Outside the Beltway

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

The Republican Party is united on the issues in a way it hasn’t been in a long time, but personalities threaten to tear the fragile coalition apart.

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

Is President Obama’s Federal pay freeze a sign that he’s moving to the right, or just pointless symbolism?

After 1 1/2 years in office, President Obama has yet to grant a single request for a pardon or clemency, continuing a thirty year trend in which the Presidential pardon power has nearly fallen in to disuse.

The over-hyping of President Obama’s lip getting cut while playing basketball is a bit much.

According to a new poll, the Tea Party movement, which is largely now the base of the GOP, is not completely in step with the views of American voters as a whole.

Israelis and Palestinians don’t agree on much these days, but they do agree that Barack Obama hasn’t helped the peace process at all since coming to office.

President Obama’s response to the outrage that has accompanied new TSA screening procedures at America’s airports is incredibly non-responsive.

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

Within the first few months of 2011, Congress will be required to take another unpalatable vote to raise the debt ceiling. Already, some incoming Republicans are talking about waging an effort to block the vote. That would be politically, and financially, stupid.

Rush Limbaugh is apparently not impressed with Barack Obama’s presidency. That doesn’t make him a racist.

Yet another sign that the GOP’s biggest nightmare may actually end up coming true.

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.

Okahoma’s James Inhofe has a message for the Tea Party movement — don’t be fooled by the “War On Earmarks.”

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.

According to reports, the Obama Administration is set to abandon the July 2011 withdrawal deadline that was set earlier this year.

The odds that Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell will be repealed anytime in the near future are fairly close to zero thanks to the results of last Tuesday’s elections.

Virginia Senator Jim Webb is the last of a dying breed of Democrats, but his party may need him if it wants to remain competitive anywhere outside of a Blue State.

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

The latest story being repeated by the conservative talking heads is the claim that President Obama will be spending $ 200 million per day on his upcoming overseas trip. The problem is that it’s not true.

George W. Bush’s new memoir reveals that he briefly considered replaced Dick Cheney as Vice-President before the 2004 elections. His decision not to do so reveals much about the relationship between Presidents and Vice-Presidents in modern American politics.

In my home state of Virginia, which has two Democratic Senators and went for Barack Obama in 2008, Republicans are poised to take four House districts held by Democrats in the last Congress.

The enthusiasm for Tea Party candidates likely helped the House Republican wave. But it also likely cost the GOP four Senate seats that it would otherwise have won — and thus the majority.

The British press takes a look at America’s Midterm Elections.

If the polling is anywhere close to accurate, a Republican wave will come crashing down today, repudiating the first two years of the Obama administration. What does it mean?

The younger voters that flocked to Barack Obama two years ago feel let down. They need to grow up.

If you’re looking for a reason why the GOP is likely to do very well tomorrow, voter response to the “right track/wrong track” question is a very good guide.

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

Pundits and partisans constantly overreact to the momentary mood expressed in a single election. The Republicans have already rebounded from 2008. The Democrats will recover from 2010.

The GOP is headed for big gains on Tuesday. The only question now is how big they’re going to be.

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

Theodore Sorensen, a speechwriter and close adviser to President John F. Kennedy, died today at the age of 82