Author: Michael Barone

America’s two major political parties have a difficult task: amassing a 51 percent coalition in a nation that has always been — not just now, but from the beginning — regionally, religiously, racially and ethnically diverse. George W. Bush’s Republicans in 2006 and 2008 were not able to hold together the 51 percent coalition that […]

Like it or not, Hillary Clinton is the single individual most likely to be elected the next president. So it’s worthwhile looking closely at and behind her words when she deigns to speak on public policy, as she did in her July 14 speech on economics. It contained quite a bit of chaff as well […]

“My sole focus is to run as a Republican,” Donald Trump told my Washington Examiner colleague Byron York last week, “because of the fact that I believe that this is the best way we can defeat the Democrats.” He went on, “Having a two-party race gives us a much better chance of beating Hillary and […]

It says something about Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign that it was big news that she submitted herself to an interview with a cable news journalist. It also says something that the journalist selected for this honor, Brianna Keilar of CNN, was recently a guest at the wedding of the director of grassroots engagement for the […]

“Words mean what they say,” I wrote in my Washington Examiner column one week ago. But, as I added, not necessarily to a majority of justices of the Supreme Court. The targets of my column were the majority opinions in King v. Burwell and Texas Department of Community Affairs v. The Inclusive Communities Project. In […]

The Fourth of July is a time to remember Americans who have contributed much to their country, and this Fourth weekend is a good time to remember two such Americans who died in recent weeks — and whom I’d had the good fortune to know and joust with intellectually since the 1970s — Allen Weinstein […]

For most people, words mean what they say. But not necessarily for a majority of Supreme Court justices in two important decisions handed down Thursday. In the most prominent, King v. Burwell, Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for a 6-3 majority, ruled that the words “established by the state” mean “established by the state or […]

Is the world back to where it was around the year 1800? One could come to that conclusion after reading British historian John Darwin’s recent book “After Tamerlane,” which assesses the rises and falls of empires after the death in 1405 of the famously bloodthirsty Muslim Mongol monarch. From his Central Asian base, Tamerlane conquered […]

Hillary Clinton has relaunched her campaign on Roosevelt Island with a 4,687-word speech. But it’s not clear whether she and her husband, Bill Clinton, can win four presidential elections as Franklin D. Roosevelt did. Negative news for Clinton’s prospects comes in the latest Quinnipiac polls in the key mega-states of Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. In […]

American presidents have greater leeway on foreign policy than on domestic issues. Just see how President Obama is forging ahead to an agreement with Iran opposed by large majorities in Congress and among voters. A president’s personal predilections and core assumptions can have much more of an effect on his foreign policy than on domestic […]

Another election, another surprise. Actually, two elections, in two countries last weekend, with surprisingly pleasant surprises. And in two very large countries: Turkey (population 82 million) and Mexico (119 million), both very important to the United States. In the runup to the Turkish election, speculation in English-speaking publications centered on whether President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s […]

“Despite everything,” the often interesting analyst Jamelle Bouie writes in Slate — “everything” includes “the email controversy, foreign donors and the Clinton Foundation” — “Hillary is in good shape.” Good enough to leave her party “still positioned for victory.” Bouie is writing in response to the ABC News/Washington Post and CNN/ORC polls released last week, […]

Are we seeing a reversal of the 20-year decline in violent crime in America? A new nationwide crime wave? Heather Mac Donald fears we are, and as a premier advocate and analyst of the policing strategy pioneered by Rudy Giuliani in New York City and copied and adapted throughout the country, she is to be […]

Is there any way to reverse the trend towards ever more intrusive, bossy government? Things have gotten to such a pass, argues Charles Murray, that only civil disobedience might — might — work. But the chances are good enough, he says, that he’s written a book about it: “By the People: Rebuilding Liberty Without Permission.” […]

American colleges and universities, long thought to be the glory of the nation, are in more than a little trouble. I’ve written before of their shameful practices — the racial quotas and preferences at selective schools (Harvard is being sued by Asian-American organizations), the kangaroo courts that try students accused of rape and sexual assault […]

Over the past year, I’ve been reading books inspired by the centenary of World War I, a war with horrific casualties painful to contemplate. What helps in comprehending the scale of the slaughter is a book by one of Bill Gates’ favorite authors, the Canadian academic Vaclav Smil, “Creating the Twentieth Century: Technical Innovations of […]

Bill Clinton won the presidency in 1992 by running as a different kind of Democrat from previous nominees. Hillary Clinton, Anne Gearan of The Washington Post reports, is hoping to win the presidency in 2016 by running as the same kind of Democrat as the current incumbent. There’s a certain logic in that. President Obama […]

his spring it seems as if there have been two-point-something Republican presidential candidacy announcements per week. And, since she made her own announcement April 12, Hillary Clinton has answered an average of about two-point-something questions from the press each week. Those (imprecise) statistics illustrate the asymmetrical nature of the presidential race. One party has so […]

“The world may have a polling problem.” That’s the headline on a blogpost by Nate Silver, the wunderkind founder of FiveThirthyEight. It was posted on 9:54 ET the night of May 7, as the counting in the British election was continuing in the small hours of May 8 UK Time. That was an hour after […]

Skeptics about democracy in the 18th and 19th centuries argued that the enfranchised masses would use their votes to seize the property of the relatively few rich. What could be more natural? But it hasn’t happened, in this country or abroad, to anything like the extent that those would-be Cassandras feared. Nonetheless, we continue to […]

Like spring, bipartisanship is busting out all over. Even more so maybe: Washington in a time of alleged global warming is suffering through a chilly, wet springtime, but bipartisanship is sprouting up like gangbusters. Exhibit A is the Corker-Cardin legislation, passed unanimously in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, providing for limited congressional review of negotiations […]

It was sort of inevitable that on his first day of campaigning as an announced candidate for president earlier this month, Rand Paul would be asked whether he supported a ban on abortions in cases of rape or incest. Reporters have been asking Republican candidates that question ever since 2012, when the Missouri Republican Senate […]

“I would bet on globalization slowly being in abeyance,” tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel said in a video interview with George Mason University economist Tyler Cowen. “I think with the benefit of hindsight, we will realize that 2007 was not just the peak year of the finance boom, but also the peak year of globalization, like […]

Presidents are inevitably shaped by the circumstances in which they campaign for — and come into — office. In 1932, Franklin Roosevelt called for “bold, persistent experimentation” and followed through once in office. Had Roosevelt run in another year, or had there been no Great Depression, he would have campaigned and governed differently. The same […]

Two weeks ago, Ted Cruz announced his candidacy for president at Liberty University, and last week, Rand Paul announced at the Galt House hotel in Louisville, Kentucky. Marco Rubio is expected to announce this week at the Freedom Tower in Miami. Others will follow. So what have we learned about the race for the Republican […]

Is the tide turning against President Obama’s purported nuclear weapons deal with Iran? One sign that the answer is yes is the devastating opinion article in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal by former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George Shultz. The architect of Richard Nixon’s opening to China and the partner of Ronald Reagan in […]

It’s springtime, and the Census Bureau has released its population estimates for counties and metropolitan areas as of July 1, 2014. Initial analysis has focused on year-to-year movements or changes since the 2010 Census — subjects worthy of attention. But it’s also interesting to take a longer look, to see where population has been booming […]