Outside the Beltway

There seem to be some signs that defense hawks in the GOP are concerned about Rand Paul’s growing popularity in the party.

An absolutely ridiculous criminal case out of West Virginia.

Scott Walker could be the GOP’s surprise candidate in 2016.

The Obama Administration’s response to the Benghazi attack is approaching critical mass. It’s not going away any time soon.

Several Senators who voted against the Manchin/Toomey background checks bill have suffered in the polls, but it’s unclear if that matters in the long run.

The wacko fringe of the GOP is increasingly finding room in the mainstream of the party.

The days of tax-free online shopping are coming to an end.

The GOP’s most promising alternative to Mitt Romney in 2012 may run again in 2016, but it doesn’t seem like he’d go very far.

Republicans seem to think they need fewer Presidential debates in the 2016 cycle, but it’s unclear how they can make that happen.

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul won a completely meaningless straw poll.

About 8.1 percent of U.S. workers have commutes of 60 minutes or longer and nearly 600,000 have “megacommutes” of at least 90 minutes and 50 miles.

The GOP seems to be drawing all the wrong lessons from the 2012 elections.

Josh Marshall explains what it’s like to be a non-gun person in a very pro-gun culture.

Last January 1, some of us made a series of predictions. Here’s how we did.

The Governor of Iowa thinks the Ames Straw Poll should be ended, but he really ought to go further than that.

Was Rick Perry the worst candidate to run in the 2012 cycle? It certainly appears so.

Neither member of the Republican ticket seems to understand what really happened on Election Day.

Mitt Romney wasn’t a perfect candidate, but he was much better than most of the 2012 Republican field.

As is often the case with sex scandals, pretty much everything ever written about General David Petraeus takes on an ironic double meaning in hindsight.

The Democratic Party appears to have a lock on a substantial part of the Electoral College. That poses a problem for Republicans.

President Obama easily won re-election last night, carrying virtually all of the battleground states. Meanwhile, abortion, gay marriage, and recreational marijuana also won big.

There are still votes to be counted, and the Romney campaign has yet to concede, but the race is over and Barack Obama has been re-elected.

In a silly quadrennial tradition, the residents of Dixville Notch, New Hampshire voted at midnight. It was a tie.

The 2012 Election promises to be close in the Popular Voter, but President Obama still retains an Electoral College advantage.

The Romney campaign doesn’t seem too confident of its path to victory.

Republicans already seem to be blaming Hurricane Sandy in the event Mitt Romney loses.

The OTB gang give their best guess at the outcome of the 2012 presidential contest.

Mitt Romney has ground to make up if he’s going to catch the President and there’s not much time left to do it.

A week out from the election, President Obama is a heavy favorite to win re-election. But the major press continues to pretend otherwise.

Mitt Romney has an advantage among self-identified Independents that makes writing him off at this point inadvisable.

Naturally, most of us are asking: What does this mean for next Tuesday’s election.