House Republicans argue that voters handed their members a mandate as well, granting the party control of the House for another two years and with it the right to stick to their own views, even when they clash strongly with the president’s. And many Republicans remember well when the tables were turned. After Mr. Bush’s […]

Every four years, the race for the White House ends in accusations of deceit. Each side says the other spent millions of dollars to lie and skew the outcome. This year’s post-election accounts of backstage calculations and fateful turning points continue that tradition. But if you read these accounts carefully, you’ll find a happy surprise […]

Yesterday in Springfield, Ohio, the crowd listening to Barack Obama booed when the President brought up Mitt Romney and the Republican Congress. That prompted Obama to say: “No, no, no — don’t boo, vote. Vote! Voting is the best revenge.” Romney promptly pretended to be very outraged by this. He told his supporters: “Yesterday, the President said […]

Okay, thus far it’s just one major pundit, the Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne, whose column posted at 1:58 p.m. demolishes the media’s Conventional Wisdom of last night and this morning, which focused mainly on Romney’s two gaffes, and concluded that Obama had won but only barely.  Binders-full-of-women is irresistible fun, but ultimately unimportant; Romney just […]

Biden’s use of the famous Lloyd Bentsen put-down of Dan Quail—“Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy”—is getting pretty good play among the punditry. (Yay!)  Now, hopefully, Obama and Biden will educate the public about the tax rates on the wealthy and on capital gains in, say, 1963.  And on whether, y’know, America was a European-style socialist […]

Not surprisingly, the pundits have concluded that, while the debate last night will stop the bleeding for the Dem ticket—stop the momentum for Romney/Ryan—it won’t make a difference beyond that. People don’t vote for the vice presidential candidate; they vote for, or against, a presidential candidate. And anyway, Biden smiled too much!  And Ryan was […]

Beautiful. (I was thinking the same thing during the debate, but since no one afterward pointed it out, I thought I must have misunderstood.)  Just wondering whether Romney still has his old calculator around.  The one from his Bain days.  The one that could actually add and subtract!  And multiply and divide and perform algebraic, trigonometric and […]

Rachel Zubay, 32, works as a waitress at Abdalla’s Steak House, in the shadow of a recently idled coal-fired power plant. She’s got two kids, is in the middle of a divorce, has no medical insurance and is paying $50 a month on a $15,000 surgical bill after she injured her ankle and foot in […]

Earlier this week, before the, um, video-recording news broke, it was reported that Romney planned to bring one of those debt clocks to his campaign rallies.  Hmmm, I thought; Obama should return the favor; he should bring a debt clock to his own rallies. A clock that shows what the debt will be under Romney’s […]

I know some believe that government should take from some to give to the others. I think that’s an entirely foreign concept. — Mitt Romney, yesterday Might Romney consider checking what the income tax rates on the wealthy were during the 1950s and ‘60s? Nah. What was that funny line that Texas Governor Ann Richards […]