Romney Feeling Deja Vu by Matt Mackowiak He simply cannot believe it may be happening again. Willard Mitt Romney, born to family with a CEO, Governor one-time Presidential candidate father and U.S. Senate candidate mother, grew up around politics. He’s entered into it throughout his career, first in 1994 when giving Ted Kennedy a run for his money, then again in 2002 when he won election as Governor of...

John Darkow, Columbia Daily Tribune, Missouri This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

During the 1960 campaign, JFK said he felt sorry for Nixon: “It must be hard getting up every morning and having to decide who you’re going to be that day.” Now, Mitt Romney’s authenticity problem is front and center. Wobbling into a belated release of some tax returns for whenever, he is, like Nixon back then, still trying to create a real person Republican voters can believe in. The obvious answer...

At the close of Monday’s hearing on Washington State’s proposed same-sex marriage law, Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen (D-Camano Island) became the 25th Senator to pledge to vote for the bill. In a written statement, she said: I happen to be the 25th [vote] because I insisted on taking this much time to hear from my constituents and to sort it out for myself, to reconcile my religious beliefs with my beliefs...

Here is live blogging of tonight’s super-high-stakes Florida Republican Presidential Primary debate sponsored by NBC News, the Tampa Bay Times, National Journal and the Florida Council of 100. All attention tonight will be on the increasingly bitter — and politically crucial — battle between former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the former front runner, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich,...

Florida will be the next state to vote. That will be on January 31st. Watching it will probably be mildly interesting but, barring something unusual, Mitt Romney will likely win it handily. The most important reason is probably that Florida allows early mail-in ballots, and before the surprise in South Carolina, some some 150,000 people had already voted in that primary. Since Romney has been campaigning heavily...

No matter where in world one looks, incredulity and wonder seem to be the reactions people have to the political resurrection of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. In this latest critique, columnist Thomas Spang of Austria’s Nachrichten advises Mitt Romney to get off the stick or be swept away by the voter rage being so well-harnessed by Gingrich, who Spang refers to as a ‘hypocritical moralizing...

How far has partisanship gone? THIS FAR. TRULY reprehensible. And, oh yes: there will be people who will vote AGAINST people who do something like this. And I hope they catch these creeps and prosecute them to the fullest extent of animal cruelty laws. So now people are killing animals — pets — to lash out at those with whom they don’t agree?

It’s THIS.

Aislin, The Montreal Gazette This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

Although the calendar says that the November 6 presidential election is nearly 300 days away, it seems more like an eternity. And Mitt Romney, still the putative favorite to win the Republican nomination after surviving a fusillade of negative ads and attacks on his character in South Carolina, surely must hope that voters don’t have long memories — or memories long enough to reach back to January...

In these days of ideology and partisan-based new and old media commentary, it’s extremely hard to find a book that lays out solid information, is packed with research that recounts and analyzes current events, is reliable as a valuable reference tool for anyone of any party or ideology, and is written in a style that’s lively but as seriously and skillfully as columns by the Washington Post’s...

Back in September of 2009, I started one of my several articles on the Afghanistan War as follows: As the fighting in Afghanistan intensifies; as that war claims more and more casualties; and as critical decisions loom on national objectives, strategy and corresponding troop levels and deployments there, the debate also intensifies. As the war has continued unabated and has indeed claimed more and more young...

A post on The Politico suggests that we may be seeing deja vu all over again. Remember how many analysts concluded that George W. Bush respected his father, but when it came to his politics and behavior as President he was determined not to make the same errors as his politically-ill-fated dad and in several ways became the Republican anti-George H.W. Bush? We now see some of the same thing in former Massachusetts...

There is an old saying that the apple doesn’t roll far from the tree, but in the case of George Romney’s son Mitt it has rolled far, far away. Allow me to take a somewhat different tack than Joe does in his post above: I was 21 and voting for the first time when George Romney sought the Republican presidential nomination. He had gotten rich as chairman and CEO of American Motors while his...

In South Carolina, Prof. Gingrich combined theology with science: When a snake, i.e. the media, drops a bitten apple on you, deflect it back and reverse the momentum of your campaign. Not quite Sir Isaac’s formulation, but Dr. Karl Rove, Newt’s former colleague at Fox University, validates the theory, “John King couldn’t have set up the question in a more positive way for Gingrich to just nail it and...

Daryl Cagle, MSNBC.com This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

At first blush, you may find this incredible, even impossible to believe, but, my friends, this “crackpot” story could well shake the political establishment of our nation to its very root touch-ups. L. Frank Baum, author of a series of beloved children’s books, admittedly snuck certain political and allegorical information into his writings. But other information has been included as well....

Ron Paul and his supporters are much exercised by the danger to America of both crony corporatism and top-down “solutions” that are designed and implemented by officials of the state. They would like to see a country whose direction is determined much less by either, and much more by the free market — defined simply as the sum of voluntary actions and transactions of individuals. Those working...

My blood is still boiling. My outrage is not your usual Internet-induced or Internet-encouraged outrage. My outrage was so great I could not write about it. But I’ll let THIS LETTER speak for me. And I’ll say: “Ditto.” Ditto to what the column says. Ditto to his reccomendation to the newspaper publisher. I worked for several newspapers over the years as a contributor and as a full-time...

One of the shockers that came out in the final South Carolina Republican Presidential primary vote was that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney mainly got voters who made over $200,000 — a factor that would doom him if he gets the nomination. With the talk of his role in slicing jobs at companies acquired by Bain Capital and the controversy over his taxes, voters seem to feel he reminds them more of...

David Fitzsimmons, The Arizona Star This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

The Arizona Republic: Giffords stepping down from Congress Jan. 22, 2012 11:52 AM The Republic | azcentral.com U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords announced on YouTube today that she is stepping down from Congress in a two-minute video where she thanked the community for the support as she recovered from the shooting. Giffords said she plans to focus on her recovery. Giffords’ YouTube Post (makes me want to cry...

This absolutely, totally made me cry. This post at BlogHer is also worth reading for a number of the links and information on the news.

WASHINGTON — Conservatives may denounce class warfare, yet by shrewdly combining the politics of class with the politics of culture, Newt Gingrich won his first election in 14 years, humbled Mitt Romney and upended the Republican Party. He also exposed profound frailties in Romney as a candidate, throwing him badly off-balance on questions related to his personal wealth, business career and income...