Ronald Reagan Wannabes

Washington Examiner cartoonist Nate Beeler sums up the Republican contest thus far quite aptly: In the accompanying commentary, Beeler observes, "While the Republican heavies snipe at each other over who is the real conservative in the race, Barry Goldwater is rolling over in his grave." Part of the problem, though, is that while Reagan and Goldwater both called themselves "conservatives," ...

Rudy Giuliani’s Electability

Dan Balz, Jon Cohen and Jennifer Agiesta analyze a new ABC/WaPo poll showing that Rudy Giuliani continues to dominate the Republican field and find that "electability" is a key reason for his strong showing. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll of the Republican field shows Giuliani with a sizeable lead over his three principal rivals. The former mayor was the choice ...

Congressional Losers

Scott Keyes takes a look at the former Members of Congress who lost re-election bids or campaigns for higher office to see what they're doing now and what plans they may have for a political future.

94 Percent

Greg Giroux notes that, for all the clamor about the radical sweep made by the electorate in the recent midterm elections, 94 percent of those who sought re-election were successful. This was, however, a drop from the 98 percent plus rate in 2004.

Democratic Leaders’ Letter to Bush on Iraq

Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have sent a letter to President Bush--and everyone else--arguing against a "surge" of forces in Iraq. Some excerpts and commentary: The American people demonstrated in the November elections that they don’t believe your current Iraq policy will lead to success and that we need a change in direction for the sake of our troops and the Iraqi ...

Santorum Ouster Means End of Senate Candy Desk

Rick Santorum's re-election defeat has had one previously unexplored consequence: the end of free candy for Senators. With Democrats back in control of Congress for the first time in years, much is changing in the nation's capital, including a longtime tradition in the U.S. Senate: the "candy desk." For a decade until his defeat last year, Sen. Rick Santorum, a Pennsylvania Republican, ...

Breaking News That Isn’t News

I've received two BREAKING NEWS alerts from CNN in my inbox today: "Congress convened today with Democrats in control of both the House and Senate for the first time in a dozen years." (12:06) "California Democrat Nancy Pelosi has become the first woman to be elected speaker of the United States House of Representatives." (1:33) Are either of these surprising to anyone who ...

Republicans a Regional Party?

The Economist features a piece by "Lexington" contending that, Zell Miller's book nothwithstanding, the Democrats are a national party while the Republican Party no longer has much appeal outside the South. The extent of the southernisation of the Republican Party is astonishing. The party was all but wiped out in its historic base, the north-east. There is now only one ...

Iraq Policy and the 2006 Election

David Sanger notes that those calling for a rapid withdrawal from Iraq seem strangely silent now that the election is over and the anti-Iraq side won convincingly. To some degree, this is a function of the institutional arrangements of our government. In a parliamentary system, a sweep in the legislature yields a new prime minister and cabinet and, generally, rather ...

Blogs and the 2006 Election

Jon Henke, brought aboard a sinking ship as George Allen's New Media Coordinator, argues that the Left Blogosphere and Democratic candidates did a far better job of working together than their Right/Republican counterparts in the decisive Allen-Webb race in particular and the election in general. Given the number of very close races, Henke proclaims, "Were Democrats not as engaged, ...

Republicans’ Uphill Fight to Regain the Senate in 2008

In my morning-after election analysis, I noted that it would be very difficult for the Republicans to take the House back in 2008 but that the Senate was well within grasp if the GOP got their act together. I wrote that without actually breaking down the races, though. Chris Cillizza has and it does not bode well: A cursory ...

Grading the Pollsters for the 2006 Elections

There were some interesting trends: Phone polls tended to be better than online surveys, and companies that used recorded voices rather than live humans in their surveys were standouts. Nearly everyone had some big misses, though, such as predicting that races would be too close to call when in fact they were won by healthy margins. Also, I found that ...

Wealthy Voters Shift Blue

Daniel Gross reports: ... the poll for the House vote in the East showed that the 25 percent of the electorate making over $100,000 went big for Democrats overall, 57-42, compared with a 49-48 margin in 2004. In 2006, those making between $150,000 and $200,000 voted for Democratic candidates by a whopping 63-37 majority, and those making more than $200,000 went ...

Will Divided Government Result in Gridlock?

That is my hope, but I have to wonder if it really will mean a slowdown in government spending. Over at Cato Stephen Silivinski writes the following, Despite what Republicans have been saying the past few weeks, the Democratic takeover of the House won't necessarily be a bad thing for the economy. That's not because the Democrats have good ideas ...

Drug Prices, Stocks and the Democratic Win

Greg Mankiw points to some interesting data on the price of stocks for Big Pharma. While overall the stock market was up, the stock price of these big pharamceutical companies took a hit? Mankiw's interprets this data to mean that the Democrats are going to do something about drug prices. My guess is he is right, and that something ...