Just one week after the media chattering classes announced that Republican Scott Brown's upset win in Massachusetts represented a political sea change, voters in Oregon sent an unmistakable message of their own. And to be sure, they signaled an important win for Democrats and their progressive allies. Rather than gut school funding and other essential […]

During his first State of the Union address Wednesday, President Barack Obama will apparently endorse two bad ideas whose time hasn't come. The first, a freeze affecting $477 billion in domestic spending, has been rightly labeled "appalling" (Paul Krugman), "a mistake on par with John McCain's 'suspending my campaign' gaffe" (Nate Silver), "fundamental unseriousness" (Brad […]

As President Obama prepares for his State of the Union address, two stories Monday regarding his stimulus package highlighted his political conundrum. USA Today's quarterly survey of 50 economists produced a median estimate that the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) prevented unemployment from reaching 10.8%, saving 1.2 million jobs as a result. […]

Years ago, John McCain said of the Keating Five scandal that nearly ended his career, "The fact is, it was the wrong thing to do, and it will be on my tombstone and deservedly so." But if his new cause of campaign finance reform was the penance for his Keating "nightmare," the Supreme Court last […]

Apparently, judicial activism like beauty is in the eye of the beholder. On Sunday, Texas Senator John Cornyn told Fox News that the impact of the Supreme Court's Citizen United ruling, which erased decades of precedents on corporate political campaign financing, has "been overstated." Given the victory in Massachusetts this week that his National Republican […]

In the wake of Scott Brown's landscape changing win in Massachusetts, the clear message to Republicans is "keep on truckin'." As the Boston Globe reports, the green GMC Canyon truck - what the paper deemed Brown's "regular-guy-mobile" featured so prominently in his campaign - is experiencing "a surge of interest" at Bay State dealerships. All […]

Last year, President Obama kept his campaign promise to cut taxes for 95% of American households. But facing tough reelection prospects in November, a group of House Democrats is getting weak in the knees when its comes to Obama's pledge to reduce the budget deficit by letting the Bush tax cuts expire for Americans making […]

If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, then Barack Obama has been in the fast lane when it comes to bipartisanship. Now one year into his presidency, his near-pathological obsession with consensus has only served to resurrect a moribund GOP while leaving his agenda and his own party teetering on the brink. […]

One day before voters head to the polls, several factors seem to be fueling Republican Scott Brown's surprising lead over Martha Coakley in the Massachusetts Senate race. Voter anger over the economy, Coakley's weak candidacy and Brown's strength among independents who now dominate Bay State politics are just some of the dynamics at work. But […]