Michael Barone from Creators Syndicate

Lessons From The Surge for 12/29/2007

Sat, 29 Dec 2007 00:00:00 -0800

There are lessons to be learned from the dazzling success of the surge strategy in Iraq.

Lesson one is that just about no mission is impossible for the United States military. A year ago it was widely thought, not just by the new Democratic leaders in Congress but also in many parts of the Pentagon, that containing the violence in Iraq was impossible. Now we have seen it done.

We ...

Updated: Sat Dec 29, 2007

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The Political Landscape After Iowa and New Hampshire for 01/12/2008

Sat, 12 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Five elections. Five winners. Barack Obama (Iowa Democratic caucus), Mike Huckabee (Iowa Republican caucus), Mitt Romney (Wyoming Republican caucus, held Jan. 5 when no one was watching), Hillary Clinton (New Hampshire Democratic primary) and John McCain (New Hampshire Republican primary).

Still waiting for a win: Fred Thompson, on a bus tour in South Carolina; Rudy Giuliani, running aro ...

Updated: Sat Jan 12, 2008

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Mostly Decent Politics for 01/19/2008

Sat, 19 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0800

My campaign and election memories go back to 1960, when I was one of the few who backed John Kennedy at an election night party that my parents were throwing.

The early broadcasts had him winning big (they extrapolated that his gains in heavily Roman Catholic Connecticut would be matched across the mostly Protestant country), and I was too young to stay up for the dramatic conclusion.

Updated: Sat Jan 19, 2008

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South Carolina Has Set the Stage for General Election for 01/26/2008

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0800

South Carolina: In 1988, 1992, 1996 and 2000, it was the state that, with its early primary, determined the winner of the Republican nomination for president. It gave George H.W. Bush the nomination over Bob Dole, determined that he would not be upset by Pat Buchanan, delivered for Dole over Buchanan and gave George W. Bush a decisive victory over John McCain.

This year, South Carolina w ...

Updated: Sat Jan 26, 2008

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The Parties Change Places for 02/02/2008

Sat, 02 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Just shy of a month ago, after the first votes were cast in Iowa and New Hampshire, it seemed that the Republican Party faced a fluid and fractious nomination contest, while the Democrats faced a clear-cut choice between two not particularly adversarial candidates. What a difference a few weeks can make.

Now it appears that John McCain is on an unobstructed flight path to the nomination, ...

Updated: Sat Feb 02, 2008

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The Verdict of Super Tuesday for 02/09/2008

Sat, 09 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Well, Super Tuesday is over, and now we have two major party presidential nominees. That's the lead sentence I thought five weeks ago I'd be writing for this column. But the 33-day round of caucuses and primaries that seemed likely to produce decisions after 23 states voted on Super Tuesday have failed to deliver.

True, John McCain appears to have a relatively clear flight path to the Re ...

Updated: Sat Feb 09, 2008

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A Super Fight Down the Road for 02/16/2008

Sat, 16 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0800

It's appropriate that our two major political parties are depicted as different animals. Forty days and forty nights out from the Iowa caucuses, the elephant and the donkey seem very different indeed. The Republicans have been split on attitudinal lines, between varying strains of conservatism and moderation.

And their delegate selection rules, based on their notion of fairness, have pro ...

Updated: Sat Feb 16, 2008

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General Election Campaign Has Already Started for 02/23/2008

Sat, 23 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0800

It's starting to feel like the general election. Rising to claim victory in the Wisconsin Republican primary before the networks could declare Barack Obama the winner on the Democratic side, John McCain started right in on his general election opponent.

He promised to "make sure Americans are not deceived by an eloquent but empty call for change that promises no more than a holiday ...

Updated: Sat Feb 23, 2008

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Throw Out the Old Electoral Maps in 2008 for 03/01/2008

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0800

It's time to throw out that old map with the red states and blue states. The map that implies that all but a handful of states will definitely vote Republican or Democratic and that the real contest will be decided in Florida or Ohio or whatever.

For a time, the map served its purpose. Only three states changed parties between the 2000 and the 2004 presidential elections, and the average ...

Updated: Sat Mar 01, 2008

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The Democratic Tribes at War for 03/04/2008

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Exit polls have shown that the contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama has produced deep divisions among Democratic constituencies. It looks something like tribal warfare. Whites have voted, if you average the results from the states, 53 percent to 39 percent for Clinton; blacks, 80 percent to 17 percent for Obama; Latinos, 58 percent to 39 percent for Clinton; Asians, in California (t ...

