Obama Leads 2012 Opponents

Taegan Goddard links a Public Policy Polling survey [PDF] showing that President Obama would have beaten the most commonly mentioned Republican hopefuls had the election been held from October 16th to 19th and opened to registered voters.  (I hasten to add, it wasn't.) In fact, according to the survey, "Obama leads Mike Huckabee 47-43, Mitt Romney 48-40, Sarah Palin 52-40, and ...

Mike Huckabee and the GOP

Daniel Larison is a bit too charitable here in assessing Mike Huckabee's finish in last year's presidential primaries: While Huckabee was officially the second-biggest vote-getter in the primaries last year, he achieved this mostly through perseverance and concentrated support from evangelical voters. Had Romney continued to compete and waste his money on what would still have been a losing bid, it ...

Mitt Romney Moving to New Hampshire

Mitt Romney is busy selling off a few of many his mansions and plans to move to his family vacation home in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, Hotline reports.  He has also registered his PAC there.  This has some people guessing that Romney is contemplating another run for the presidency. "No doubt in my mind that they are doing the necessary maintenance to ...

Bobby Jindal Presidential Bid Underway

A long profile in today's WaPo extolling Bobby Jindal as the Republican Party's best hope to regain the White House may constitute the unofficial start of Campaign 2012.  It's about time. Last weekend, 18 days after Barack Obama decisively defeated their candidate for president, a mostly Republican crowd of self-described conservatives received their first introduction to someone many prominent members of ...

GOP’s G-O-D Problem

Kathleen Parker is getting quite a response to her WaPo piece "Giving Up on God." As Republicans sort out the reasons for their defeat, they likely will overlook or dismiss the gorilla in the pulpit. Three little letters, great big problem: G-O-D. I'm bathing in holy water as I type. To be more specific, the evangelical, right-wing, oogedy-boogedy branch of the GOP is what ...

Palin Last Nail in Republican Coffin?

Quite a few reports came out yesterday buttressing rumors that there were tensions between John McCain and Sarah Palin which caused a feud within the campaign team.   It's only fitting, I suppose, since the selection of Palin has highlighted and exacerbated a growing fissure within the Republican Party itself. Fox New's Carl Cameron dished last night about rumors that Palin was ...

Obama a Terrorist! McCain a Crook!

We've reached the seemingly inevitable part of the campaign where the trailing candidates start hurling charges out of desperation and the leader responds in kind. In the closing days of 1992, President George H.W. Bush, ordinarily among the most decent, genteel fellows you'd ever meet, was running around calling Bill Clinton and Al Gore "bozos." He simply couldn't ...

Sarah Palin – John McCain’s VP Choice

BREAKING: Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has been tabbed as John McCain's vice presidential running mate, CNBC reports. ________________________ Earlier this morning, all signs were pointing to Tim Pawlenty as John McCain's running mate.  He even had issued the requisite "I'm not the guy" statement. His name has been on the short list all along and, while he's not an exciting choice, ...

Can Hillary Convince Supporters to Back Obama?

Hillary Clinton's speech is the big draw tonight at the Democratic Convention.  She's going to have to convince a lot of people  -- perhaps starting with herself -- to put aside their grudges and voter for Barack Obama to be the next president. Matt Yglesias echoes my longstanding view that this will happen organically and notes a recent parallel: As you may ...

Why Not Hillary?

The GOP has come up with a clever yet bizarre line of attack on Barack Obama: How dare he pass over Hillary Clinton for Joe Biden as his running mate? As WSJ's Amy Chozick reported last night, Team McCain debuted a new spot, "Passed Over," at 3 a.m.: The timing is a reference to Hillary Clinton’s national security ad during the ...

Sam Nunn Joins Veepstakes

In the long months between now and the conventions, one recurring theme we'll see in the press and the punditocracy is speculation of who Barack Obama and John McCain will chose as running mates. None of us have any idea, of course, other than that Dick Cheney is not on anybody's list. But it's still fun to speculate. For ...

Cult of the Presidency

George Will decries the romanticization of the presidency. Barack Obama recently said, "I believe in our ability to perfect this nation." Clearly there is something the candidate of "change" will not change—the pattern of extravagant presidential rhetoric. Obama is trying to replace a president who vowed to "rid the world of evil"—and of tyranny, too. [...] If you can name it, presidents ...

Hillary: Obama Assassination Insurance

Everyone's abuzz over Hillary Clinton saying she is staying in the race just in case Barack Obama gets assassinated. Or, something like that: "My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don't understand ...

NYT Columnists Need Better Editors

Think Progress' Matt Corley notes that for the NYT has been forced to append a correction on a Bill Kristol column for an egregious factual error. Citing Obama's 41 point loss in West Virginia, Kristol exclaimed, "I can’t find a single recent instance of a candidate who ultimately became his party’s nominee losing a primary by this kind of ...

Huckabee Shoots Himself In The Foot With His Mouth

Mike Huckabee proves once again that he's not the sharpest knife in the drawer: During a speech before the National Rifle Association convention Friday afternoon in Louisville, Kentucky, former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee — who has endorsed presumptive GOP nominee John McCain — joked that an unexpected offstage noise was Democrat Barack Obama looking to avoid a gunman. “That was Barack ...