Outside the Beltway

A 1980 debate between Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush shows a different GOP.

As much as I wish it were otherwise, Iowa and New Hampshire are not losing their influence over the Presidential primary process.

Billionaire wunderkind Elon Musk has had a lot of help from taxpayers.

Drip, Drip, Drip.

Seymour Hersh is out with a conspiracy theory about the death of Osama bin Laden that just doesn’t make sense.

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

Once again, only six or seven states are likely to matter.

Break out the sweater vests, Rick Santorum is getting ready to enter the race for the Republican Presidential Nomination.

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.

In a move that is clearly designed to have an impact in the General Election, Hillary Clinton came out in support of broad immigration reform in Nevada yesterday.

A bill pending in Louisiana seems likely to become the next national focus in the debate between marriage equality and claims of ‘religious freedom.’

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.

After nearly 20 years in office, Harry Reid announced early today that he would not seek reelection in 2016.

Mitt Romney is set to make an announcement at 11 Eastern today. [UPDATE: He’s out!]

The Republican National Committee is trying to bring some sanity to the Presidential debate process, but there’s no guarantee it can succeed.

The news cycle in 2014 seemed to be dominated by a series of real and phony “crises” that grabbed our attention for short periods of time.

The Court holds that Federal Law does not require employees to be paid for the time waiting to get through mandatory security screening.

It’s an old story. Republican leadership wants to avoid a government shutdown, but the hard core conservatives want a fight, this time over the President’s immigration action. We have a week to see how it unfolds.

Based on the available evidence, there’s very little evidence that Voter ID laws had a significant impact on the midterm elections.

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 Keystone XL pipeline bill is dead until the next Senate. Mary Landrieu’s political career, on the other hand, is basically dead for the foreseeable future.

After the 2010 elections, several newly Republican state legislatures flirted with the idea of changing the way their state allocates Electoral Votes. The outcome of last weeks elections raises the possibility that this could happen again.

Republicans performed better among Latino voters this year than they did in 2012, but that doesn’t mean they’ve solved their problems.

Voter Turnout was lower this year than in any midterm since the one held eleven months after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

In addition to gains at the national level and in Governor’s races, the GOP also saw more gains in state legislatures around the country.

2014 was not supposed to be a wave election, but it clearly qualifies as one.

Republican Senate candidate Ed Gillespie picked an odd issue on which to start his closing argument to Virginia voters.

Not surprisingly a Federal Judge has blocked New Jersey’s latest effort to legalize sports gaming. As a matter of policy, though, there’s no reason it shouldn’t be legal to place wagers on sporting events.

All of the major sports leagues are trying to stop New Jersey’s efforts to legalize sports gambling. They should not be allowed to succeed.

Despite conventional wisdom, there remains little incentive for the GOP to change its position on immigration reform.

The Supreme Court’s expansion of same-sex marriage seems to be sitting well with the American public.

And Alaska makes 30.

Frank Foer proclaims, “Amazon Must Be Stopped. It’s too big. It’s cannibalizing the economy.”

In the space of one week, we’ve gone from 19 states that recognize same-sex marriage to 29. Soon, it will be 35.

Two more states are added to the list, with another three likely not far behind.

Amazon warehouse workers want to be paid for time going through security checks to leave work.

It would appear that someone needs to introduce the Air Force to Article VI of the Constitution.

Tea Party backed candidates may have lost most of the GOP primary battles, but they’ve won the war for control of the Republican agenda.

Another Circuit Court of Appeals has weighed in on the marriage equality debate.

A Silicon Valley businessman says he has enough signatures to get it on the ballot, but the plan to break California up into six states is most assuredly going nowhere.

The Supreme Court’s next term doesn’t start for three months, but it’s becoming clear that the Justices will have to deal with marriage equality when it does.