An eight-vote, 25% victory may look weak, but Mitt Romney’s narrow win in the Iowa caucuses Tuesday has his campaign charting a plan for ultimate victory by the time Florida Republicans hold their primary on Jan. 31. The …
Florida
Why the GOP Nomination Fight Could All Come Down to Florida
The race for the Republican nomination looks like it’s finally turning into a real fight with presumed frontrunner Mitt Romney beating back insurgent Newt Gingrich. The pattern of the early voting states has long been assumed to split pretty evenly: Evangelical-heavy Iowa and South Carolina going to the anti-Romney, these days the …
CNN/TIME/ORC Poll: Gingrich Posts Massive Gains in Key Early States
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, once given up for dead in the Republican presidential primary, picked the right moment for a dramatic comeback. With less than a month to go until voting begins, Gingrich now leads the field of …
The Mystery of the Missing Presidential Campaign: Cain Operation MIA in Key States
In early October, as Herman Cain caught fire in national polls and began to climb into the first tier of the Republican presidential race, the ex-CEO turned insurgent candidate puzzled political observers by diverting his …
In Jumping to Rubio’s Defense, Romney Exacerbates the Origin Story Uproar
Yesterday I posted a commentary in this space on what I believe was liberal hypocrisy in the wake of last Thursday’s Washington Post article on conservative U.S. Senator Marco Rubio. But today, in fairness, I think former Massachusetts Governor and leading Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney should be called to question for …
Birtherism Redux: The Right and the Left Overreach On Marco Rubio’s Origins
U.S. Senator Marco Rubio got it from both sides this past week. First it was the birthers, who it turns out are equal opportunity delusionals. The nativist activists, who’ve misspent every waking hour since November 2008 …
In West Coast Debut, Marco Rubio Shows He’s Got What GOP Wants Most
U.S. Senator Marco Rubio is having more coming-out events these days than a quinceañera debutante. On Tuesday night, the 40-year-old Florida Republican went to California to deliver a major speech on government at the …
Redistributing High-Speed Rail Dollars: Still Useful!
President Obama’s high-speed rail program has taken a lot of abuse because it isn’t just funding true high-speed rail; it’s also accelerating and improving service on moderate-speed trains. OK, guilty as charged. The program’s actual name is “High-Speed and Intercity Passenger Rail.” And now that Obama has redistributed the …
Florida Loses Its Mind. Again.
If you think that Snooki has relationship problems because of overly strict drinking laws, or that the Bernie Madoff story is a cautionary tale about overly intrusive financial regulation, you’re probably a Florida politician. Because the geniuses who run the state have decided that its economic distress is the result of overly strict …
Rick Scott Goes to War With a Republican Legislature
Tim Padgett, our guy in Florida, chronicles the unrelenting governor’s knack for vexing friends and foes alike in Tallahassee.
Like [Former South Carolina Governor Mark] Sanford, the multimillionaire Scott is a fan of my-way-or-the-highway gestures. Florida’s legislature, like most in the U.S., is hardly a heroic institution. But it was
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Florida’s Rick Scott Sends High-Speed Rail Packing
By Michael Grunwald, TIME Senior Correspondent
It’s one thing to look a gift horse in the mouth. It’s quite another thing to slaughter a gift horse and send its disemboweled corpse back to Washington.
Florida Governor Rick Scott just killed the Obama administration’s marquee high-speed rail project, giving up a whopping $2.4 …
A Dark Horse Loses
When I interviewed Chris Van Hollen last week he wrote down a name on a piece of paper and placed it at the back of my notebook. The name, said Hollen, who is in charge of electing Democrats to the House, was his dark horse candidate — someone he thought would defy all odds. I promised I wouldn’t look at the paper until today and I …
Dems’ Efforts to Get Meek to Drop Out: Too Little, Too Late?
A guest post from TIME’s Miami bureau chief Tim Padgett
So how desperate are the Democrats to keep control of the U.S. Senate? The answer is fairly clear in a story that appeared Thursday evening on Politico.com that quotes spokesmen for former President Bill Clinton claiming he tried to convince Democratic Florida Congressman …