Category: Column

I’ve got to admit … I’m a wee bit concerned about the upcoming presidential debates. My fear is that Mitt, for whatever reason, will take the McCain fetal position before Obama and not come out swinging for the fence. Mitt ought to do this Wednesday what Babe Ruth did in ‘32 and point to Chicago […]

With the debates starting Wednesday and the conventions in the rear-view mirror, campaign season is upon us. Those of you who live in a swing state are going to see more of President Obama and Mitt Romney on their televisions in the next month than they see in their mirrors during their morning shave. Oh, […]

As a recovering pollster (I worked for Democratic pollster Peter Hart from 1974 to 1981), let me weigh in on the controversy over whether the polls are accurate. Many conservatives are claiming that multiple polls have overly Democratic samples, and some charge that media pollsters are trying to discourage Republican voters. First, some points about […]

Once upon a time the King decided who was subject to royal edicts. We changed that with a revolution that won representative democracy based on the bedrock principle of “consent of the governed”. The “Rule of Law” holds that all citizens are equally subject to laws enacted by representatives of the people. Barack Obama has […]

The University of California has reached a $1 million settlement with UC Davis students who were pepper sprayed at an Occupy-inspired Nov. 18 demonstration to protest rising tuition. UC will pay student plaintiffs $30,000 each, and the American Civil Liberties Union will pocket up to $250,000. Everything that is wrong in California resides in this […]

As I have said often,: Sheldon Adelson: and Dr. Miriam Adelson have unfairly been attacked by the media simply because they stand up for capitalism and their values.: : They are great Americans, amongst the largest philanthropists in the world, and people who should be commended.: : Mrs. Adelson wrote an op-ed for The Daily Caller where she addressed the media […]

Just a few weeks ago, Mario Draghi, President of the European Central Bank (ECB), announced that he would do anything required to bailout:  the weakest members of the Eurozone and in so doing prevent the euro currency from dissolution. Investors who may have been previously positioning themselves to withstand a euro crisis seem to be […]

In a twist so big it could have been inspired by: Animal Farm, the same President who has put class warfare and stoking resentment against the wealthy at the core of his political strategy has a: 1.4 billion dollar personal budget for his family. Taxpayers spent 1.4 billion dollars on everything from staffing, housing, flying and entertaining […]

I am the mom of a 12-year-old girl and an 8-year-old boy. They have been huge fans of Nickelodeon TV programming throughout their childhoods. We even took them to the Nick Hotel in Florida, where we stayed in a SpongeBob SquarePants family suite. But enough is enough. Like disgusted parents across the country, I put […]

President Obama recently lamented: “You can’t change Washington from the inside. You can only change it from the outside.” I think this statement reveals more about Obama and his plans for a second term than meets the eye. Elaborating, Obama said, “I got elected and … big accomplishments like health care got done … because […]

During the same week when the American ambassador to Libya was murdered and his dead body dragged through the streets by celebrating mobs, the President of the United States found time to go on the David Letterman show to demonstrate his sense of humor and how cool he is. But Barack Obama did not have […]

The presidential debate season is upon us with President Obama and his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, scheduled to square off Wednesday night in the Political Class version of a cage match. Heading into the debates, the conventional wisdom suggests that Romney has fallen way behind and has to dramatically change the course of the race […]

We like tribalism for the same reason we like to eat fatty foods: We evolved that way. Homo sapiens didn’t survive long on the African savannas as rugged individualists. Alone, they couldn’t scare away the scarier animals and, for the most part, they couldn’t catch or kill the tastier ones. But in groups, humans rose […]

This story should send icy slivers of: fear for the future: shooting through the gut of all Americans who care about the future of this country. The latest round of extraordinary Federal Reserve stimulus is risky and leaves little room to maneuver should another crisis hit, economist Lawrence Lindsey told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Wednesday. Lindsey said […]

Are we getting to the point where whole cities going bankrupt is a ho-hum topic? Stockton, San Bernardino and Mammoth Lake have all gone down that road now and over the next few years, dozens and dozens of cities — and then eventually WHOLE STATES – are likely to follow them. Why? It’s: the same old […]

“We should have never gotten involved in Libya in the first place. It was a poorly-thought-out decision to back the losing side of a civil war that could go on for years. Even if Gaddafi were killed tomorrow, we have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what kind of government could follow him. Could it be hostile to […]

Democrats spent the first century of this country’s existence refusing to treat black people like human beings, and the second refusing to treat them like adults. After fighting the Civil War to continue enslaving black people and then subjecting newly freed black Americans to vicious, humiliating Jim Crow laws and Ku Klux Klan violence, Democrats […]

There was only one presidential debate in 1980 between challenger Ronald Reagan and President Jimmy Carter. Just two days before the Oct. 28 debate, Carter was eight points ahead in the Gallup poll. A week after the debate, he lost to Reagan by nearly ten percentage points. Reagan’s debate quip, “There you go again,” reminded […]

Certain quotes take on a mythical quality. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell entered that pantheon when he said, “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” On “60 Minutes” Sunday, the president observed, “When I first came into office, the head of the Senate Republicans […]

NEW YORK — Prior to leaving Egypt for the United Nations General Assembly, Egypt’s Islamist President Mohamed Morsi told The New York Times the United States needs to “fundamentally change” its approach to the Arab world. That includes, he said, showing greater respect for Arab values, as well as helping to build a Palestinian state. […]

Much puzzling behavior by Barack Obama falls into place when we go behind the image that he projects (“Obama 1”) to the factual reality of the man’s whole life and thrust (“Obama 2”). Obama himself is well aware of the nature and importance of his image. In his own words, “I serve as a blank […]

In 2008, voters under 30 preferred Barack Obama over John McCain by a 66 to 32 percent margin. Among older voters, Obama led McCain by 50 to 49 percent. How has Obama paid back the Millennial generation, which provided almost all his margin of victory? With what American Interest superblogger Walter Russell Mead calls “Obama’s […]

By the time the 21st Amendment ended national alcohol prohibition in December 1933, more than a dozen states had already opted out. Maryland never passed its own version of the Volstead Act, while New York repealed its alcohol prohibition law in 1923. Eleven other states eliminated their statutes by referendum in November 1932. We could […]

Today, as I was doing a: HuffPostLive segment that covered, in part, what will happen if Mitt Romney loses – some very odd comments were made. They were odd because they seemed so out of place. Is the Tea Party hurting Romney? Are Republicans being hurt by social issues? Let me tell you what this is […]

Life is a matter of having what you want and paying the price for it. The problem with politics is they leave off the last half of that… – John Hawkins (@johnhawkinsrwn) September 26, 2012   Isn’t that true? Don’t we, as a matter of course in this country, talk about things like education, medical […]