Michael Barone from Creators Syndicate

Three Different Ways to Look at the 2012 Campaign for 05/14/2012

Mon, 14 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Last week, I wrote about the standings in the presidential race and said it looked like a long, hard slog through about a dozen clearly identified target states, much like the contests in 2000 and 2004. Call it the 2000/2004 long, hard slog scenario.

But I said there were other possible scenarios. I can think of three.

The 1964/1972 scenario: Challenger disqualifies himself. Bar ...

Updated: Mon May 14, 2012

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Long, Hard Slog Ahead in Presidential Race for 05/10/2012

Thu, 10 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Just as the political air is filled with talk of the inevitability of Barack Obama's re-election — we are told that the kids at his Chicago headquarters are brimming with confidence — in come some poll numbers showing him behind.

Not by anything statistically significant, mind you. But when you get the Gallup and Rasmussen tracking polls and the Politico/George Washington Un ...

Updated: Thu May 10, 2012

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Racial Preferences: Unfair and Ridiculous for 05/07/2012

Mon, 07 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post editorial writer and liberal blogger Jonathan Capehart is puzzled. Why does the "non-issue" of Harvard Law professor and Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren's Native American ancestry "require so much attention?" he asked last week.

When Warren was teaching at Pennsylvania, Texas and Houston law schools, she identified herself as Indian &mdas ...

Updated: Mon May 07, 2012

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Obama's Chicago Politics: Thuggery Not Civility for 05/03/2012

Thu, 03 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

It has been reported that the Obama campaign this year, as in 2008, has disabled or chosen not to use AVS in screening contributions made by credit card.

That doesn't sound very important. But it's evidence of a modus operandi that strikes me as thuggish.

AVS stands for Address Verification System. It's the software that checks whether the name of the cardholder matches his or her ...

Updated: Thu May 03, 2012

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Obama Losing Rock-star Status Among Young Voters for 04/30/2012

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Last week, Barack Obama delivered speeches at universities in Chapel Hill, N.C., Iowa City, Iowa, and Boulder, Colo. The trip was, press secretary Jay Carney assured us, official government business, not political campaigning.

It's part of a pattern. Neil Munro of the Daily Caller has counted 130 appearances by the president, vice president, their spouses, White House officials, and Cabi ...

Updated: Mon Apr 30, 2012

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Shrinking Problem: Illegal Immigration From Mexico for 04/26/2012

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

The illegal immigration problem is going away.

That's the conclusion I draw from the latest report of the Pew Hispanic Center on Mexican immigration to the United States.

Pew's demographers have carefully combed through statistics compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau, the Department of Homeland Security and the Mexican government, and have come up with estimates of the flow of mig ...

Updated: Thu Apr 26, 2012

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Liberal Nostalgiacs Don't Understand Jobs of the Future for 04/23/2012

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

I don't know how many times I've seen liberal commentators look back with nostalgia to the days when a young man fresh out of high school or military service could get a well-paying job on an assembly line at a unionized auto factory that could carry him through to a comfortable retirement.

As it happens, I grew up in Detroit and for a time lived next door to factory workers. And I know ...

Updated: Mon Apr 23, 2012

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To Win Burbs, Romney May Pick 'Double-vanilla' Veep for 04/19/2012

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Some 20 million Americans in primaries and caucuses will take part in selecting the Republican presidential nominee. One person will choose the vice presidential nominee.

This has long struck me as absurd: One person choosing someone who, as a result, might become president for as long as 10 years. But just about everyone in politics says it's the only proper way.

Over the last 25 ...

Updated: Thu Apr 19, 2012

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Ouch! Decade of Obamacare Will Cost $1,160 billion for 04/16/2012

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

How much will Obamacare — call it the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act if you like — cost over the next 10 years?

More than you've been led to believe, reports Charles Blahous of George Mason University's Mercatus Center. To be specific, he projects it will add $1,160 billion to net federal spending over the next 10 years and at least $340 billion to federal budget ...

Updated: Mon Apr 16, 2012

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Romney Trails Obama, but Key Numbers Break His Way for 04/12/2012

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Now that Rick Santorum has "suspended" his campaign, we can stop pretending and can say what has been clear for weeks: Mitt Romney will be the Republican nominee for president. The general election campaign has begun.

In some quarters, it is assumed that Barack Obama will be re-elected without too much difficulty. There are reports that staffers at Obama's Chicago headquarters ...

