What is Bill Bolling up to?
Virginia Gov. Lt. Bill Bolling (R) sent out a mass e-mail this week running through the state’s legislative agenda. He concluded this way: As you know, when I suspended my campaign for the Republican...
View ArticleObamacare: A starting point for GOP revival
The Republicans, at least sentient ones, have figured out that talking in abstractions ( “free-market capitalism”) and slogans (“rule of law!”) may be soothing for fellow conservatives but largely...
View ArticleSenate races 2014
Republicans in 2014 will have the good fortune to find four open Senate seats currently held by Democrats. Sens. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and Frank...
View ArticleCan the GOP win the Senate on Obamacare?
The National Republican Senatorial Committee is blasting out e-mails about vulnerable Democratic incumbents, calling them to account for their votes for Obamacare. A sample: “CNN’s Wolf Blitzer...
View ArticleLosing faith in D.C.
The irony is rich. President Obama’s agenda to grow the federal government, expand its reach into financial institutions and health care and take more taxes from the private sector — all the while...
View ArticleGOP catches a break in Montana
If the Republican Party can stop fumbling opportunities, it might win the Senate in 2014. The latest blow to Democrats was the decision by the popular former governor of Montana, Brian Schweitzer, not...
View ArticleTom Cotton runs for Senate
To no one’s surprise, Rep. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) will be announcing his run for the U.S. Senate next week, according to multiple news reports. This turns Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), already in trouble in...
View ArticleThe shutdown squad vs. the realists
It is easy to write off intra-party face-offs as a dispute over “tactics,” but the fight between the shutdown squad and the rest of GOP lawmakers over keeping the government open this fall is not...
View ArticleA president who pleases no one
I suppose if you are a moderate Democrat who believes in some sort of fiscal sobriety and a robust foreign policy (like Bill Clinton’s military intervention in Bosnia) you must be somewhere between...
View ArticleThe GOP’s challenge: We’re not nuts!
It should be reassuring to conservatives — as opposed to reactionaries — that for all the huffing and puffing from Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and the constant...
View ArticleRepublicans need to choose wisely
There was good news for Republicans this week in a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll: The Republican Party is gaining a public-opinion edge on several key issues ahead of the 2014 elections, as...
View ArticleThe speech they won’t give
A slew of conservatives including GOP Sens. Mike Lee (Utah), Ted Cruz (Tex.), Rand Paul (Ky.) and Marco Rubio (Fla.) will go before the Value Voters summit today. They will say many things the...
View ArticleTed Cruz Republicans killing Ken Cuccinelli
Yet another poll is out showing Republican state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli ll trailing the Democrat Terry McAuliffe in Virginia’s gubernatorial race. The Christopher Newport University poll...
View ArticleBoehner: A missed opportunity or an amazing bit of triage?
There are two schools of thought about how Speaker of House John Boehner (Ohio) managed the shutdown crisis. However, the opposition within his own conference to the final and inevitable deal (87 to...
View ArticleBattling people in a parallel universe
The central features of the shutdown squad — that cadre of right-wing pols and hectoring inside-the-Beltway money-makers urging them on — are three-fold. They are not candid about who they are. They...
View ArticleGetting the GOP teams straight
The split in the GOP these days is often characterized as the tea party wing vs. the business wing. Neither label is accurate. The tea party was a diffused, bottom-up movement of non-professional...
View ArticleWill business buy what House hard-liners are selling?
Some hard-line House Republicans tried to make nice with business lobbyists in a meeting with some 300 (!) business association representatives and lobbyists, Politico reported. But — to show how...
View ArticleIndividual health-insurance purchasers: The new soccer moms
Resurgent Republic is out with a fascinating survey suggesting the pool of Americans who purchase individual insurance is big and gettable for Republicans: Among the total U.S. population, 5 percent...
View ArticleRight-wing groups hurt the GOP
Club for Growth is one of the right-wing groups prone to backing losing, extreme candidates and cheering on silly stunts like the shutdown. (To the group’s credit, I suspect due to business interests,...
View ArticleA guide for Republicans in 2014
The latest CNN poll has good news for Republicans: They haven’t blown the 2014 election — yet. “Democrats a month ago held a 50%-42% advantage among registered voters in a generic ballot, which asked...
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