Outside the Beltway

The numbers don’t lie, Mitt Romney remains popular among Republican voters.

Another example of the silliness of the “trade deficit” concept.

Quietly, oil prices have been falling for months now. That’s potentially a very big deal.

To a large degree, the Democratic Party’s supposed advantage among women voters appears to not exist this year.

It’s way too early, folks.

Combining politics, an incessantly sensationalist news cycle, and a virus that scares a lot of people can’t end well.

Americans have long been lampooned for not speaking a second language. Now our cousins across the Pond are getting it, too.

As we head into a new conflict, perhaps we ought to give more thought to fiscal issues than the President is to overall strategy.

Republicans are winning with voters on the issues they say they care the most about.

Good news for Republicans.

From the beginning, the Tea Party has shown itself to be just plain bad at picking candidates. This year, they finally seem to be on the verge of paying for it in the GOP primaries

Some good news, but also plenty of reason to worry about the future.

Fourth time’s the charm? Probably not.

A budget deal has been reached, now it has to get through both Chambers of Congress.

The Federal Exchange website seems to be functioning better, but many questions about implementation of the PPACA remain to be answered.

Conservatives have their own Kennedy myth to compete with the myth of Camelot.

Are these four men our last, best hope for a deal that will end the shutdown and avoid breaching the debt ceiling?

There seems to be at least some hope for a temporary deal in Washington to end the shutdown and raise the debt ceiling, but don’t count your chickens just yet.

Republicans appear to be uniting behind a short-term plan to deal with the debt ceiling, but seem okay with keeping the government shutdown going forward.

The real world impact of what’s happening in Washington is becoming apparent.

Contrary to the White House’s arguments, negotiating over the debt ceiling is not at all historically unprecedented.

They’re back…….

There’s a way for President Obama and Speaker Boehner to talk out a deal to resolve the current crisis, but they have to want to do it.

The two ends of Pennsylvania Avenue are clashing on defense appropriations.

As expected, President Obama’s latest “pivot” to the economy is less than meets the eye.

Michelle Nunn is running for her dad’s old Senate seat.

My first piece for RealClearDefense, “Enough with the QDR Hype,” has published.

Forget about the budget deficit and spending. The Tea Party apparently now considers stopping immigration reform to be its most important task.

Jerry Brown’s second go-round as governor has been very, very good to the Golden State.

We’re paying a lot of money for defense contractors. It’s not clear how much of this is wasteful.

A new Congressional Budget Office report finds real economic benefits from immigration reform.

Does it matter if political leaders like each other on some personal level? Sometimes it does.