Outside the Beltway

In overturning former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell’s conviction, the Supreme Court has sent a powerful message to overly zealous prosecutors.

Marco Rubio changes his mind, and drops the first hint that he’s already thinking about the Presidential race in 2020 or 2024.

A campaign shake up at Trump Tower, but it’s unlikely to change fundamentals.

Donald Trump continues his war on freedom of the press and reporters who cover him critically by barring The Washington Post from covering campaign events.

Republicans have a choice to make and, so far, they’ve been making the wrong one.

A bad day for the Clinton campaign.

A first look at the Electoral College paints a very grim picture for Donald Trump and the GOP.

Even as the outcome becomes more certain, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton seem to be attacking each other with increasing acrimony.

How much command of detail should we demand of presidential candidates?

If Marco Rubio can’t win in his home state, where can he win?

Two new polls show that Americans are basically split equally on the question of who should appoint the Justice that will replace Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court.

Chris Cillizza thinks “Rush Limbaugh totally gets Donald Trump.” I disagree.

Donald Trump’s demagoguery and disdain for individual liberty enters a new phase.

Ben Carson and his supporters would have you believe that he is being subjected to unprecedented and unfair scrutiny. That assertion is completely false.

Forget about Congress, the real story going forward is likely to be Republican dominance of state legislatures nationwide.

Republican Matt Bevin picked up what comes as a surprise win to many observers, and that sets up a big fight over what had been a PPACA program that the White House has touted.

With the first Democratic Presidential Debate just hours away, Hillary Clinton got some good polling news from Fox News Channel.

Vice-President Biden dropped another hint that suggests he might not be up to running for President.

CNN has revised its criteria for the main September 16th debate such that Carly Fiorina will now most likely make the cut.

Hillary Clinton has turned over her private email server in the wake of reports about highly classified information in her email.

The low-polling candidates met in an early debate. It was about what you’d expect.

Public opinion on the Supreme Court has declined significantly, largely because Republicans don’t like the Supreme Court very much right now.

Donald Trump stuck his foot in his mouth again.

The Huffington Post announced today that they would not be covering Donald Trump in their politics section from this point forward. That’s the wrong thing to do.

Political reality shows us that the shootings in Charleston are not going to have any appreciable impact on the likelihood of any type of gun control law passing anywhere outside of the bluest of the blue states.

House Democrats defied President Obama on an important trade deal today, thus arguably marking the official beginning of his lame duck status.

It will be some time before sanity prevails in the GOP, but slowly but surely Republicans seem to be becoming less socially conservative.

Hillary Clinton is a deeply flawed candidate who might not even make a very good President. But that doesn’t matter in the race for the Democratic Nomination, and she’s probably going to be the next President anyway.

Some analysts are wondering if Jeb Bush might just forgo investing serious resources in the Iowa Caucuses.

Hillary Clinton hasn’t taken questions from reporters in three weeks. Because she doesn’t need the media as much as most other candidates.

A new poll has some bad news for Jeb Bush in the Hawkeye State, which leads to the idea that maybe he shouldn’t waste too much time there to begin with.

Former President Clinton doesn’t seem to get it. Or, does he?

Hillary Clinton’s political and personal baggage is likely to be a bigger problem for her than whomever her Republican opponent ends up being.

Harry Reid made outlandish claims about Mitt Romney during the 2012 election. He probably knew they were lies when he made them. And he doesn’t care.

Two weeks after the email story broke, there’s no sign that Hillary Clinton is losing ground in the 2016 race.

Polling indicates that the American public opposes the GOP position on DHS funding, but that’s unlikely to change many minds on Capitol Hill.

Even leaving aside the fact that it is far too early to be making such assessments, the idea that Rand Paul is the front runner for the Republican nomination in 2016 fails the logic test.

An adviser close to Hillary Clinton is talking about expanding the Electoral College map in 2016, but even without such an expansion the GOP faces an uphill battle.

The White House is now leaking out details of what seems like an inevitable decision by the President. How it plays out politically, though, is the big question.

Two weeks after it seemed to be tightening, there are signs the battle for control of the Senate may be moving in the GOP’s direction.

The chattering class is chattering about the President’s vacation again. It really is quite tiresome.

Our non-competitive political system.

Rather than being a bad thing, negative campaigning is an essential part of our political system.

Public faith in government institutions is at all all time low.

At least on Capitol Hill, the political middle is dead and buried.

Politics, media, and the attention span of the average American haven’t really changed as much as we think.

Thanks to favorable polling numbers and candidate selection, winning the Senate may very well be in the GOP’s grasp.

Ted Cruz keeps putting his own party in difficult situations, mostly because he has only his own ambition at heart.

At least initially, Chris Christie did what he needed to do to address a story that threatens to overwhelm his political future.

Will a couple closed lanes on the George Washington Bridge end up being a problem for New Jersey’s Chris Christie going forward?