Category: Column

Fear, distrust and division are so much easier to convey in a speech than love and belief. These soft emotions always seem either phony or corny when they are blared over a microphone before a rowdy live audience and skeptical viewers on television. But Ann Romney managed to thread the needle and come over as […]

Bold ideas move people. Big ideas seduce them. And nothing crushes passion like a decimal point. Few things get politicians into more trouble than offering voters too many details. Yet every election cycle, pundits of all denominations join to lament the fact that candidates (mostly Mitt Romney) aren’t putting enough meat on their platitudes. Let’s […]

TAMPA, Fla. — The Republican National Convention started off as an anxiety-ridden, soggy, depressing mess on Monday morning. By Tuesday night, the Democratic Party and Barack Obama in particular had to be an anxiety-ridden, soggy, depressing mess. The transition between Monday morning and Tuesday evening was stunning. The Republican Party went into the convention on […]

TAMPA, Fla. — The delayed opening of the Republican National Convention worked to the advantage of the GOP by both heightening anticipation and forcing the elimination of extraneous speakers, which there are always too many of at these things. Ann Romney kicked off her primetime address wearing a bright red dress, Ronald Reagan’s favorite color […]

TAMPA, Fla. — Tuesday night was Good Cop/Bad Cop night at the Republican National Convention. Ann Romney played the good cop; the keynote speaker, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, played the bad cop. Where Mitt Romney comes across as remote, his wife exudes accessibility. Democrats have devised a talking point about the Republicans’ so-called “war […]

TAMPA, Fla. — The Republicans who are assembled here have been told time and time again that Barack Obama’s great advantage over Mitt Romney is likability. And many of the 15,000 or so journalists who endured the gusts of rain on Monday and groaned in the sun on the 1.5-mile walk from the nearest parking […]

(These poll numbers are from a survey of 500 likely voters that I conducted on Thursday, Aug. 23.) Voters have hardened their views about the economy and now decisively reject Obama’s economic record and say they see no reason for it to get better in a second term. Instead, they conclude that the president doesn’t […]

Another week and more to read on the: Middle East: as always.: : Some of the more interesting articles I thought worth sharing: With the election 2.5 months away, an interesting piece on Obama vs. Romney: 4 Interesting Differences on: Israel:: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Decoder/2012/0826/Obama-vs.-Romney-101-4-differences-on-Israel/Israel-s-threats-to-bomb-Iran A new book, “Legacy: A Genetic History of the Jewish People” discusses the age-old question of: “Jews: A religious group, […]

As Republicans convene in Tampa to nominate Mitt Romney and hammer out their party platform, one of the planks that could attract the most attention is the Party’s official position on the gold standard. As it is now being considered, the platform stops short of recommending a return to the gold standard, but does advocate […]

While all eyes were on the Republican National Convention in Tampa and Hurricane Isaac on the Gulf Coast, the White House was quietly jacking up the price of automobiles and putting future drivers at risk. Yes, the same cast of fable-tellers who falsely accused GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney of murdering a steelworker’s cancer-stricken wife […]

Forty years ago, the United States locked up fewer than 200 of every 100,000 Americans. Then President Nixon declared war on drugs. Now we lock up more of our people than any other country — more even than the authoritarian regimes in Russia and China. A war on drugs — on people, that is — […]

The United States is backing off from the Middle East — and the Middle East from the United States. America is in the midst of the greatest domestic gas and oil revolution since the early 20th century. If even guarded predictions about new North American reserves are accurate, over the next decade the entire continent […]

If you listen to America’s political hacks, mainstream media talking heads and their socialist allies, you can’t help but reach the conclusion that the nation’s tax burden is borne by the poor and middleclass while the rich get off scot-free. Stephen Moore, senior economics writer for The Wall Street Journal, and I’m proud to say […]

With all the conflicting polls and survey samples using registered — as opposed to likely — voters, I decided to conduct my own poll using the same methodologies I used so successfully for Clinton. On Thursday, Aug. 23, I conducted a national survey of 500 likely voters through live telephone interviews. The poll finds Romney […]

