AP American Government

Unprincipled Hucksterism

The controversy kicked up by Mitt Romney's sleazy and duplicitous ad, taking Obama's words out of context, continues.

See this op-ed piece by Frank Bruni in the New York Times, this piece by Brian McGrory in the Boston Globe, and this piece, also from the Boston Globe, by Scott Lehigh.

Getting Serious About Governing

See Peggy Noonan's column in last Saturday's Wall Street Journal.

Republican Nomination Race

Here's a piece by Michael Shear of the New York Times about the Republican candidate pool, now that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has decided not to enter the race for the Republican nomination for president in 2012.  Along with Sarah Palin's recent decision not to run, the Republican field is now set. As Shear notes, Republican voters are faced with a stark choice between Mitt Romney, the "establishment" Republican candidate, and Rick Perry, the "Tea Party" favorite.

Also see this interesting column in the Wall Street Journal by Fred Barnes, who notes that one of the most unusual aspects of the current Republican race is the importance of the nationally televised debates, which seem to be eclipsing all the other traditionally important features of a presidential nomination contest: fund raising, grassroots organization, endorsements, stump speeches, and policy position papers.  

Election Prospects?

We're about to start our discussion of congressional elections, just at a time the 2012 races, especially for Senate seats, are starting to heat up.  Here are two interesting female candidates for the U.S. Senate who face special challenges in 2012.

Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard Law School professor, who has spent the past two years working to launch the Obama Administration's new Consumer Financial Protection Agency, has declared her candidacy for the Democratic nomination to challenge incumbent Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown.  Already there has been a lot of commentary about whether Warren 's elite academic pedigree might make her unelectable against Brown, who has perfected a populist image.  See this article about the challenges she faces. 

 

In Wisconsin, longtime Senator Herb Kohl, a Democrat, is retiring. Hoping to win the Senate seat he will be vacating is Tammy Baldwin, a liberal Democrat, who is already a member of the House of Representatives; her district includes Madison, the state capital and home to the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin. Baldwin is also a lesbian.   If she were to win, she would be the first openly gay woman to serve in the U.S. Senate. But as this article suggests, "lesbian" is not the L-word that Baldwin has to worry about in Wisconsin's increasingly conservative political climate. 

Path to Victory for Obama?

The New York Times reports that managers of President Obama's campaign for reelection are plotting an alternate path to victory, different from the one they followed in 2008.  See here. 

Here's another article, this one from the Wall Street Journal, taking a different look at the coming 2012 election, and arguing that the Democratic candidate has an inherent advantage in presidential elections because of their primacy in states with a large number of electoral votes. 

Electoral College Math is What Matters

Please read this column by Larry Sabato from this morning's Wall Street Journal.   Sabato is a professor of American politics at the University of Virginia.  In this column, he argues that it doesn't make much sense to pay a lot of attention to national public opinion polls when thinking about what is likely to happen in the 2012 presidential election.  Rather, he says, the outcome is likely to depend on what happens in just seven states.  

Republicans' Hopes Rise for Senate Control

This morning's Wall Street Journal carries a front-page article showing that the Republican party's chances of winning a majority of seats in the U.S. Senate in the 2012 elections are looking good.  Read the article to understand why.  Here's the graphic accompanying the article: