Outside the Beltway

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

Romney wants to make a federalism based argument for why his MA health care bill is good, while the PPACA is tyrannical. However, just saying that is not an argument.

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

How much of public opinion is about tribal political identification and how much is about the actual policies themselves?

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

Why are many of the top Republicans are sitting out the race despite a seemingly vulnerable incumbent?

President Obama is suffering in the polls because of high gas prices, but is there really anything he can do about them?

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

Donald Trump figures that, because he’s rich, he’s qualified to be president.

For the first time, Donald Trump is leading a poll for the GOP 2012 nomination. That’s bad news for the GOP.

Mitt Romney forcefully said Tuesday night that he believes President Barack Obama was born in America and that “the citizenship test has been passed.”

Donald Trump has been surging in polls of Republican voters recently, but that doesn’t mean much of anything.

Nate Silver argues today’s polls “have a reasonable amount of predictive power in informing us as to the identity of the eventual nominee.”

Michele Bachmann raised more money in the First Quarter of 2011 than any other Republican. Which means that she’ll have to be taken seriously if she decides to run for President.

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

With minor exceptions, all of the potential candidates for the GOP nomination in 2012 seem to have accepted the idea that defense spending, and the Bush-era interventionist foreign policy, are off the table when it comes time to talk spending cuts.

Republicans are starting to sour on Sarah Palin, meaning that they’re finally starting to catch up to the rest of the country.

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.

Democrats won’t say if they consider Mitt Romney a threat, but they’re sure acting like they do.

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

President Obama isn’t unbeatable in 2012. but it’s clear even now that he’s going to be a far more formidable opponent than many Republicans seem to think.

The 2012 GOP nominee will have to raise $300 million and assemble a top-notch staff.

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

Newt Gingrich is very popular among young conservatives. But two ugly divorces will keep him from being a contender for the presidency.

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.

Ron Paul is poised to win the CPAC Straw Poll. So what?

While most Americans consider themselves “conservatives,” some conservatives exclude most Americans from the definition.

Jon Huntsman is running for president. Who the hell is Jon Huntsman, you say?

It’s straw poll season already. First up, New Hampshire where things turned out about how you’d expect them to considering Mitt Romney lives there now.