TAMPA, Fla. — Huzzah, America, our centuries-old struggle with racism and bigotry may be coming to an end. This news was confirmed by none other than Michael Eric Dyson, a professor of sociology and the author of 18 books on race, racism, racial history, black culture and black history. Suffice it to say, he knows […]

This week’s Republican convention in Tampa, Fla., is a political autobahn. Depending on how Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan play it, they’ll either gain some unfettered mileage in advancing their agenda with the voting public, or slam into a pole in a single-car crash. Nothing stands in their way except themselves. Not even the liberal […]

Some great Publicity quotes (and my thoughts): “The very minute a thought is threatened with: publicity: it seems to shrink towards mediocrity” Oliver Wendell Holmes (Israel: should keep more secrets) “Publicity: is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.” Louis D. […]

Insurance is all about risk. Yet neither insurance companies nor their policy-holders can do anything about one of the biggest risks — namely, interference by politicians, to turn insurance into something other than a device to deal with risk. By passing laws to force insurance companies to cover things that have nothing to do with […]

President Obama’s casting of Mitt Romney as extreme is one of the most glaring incidents of political projection in the modern era. Romney doesn’t approach extremism in substance, style or disposition. Obama swims in it. In an interview with The Associated Press, Obama said Romney has locked himself into “extreme positions” on economic and social […]

In 2010, President Barack Obama confessed to ABC News’ Diane Sawyer, “I’d rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president.” But what if Obama’s one term was not good but bad for the country? The past two weeks, I’ve given the first eight reasons not to re-elect President Obama. Though I […]

My fellow Americans, my fellow Republicans: The 2012 election is not an election between two men but between two entirely different visions of America. President Obama and I are simply the standard bearers of opposing, and may I add, irreconcilable visions of what America is and should be. The Republican Party and I represent American […]

This week when Mitt Romney strides to center stage to deliver his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, he might draw inspiration from an unlikely source: the song “I Am What I Am” from the musical “La Cage Aux Folles.” One of the chief complaints from voters about politicians is that they too often […]

TAMPA, Fla. — Mitt Romney chose Paul Ryan to be his running mate. Since his teens, Ryan has been a big fan of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged.” In 2005, he told The Atlas Society that the novel shaped his “values system” — and that speech has launched a number of recent columns by liberals aghast […]

TAMPA, Fla. — Politics is about pain. Not the pain you feel when you watch it. The pain felt by the candidates. They brush it off, laugh it off, shrug it off. But it kills them a little inside. Presidential candidates are, appearances to the contrary, human. If you prick them, they do bleed. And […]

So in the latest Israel technology app, there’s an Internet app “for those who won’t get off their asses.” Good new idea: at Kfar Kedem — donkey-mounted Wi-Fi.: : It’s intended for tourists to upload photos and emails about their trip in real time while they ride a donkey. www.sizedoesntmatter.com: is a great new website “aimed at highlighting the […]

If Obama were wise he would really ramp up his misinformation machine. He should start giving away free weed, beer, hookers, tanks of gas, kazoos, Vaseline, stretch pants, whirly hats, Flowbees and ShamWows to anyone who promises to vote for him because he just ticked off stacks of Catholics even further by: dissing Cardinal Dolan: for the […]

Our self-described most: transparent administration: in history is at it again. The folks who: claim executive privilege: over documents in the Fast and Furious case yet maintain the president wasn’t involved have decided transparency is overrated. The people who: meet with lobbyists in coffee shops: near the White House to keep unseemly names off the official visitor logs, have decided we […]

Today, the 40th Republican National Convention assembles in hurricane-threatened Tampa, Fla. Seven days later, the 46th Democratic National Convention will assemble in presumably non-hurricane-threatened Charlotte, N.C. Thousands of delegates, many thousands more press personnel and even more political enthusiasts will be on hand. Vendors will sell political buttons to collectors (does anyone wear them anymore?), […]