In every presidential cycle, there has been a middle of the pack candidate that has emerged as the antithesis of the favorite of the party establishment. In December of 1991, Bill Clinton was not even mentioned as a leading candidate. In 2008, Barack Obama leapfrogged over John Edwards to begin the longest (and most interesting) nomination battle in the last forty years. Yesterday’s tie between Romney...

Homecomings for returning combat veterans have never been easy no matter the war, but the flood of Iraq war veterans who will be mustered out in the coming months, as well as a fair number from the Afghan war, pose a huge challenge. This is because gratitude, and Americans certainly are grateful, will not pay the bill. That bill is formidable: * About 800,000 veterans are jobless and many newly discharged veterans...

Heard before the Iowa Caucuses:

As I write this, the good people of Iowa are casting the first votes for the 2012 Republican presidential nominee. The candidates are in the starting gate, bucking nervously… the gun fires, the gate opens and the race begins in earnest. They’re off! A few will stumble out of the gate, and one or more could drop out. Nobody seems to be a clear favorite, which explains why I’m blogging this event live from...

Yawn, talk to the hand, how about dem Bears? Almost any conversation would be more interesting than one state’s caucuses after months, MONTHS of listening to mostly petty rhetoric that has NO specifics all in one place about how to govern, truly help a suffering country. And neither does the other side either. Tried to refinance lately? How about turning back a foreclosure? Tried to buy health insurance...

The three top finishers in the Iowa caucuses tell you all you need to know about the Republican Party in 2012: Mitt Romney, who disavows his greatest accomplishment; Rick Santorum, whose compassionate conservatism does not allow room for anyone not sharing his extreme right-wing views; and Ron Paul, whose sensible ideas keep getting trampled on by wacky ideas tinged with racism. At first glance, Romney’s...

If you’re interested, I’m live-blogging the results of the Iowa caucuses over at my place. Is it a great day for democracy? Well, that’s the intention. Old-school democracy. Hardly the way it’s done anymore. Caucuses (particularly in Iowa), unlike primaries, represent a sort of idyllic (if mostly obsolete) Jeffersonianism, the people actually coming out, talking politics, and making their...

(Clean Version.) To pass some time while we wait… “A response to national media coverage of our beloved home state.” You want NSFW? See Andrew.

If you are a voter in Indiana, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania or Wisconsin (or know someone who is) listen up. The Election Assistance Commission (EAC) has found signifiant anomalies with an optical scanner produced by Election Systems and Software (ES&S) and shows jurisdictions in these states using the equipment. Because of the “anomalies”, close races could be decided incorrectly. From the...

As readers who have followed my writings — some call them rants — for the past few years know, while I have always opposed and condemned our invasion and occupation of Iraq, I have supported our efforts in Afghanistan to catch and punish the perpetrators of 9/11 and, in some measure, to rid Afghanistan of the Taliban. However, so many of the reports coming out of that country about the government’s...

America is far from being the only country currently obssessed with presidential politics and national elections. After a year of astounding despotic topplings and revolutions, is Vladimir Putin’s reign over the vast territories of the Russian Federation finally coming to an end? For Russia’s Yezhednevniy Zhurnal, journalist and opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza bravely explains why a Russian...

I haven’t written on this page in a while. In the last year, I was elected as a county GOP chair in blue Maryland, then was forced out by my fellow members of the county Republican Central Committee, who felt I was not fit for the office of county chairman because either they thought I was not conservative enough or because I was the only African-American on an all-white central committee (depending on...

Legal challenges are still alive. A long time ago, December 2005, the New York Times broke a story about the Bush Administration monitoring domestic telephone communications without first obtaining a warrant.[1] The affair, which began no later than 2001, became known as warrantless wiretaps. Flash forward six years. As 2011 came to a close, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals “reinstated a closely watched...

So says Politico writer Roger Simon

Despite having agreed — cowardly so, in my view — to continue Bush Era tax cuts that disproportionately favor the wealthy, it’s likely that a component of President Obama’s re-election platform will be a call to level the playing field through the so-called Buffet Rule, which would insure that no household making more than $1 million a year pays a lower tax rate than middle class families...

For those who may be confused by the sophisticated ritual to take place tonight, explains the NY Times Caucus, “the process requires a commitment of several hours for a voter. And it encourages campaigns to have a level of organizational sophistication that often helps separate candidates who can go the distance from those who cannot… “Once voters show up at their caucus location, it is not as simple...

No matter who faces him for the White House, Barack Obama starts 2012 with one advantage against the GOP—-the poster boy for intransigence, Eric Cantor, who proves again on 60 Minutes that there is no way to “humanize” him. In an interview, the usually genial Lesley Stahl starts by saying flatly, “President Obama’s nemesis throughout the year was 48-year-old Congressman Eric Cantor of Virginia,...

Although you should never make too many assumptions in Iowa most current polling suggests that the winner in Iowa will be either Romney or Paul with Santorum likely to come in 3rd. My guess is that Romney will come out on top because the latest polls seem to suggest that the undecided are not ideologues but pragmatists wanting the candidate who can win. Given a choice between Romney and Paul I expect those voters...

A post to We Are For Israel by my friend Rabbi David Jay Kaufman of Des Moines IA: So here we are with the Iowa Republican Caucus tomorrow. Friday night, we hosted Shmuel Rosner, who is in town for the Caucus and spoke about the Arab Spring at my congregation. Yesterday, I was among about forty Jews, hosted by the Chabad rabbi and a Conservative Jewish supporter of Gingrich, who met with Newt for a little over...

Warning to the GOP: The way rhetoric is being used in the Republican primary campaign, there may come a point where moderates may simply decide they cannot vote for a Republican candidate. No, this isn’t just a personal reaction. You can bank on this being a problem if trending continues. Why would moderates vote for a political party that has increasingly used the word “moderate” as a filthy...

Conservatives on talk radio and on the web have noted that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is starting to be more accessible to thne mainstream news media and liberal infooutlets. The Daily Caller reports: Mitt Romney is running for president as a Republican, but his recent media strategy includes granting exclusive interviews to news outlets that cater to a liberal audience. Romney last week granted one-on-one...

The Real Housewives Of Iowa by Cliff Schecter This year we’ve seen it all. Protest movements have swept the world, as people from Cairo to Cleveland have stood up against oligarchy and its kissing cousin venality. Osama bin Laden, the murderous mastermind of the 9/11 attack and many others like it, at last met his Waterloo. And finally, with reality TV stars, radio-talk-show hosts, and television pundits...

Daryl Cagle, MSNBC.com CNN independent analyst John Avlon gives us our political Quote of the Day on the myths versus reality of tomorrow’s Iowa caucus. This must-read-in-full article gives us this chunk at the end: One of the real questions in this caucus is whether retail politics matters as much as it used to. Mitt Romney basically dissed the state for the first 10 months of 2011, still stinging from...

So what should we make of the most recent Iowa poll as the political world gets ready for tomorrow’s big event? Here are five ways to look at it.

Latest poll results show Ron Paul leading at 20%, Mitt Romney 19% and Rick Santorum at 18% in a dead heat, as Newt Gingrich fades fast, in home stretch for lily-white Iowa caucus. Iowa Caucus Heading to Photo Finish with Ron Paul, Mitt Romney & Rick Santorum Leading the Pack (Public Policy Polling) The latest Public Policy Polling survey in Iowa shows the three leading contenders all within two points...