounds a Lot Like the Old Rick Perry
There are only so many times a candidate can pull a “What was he thinking!?” moment before voters begin to write them off. Rick Perry is right on the cusp.