Outside the Beltway

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

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?

The 2012 GOP nominee will have to raise $300 million and assemble a top-notch staff.

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

Newt Gingrich is very popular among young conservatives. But two ugly divorces will keep him from being a contender for the presidency.

Ron Paul has won the CPAC straw poll for a second straight year. But YAF has voted him off its board over his opposition to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

On the eve of this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference, another shot has been fired by those boycotting the meeting due to the presence of a gay conservative group.

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.

Now that Republicans have the House, wouldn’t they be better off playing nice?

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?

The seemingly sensible end-of-life counseling that was originally part of the Health Care Reform Bill is making a comeback.

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

John Boehner’s whining about being called a “hostage taker” by President Obama is reminiscent of Newt Gingrich’s whining about being “snubbed” on Air Force One.

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

The incoming freshman of the 112th Congress say that they won’t repeat the mistakes that Republicans made when they gained power sixteen years ago, but some of the advice they’re getting virtually guarantees it will happen if they aren’t careful.

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.

Mitch McConnell made clear today that he’s targeting Barack Obama for defeat in two years.

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

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

Newt Gingrich for President ? You might want to think twice about that, Republicans.

Yes, I think that Palin is running in 2012.

Some Democratic candidates for Congress are working hard to distance themselves from Nancy Pelosi.

If the Republicans win back Congress in November, it will be largely unearned. But that doesn’t mean that there’s no incentive for change in American politics.

Once again, Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin are at the top of the field in the GOP 2012 race, but that may not last forever.

More than ever before in the past, Fox News Channel will be the exclusive medium through which many of the candidates for the 2012 Republican nomination communicate with the public. And that’s a problem.

In 1994, it was the Contract With America. In 2010, it’s the Pledge To America. But does it really mean anything regardless of what it’s called ?