Updated: Tue Mar 04, 2008

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Clinton Has Only One Plausible Path to the Nomination for 03/08/2008

Sat, 08 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Barack Obama won 11 out of 11 primaries and caucuses from Super Tuesday to Feb. 19. Hillary Clinton won three out of four contests on March 4.

Suddenly, the look and feel of the Democratic presidential race were different. Yet the delegate count has changed hardly at all. Three victories in four states with 370 delegates netted Clinton only about a 20-delegate edge, leaving her still abo ...

Updated: Sat Mar 08, 2008

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The Importance of Fallon's Fall for 03/15/2008

Sat, 15 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0700

The abrupt resignation of Adm. William Fallon as the head of Central Command almost got lost amid the breaking news of Barack Obama's victory in the Mississippi primary and Eliot Spitzer's resignation as governor of New York. But it's a much more consequential development — in the foreign and military policy of the Bush administration in its final year in office and in the relations betwe ...

Updated: Sat Mar 15, 2008

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Will Wright Damage Obama's Millennial Support? for 03/22/2008

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0700

It's a generational thing. That was the theme of Barack Obama's speech last Tuesday, in which he both failed to renounce and at the same time separated himself from the man he has described as his spiritual mentor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Obama said that Wright's bellowing, "God damn America," was just a response to the evil treatment of America's blacks all those years ago by an ol ...

Updated: Sat Mar 22, 2008

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Will Wright Damage Obama's Millennial Support? for 03/22/2008

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Obama said that Wright's bellowing, "God damn America," was just a response to the evil treatment of America's blacks all those years ago b ...

Updated: Sat Mar 22, 2008

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Missing a Generation for 03/28/2008

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Most people's views of the world are shaped by the times in which they came of age. That's why we speak of a baby boom generation or a Generation X. But some people miss out on the formative experiences of most of their peers. That's the case, I think, with the Republicans' certain nominee and the front-runner for the Democratic nomination. John McCain missed the 1960s. Barack Obama missed the ...

Updated: Fri Mar 28, 2008

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Uncle Sam Pays? Sure, Whatever for 04/12/2008

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

"It's the economy, stupid." Those immortal words of the political philosopher James Carville in 1992 have been reverberating increasingly in the 2008 campaign. Polls show the economy as the top issue for voters, far ahead of Iraq. The general assumption is that this helps the Democrats, since the Republicans hold the White House and economic growth has stalled on their watch. But what ...

Updated: Sat Apr 12, 2008

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The Rules Are Changing for Obama for 04/19/2008

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Barack Obama seemed puzzled. Angrily puzzled. The apostle of hope seemed flummoxed by the audacity of the question. At the April 16 Philadelphia debate, George Stephanopoulos, longtime aide to Democratic politicians, was asking about his longtime association with Weather Underground bomber William Ayers.

The Weather Underground attacked the Pentagon, the Capitol and other public building ...

Updated: Sat Apr 19, 2008

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Popular Vote Gives Clinton an Edge for 04/26/2008

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

One thing many people haven't noticed about Hillary Clinton's 55 percent to 45 percent victory over Barack Obama in the Pennsylvania primary is that it put her ahead of Obama in the popular vote. Her 214,000-vote margin in the Keystone State means that she has won the votes, in primaries and caucuses, of 15,112,000 Americans, compared to 14,993,000 for Obama.

If you add in the votes, as ...

Updated: Sat Apr 26, 2008

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Wright Controversy Affects the Polls for 05/03/2008

Sat, 03 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Is the bottom falling out for Barack Obama? It's too early to say that, but there are some disturbing signs. On the positive side, superdelegates still are breaking his way. Rep. Baron Hill, whose southern Indiana district almost certainly will vote for Hillary Clinton, came out for Obama. So did fellow Hoosier Joe Andrew, who previously endorsed Clinton and who was named Democratic national ch ...

Updated: Sat May 03, 2008

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Rethinking the Iraq Critics for 05/10/2008

Sat, 10 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

In trying to understand news about the conflicts in Iraq, I work to keep in mind the difference between what we know now about decision making in World War II and what most Americans knew at the time. From the memoirs and documents published after the war, we've learned how leaders made critical judgments. But at the time, even well-informed journalists only could guess at what was going on beh ...

Updated: Sat May 10, 2008

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