Updated: Thu Apr 12, 2012

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Can Romney Show Voters That Obama Is Out of Date? for 04/09/2012

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Time for a postmortem on the race for the Republican presidential nomination.

Yes, I know Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich are still out there saying interesting things. And that Rick Santorum says it's only halftime and argues he can somehow overtake Mitt Romney by carrying his home state of Pennsylvania.

But polls there show a close race. And the idea that, if Romney falls short of a ...

Updated: Mon Apr 09, 2012

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Colleges Skimp on Science, Spend Big on Diversity for 04/05/2012

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

How many times have you heard Barack Obama talk about "investing" in education? Quite a few, if you've been listening to the president at all.

In fact, Americans have been investing more and more in education over the years, led by presidents Democratic and Republican. But it's become glaringly clear that we're getting pretty lousy return on these investments.

That's bee ...

Updated: Thu Apr 05, 2012

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Americans Are Worrying About the Constitution Again for 04/02/2012

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

"I don't worry about the Constitution," said Rep. Phil Hare, Democrat of Illinois, at a town hall meeting where voters questioned his support of the legislation that became Obamacare. You can find the clip on youtube.com, where it has 462,084 hits.

That was before the 2010 election, in which Hare, running for a third term in a district designed by Democrats to elect a Democrat, ...

Updated: Mon Apr 02, 2012

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Obama's Gaffe Hints at Hidden Agenda in Second Term for 03/29/2012

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

"I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it."

So said John Kerry, in Huntington, W.V., on Tuesday, March 16, 2004, two weeks after he had clinched the Democratic presidential nomination by carrying every state but Vermont in the Super Tuesday primaries.

Kerry was responding to an ad run by George W. Bush's campaign criticizing his 2003 vote against ...

Updated: Thu Mar 29, 2012

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In Obama Campaign Video, It's Not Morning in America for 03/26/2012

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

President Barack Obama's 17-minute video, "The Road We've Traveled," gives us an idea of how he wants to frame the issues in the fall election.

The first thing you notice about the video is that the atmosphere is dark, wintry, minor key. You see but don't hear the election night crowd in Grant Park, and then the video switches to graphics about the economic meltdown that follow ...

Updated: Mon Mar 26, 2012

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Ryan's Budget Kicks the Can at Timorous Democrats for 03/22/2012

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

As I listened to House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan describe his latest budget plan in a speech at the American Enterprise Institute this week, I couldn't help thinking how different things will be in Britain when Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne steps out of No. 11 Downing St. with a battered red briefcase holding his budget for the forthcoming year.

Ryan's budget will ...

Updated: Thu Mar 22, 2012

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Redistricting Not a Big Story in 2012 for 03/19/2012

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

The 2012 congressional redistricting cycle following the 2010 Census is just about over and done with. And it seems likely to make much less difference than many of us expected.

Redistricting is when state legislatures, governors and/or commissions draw new lines for congressional districts after the 435 seats in the U.S. House are reapportioned according to a statutory formula into whic ...

Updated: Mon Mar 19, 2012

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Pundits Gasp as Economy Dents Obama's Poll Numbers for 03/15/2012

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

You can almost hear the note of surprise in their voices when you read the Washington Post and New York Times reporters' stories on their papers' latest political polls.

Surprise! Just when they thought that Barack Obama was pulling ahead, with positive job ratings, and just after the mainstream media have been savaging Republicans for two words Rush Limbaugh uttered on his radio program ...

Updated: Thu Mar 15, 2012

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Romney May Recapture Upscale Whites for the GOP for 03/12/2012

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

In the cold, gray numbers of election returns and exit poll percentages, a reader with some imagination can find clues to people's deep feelings, their hopes and fears, their self-images and moral values.

This is especially true in presidential primaries. In most general elections, 80 percent of voters vote for candidates of the party they prefer. In primaries, voters choose between spec ...

Updated: Mon Mar 12, 2012

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On Iran and Entitlements, Obama Kicks the Can Down the Road for 03/08/2012

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Kicking the can down the road. That's been the Obama administration's response on issues from Iran's nuclear weapons program to America's entitlement systems.

Start with Iran. In a statement in the Oval Office before his meeting with President Obama on Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu noted that Obama had "reiterated yesterday" the principle that "when it ...

Updated: Thu Mar 08, 2012

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