In a sure sign that the jockeying for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination is underway, Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney fired the opening salvo against Republican front-runner John McCain. But in calling McCain "disingenuous," Romney also offered the first pot-calls-kettle-black moment of the '08 campaign. In advance of the GOP primaries, McCain and Romney alike are […]

While the GOP this week wrestled with its new status as minority party, leading lights Trent Lott and Mitt Romney showed the Republicans' attitude towards minorities remains unchanged. In the Senate, the Republicans resurrected Mississippi's Trent Lott as the new Minority Whip. Lott, who surrendered his Majority leader post in 2002 following his ebullient praise […]

As Tuesday's vote approaches, Democrats are buoyantly optimistic about their prospects for retaking control of Congress. President Bush is wildly unpopular. His handling of Iraq, the election's dominant issue, is backed by less than a third of the electorate. On issue after issue, voters across the United States support Democratic positions. And in generic Congressional […]

As election day nears, the rhetorical woes of the conservative chattering classes continue unabated. From President Bush's ill-conceived Rumsfeld endorsement to Ted Haggard's boy trouble, the Republican leadership and its amen corner are providing plenty of fodder for voters. "I am a deceiver and a liar. There's a part of my life that is so […]

The revelations that the Reverend Ted Haggard tried but didn't inhale a gay prostitute came as a shock to many of the leading lights of the religious right. Moral Majority founder and fellow Bush faith-based stalwart Jerry Falwell was driven to lie about his past partnerships with Haggard. A "heartsick" James Dobson of Focus on […]

On CNN's Situation Room, a very uncomfortable Moral Majority founder and Liberty University president Jerry Falwell denied to Paula Zahn that knew Ted Haggard, the now disgraced former head of the National Association of Evangelicals. As with so much else, Falwell has it utterly wrong. The reality, as it turns out, is that Haggard and […]

Among the many oversights of the Perrspectives web site is its failure to include New Life Church pastor Ted Haggard in its listing of the American Taliban. But breaking news from Colorado suggests that Haggard is about to add his name to the growing list of gay, anti-gay conservative crusaders. AmericaBlog reports that gay escort […]

In one of the least surprising developments of the 2006 mid-term election, the Republican National Committee is turning to the race card early and often. Nowhere is the GOP's race-baiting more prominent than in Tennessee, where an RNC ad titled "Call Me" depicts African-American Democrat Harold Ford as a Mandingo playboy debauching the white women […]

With the truth about his neo-Confederate proclivities and stock swindles putting his Virginia Senate reelection bid in doubt, Republican George Allen turned to fiction to smear his opponent, Vietnam War hero Jim Webb. Citing disturbing content from Webb's combat novels (one of which, "Fields of Fire," appears on the Marine Corps' recommended reading list), Allen […]

While the past week may not have been kind to the Republican Party, the events of the last several days need not spell doom for the GOP during the upcoming mid-term elections. After all, Karl Rove, Ken Mehlman and the Republican braintrust will not allow the Foley scandal, the explosive allegations in the new Bob […]