Outside the Beltway

He’s not in the race (yet), but Rick Perry is already a top-tier 2012 candidate.

A setback for Planned Parenthood opponents.

Recent polls seem to indicate a shift in public opinion in a more libertarian direction.

Will last night’s debate have any influence on the potential candidates who weren’t there?

Wives have played key roles in several GOP nomination trajectories this year. Newt Gingrich appears to be the latest example.

Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani tops the latest CNN poll of Republican presidential contenders.

Gallup takes the first look at the GOP field after Huckabee, Trump, and Daniels dropped out.

There have been no significant surveys of the Republican field taken since the announcement that frontrunners Mike Huckabee and Donald Trump and Establishment darling Mitch Daniels have dropped out of the race.

Fox News chairman Roger Ailes has come to regret the direction he took the network after the 2008 election.

Some think that 2012 will be like 1992. However, that analogy is problematic.

Mitch Daniels, the candidate of George Will and a host of mainstream Republicans hoping for something better in 2012, has announced he will not be running for president in 2012.

With the customary hand-wringing over the low quality of the presidential field well underway, the corollary pining for other candidates to join the race is starting.

The Republican candidates of 2012 are so weak because of GOP losses in 2004 and 2006 Senate and gubernatorial races.

Part of a speech that Mitch Daniels made in 2009 is setting off a firestorm among some conservative bloggers.

With the 2012 GOP field looking very underwhelming, GOP insiders are looking toward Indianapolis for a savior.

All signs are that Michele Bachmann is running for president. What impact will she have on the race?

With co-frontrunner Mike Huckabee out, Mitt Romney looks stronger than ever.

Mike Huckabee’s decision not to run has shaken up the GOP field for 2012.

Mitt Romney began his effort to confront what is likely to be his biggest political liability in the 2012 campaign.

Can one effectively run for the presidency if one’s spouse doesn’t want to be in the spotlight?

David Brooks declares Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Mitch Daniels, and Jon Huntsman the only serious candidates for the Republican nomination.

President Obama is vulnerable, but he’s facing a GOP field that is underwhelming even for Republicans.

Did the GOP toss social conservatives under the bus when it gave away the Planned Parenthood rider?

The race for the 2012 Republican nomination is missing the one thing that GOP nomination battles have almost always had, a frontrunner.

Mitch Daniels says that the GOP needs to get beyond its obsession with social issues if it’s going to survive. He’s right.

Wisconsin Republicans stripped state employees of collective bargaining rights without the Democratic senators who fled the state to prevent a quorum.

All of the plausible Republican contenders for 2012 have significant downsides.

Mitt Romney starts his 2012 run as the frontrunner for the Republican nomination. But, in reinventing himself yet again, the “authenticity” issue that troubled many of us in 2008 looms again.

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

Four years after Barack Obama became a Presidential candidate, the birther myth not only persists, it seems to be becoming more prevalent. Why?

Ezra Klein dubs the Federal government “an insurance conglomerate protected by a large, standing army.”

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

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.