Outside the Beltway

Mitt Romney starts his 2012 run as the frontrunner for the Republican nomination. But, in reinventing himself yet again, the “authenticity” issue that troubled many of us in 2008 looms again.

James Franco is a film director, screenwriter, painter, author, performance artist and actor. And working on a PhD at Yale.

Mike Huckabee channels Dan Quayle when he decides to comment on the pregnancy of Oscar winner Natalie Portman.

Mike Huckabee apologized for saying Barack Obama grew up in Kenya, explaining only that he meant that the president isn’t a Real American.

A day after apologizing for an odd comment about the President’s upbringing, Mike Huckabee now feeds into the conservative myth that Barack Obama isn’t a real American.

Republicans begin to discover that defeating an incumbent President isn’t an easy task.

Opposition to marriage equality is no longer the wedge issue it used to be.

A new set of polls from Gallup show that President Obama is still looking good for re-election.

President Obama isn’t unbeatable in 2012. but it’s clear even now that he’s going to be a far more formidable opponent than many Republicans seem to think.

Four years after Barack Obama became a Presidential candidate, the birther myth not only persists, it seems to be becoming more prevalent. Why?

Polls matching President Obama against potential Republican contenders are entertaining but not informative.

Ron Paul is poised to win the CPAC Straw Poll. So what?

It’s straw poll season already. First up, New Hampshire where things turned out about how you’d expect them to considering Mitt Romney lives there now.

Once again, the frontrunners for the 2012 GOP nomination aren’t looking very good at all.

The newest WaPo/ABC News poll numbers.

One columnist argues that Sarah Palin’s response to the Arizona shootings mark the end of whatever political future she might have had. He’s probably correct.

By this point in the last presidential cycle, there were already 14 major party candidates who had publicly announced. There are zero today.

Rumors are floating that Rudy Giuliani is thinking about running for President again. All of America asks, Why?

As they did last year, several top social conservative activist groups are boycotting next year’s Conservative Political Action Conference over the extension of an invitation to a gay conservative group, and nobody seems to care that they won’t be there.

New polling shows that Mitt Romney is well behind the Fox News candidates for 2012.

Are Marco Rubio, Haley Barbour, and Mike Huckabee the favorites to win the White House?

The prospective Republican field for 2012 is dismal. Then again, it always is.

Former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough wants the GOP to stop kowtowing to Sarah Palin and her acolytes. He’s right.

Some on the right are beginning to realize that Sarah Palin’s popularity may cause a serious problem for the GOP in 2012.

The GOP is being urged to avoid social issues and concentrate on reducing spending, shrinking government, and economic freedom. It’s a good idea.

While Tim Pawlenty and John Thune get high marks from insiders, they have next to no shot at winning the 2012 Republican nomination for president.

This is a strange disconnect between Sarah Palin’s popularity within the Republican Party and her popularity with the nation as a whole. One wonders if the GOP notices, or cares.

Despite votes in the 2010 contest still being counted, polls for 2012 are already pouring out. They’re largely meaningless.

Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson takes a look at the Tea Party movement and claims to find racism.

Ezra Klein argues that Sarah Palin’s Twitter account isn’t very popular. But that misses the point.

Unnamed Republican leaders are lined up to ensure that anybody but the former VP nominee is the party’s 2012 standard bearer.

Yes, I think that Palin is running in 2012.