Outside the Beltway

In a rational universe somewhere, John Kasich is preparing to become the de facto Republican nominee for President. In ours, he’s dropping out in favor of Donald Trump.

Donald Trump is complaining about a ‘rigged’ delegate selection process, but the truth is that the fault lies with only one person, Donald Trump.

Paul Ryan takes himself out of contention as a potential Republican nominee.

There are many aspects of the way delegates to the party convention are chosen that is “undemocratic,” but it’s unclear why this is a problem.

For most Americans, the debate over same-sex marriage is over and marriage equality has won. This would not, however, include the social conservatives who continue to have a much too vocal role in the Republican Party.

Despite having previously pledged to do so, none of the three candidate for the GOP nomination are willing to say they’d support the eventual nominee anymore.

It looks like we’ve reached the end of the debate schedule for Republicans in 2016 .

The coming political battle over President Obama’s effort to fill the vacancy created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia will likely be unlike anything we’ve seen before.

Changes that the Republican National Committee made to delegate allocation rules in response to what happened in 2012 are helping Donald Trump in 2016.

It’s Super Tuesday, and both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are likely to go a long way toward securing the nominations of their respective parties.

Bizarrely, the Marco Rubio campaign seems to be telling donors that their candidate may have to hope for a brokered convention to win the GOP nomination.

Tonight’s Nevada Caucuses could be as chaotic as the floor of a Vegas casino, but Donald Trump seems to be in position to score another win.

It’s hard to caucus away from home.

Hillary Clinton and Marco Rubio have won the endorsement of the Des Moines Register, but it’s unclear how much this will help their respective campaigns.

You can either be a partisan or a moderator.

CNN is taking over a late February Republican debate from NBC News, meaning it will host more Republican debates this election cycle than any other single network.

The attacks on Ted Cruz’s eligibility to be President have no legal merit, but they appear to be having an impact with at least some Iowa voters.

There are signs that Ted Cruz’s rise in the Hawkeye State will be short-lived.

Rand Paul is throwing a bit of a temper tantrum. It’s not very Presidential.

Another set of solid ratings for the latest debate.

The Fifth Republican Debate, and the last of 2015, was marked by expected clashes between the candidates, and one that never happened.

Ben Carson threatens to leave the GOP over recent reports about plans for a brokered convention, but with his poll numbers collapsing one wonders why anyone would care if he did.

The quadrennial fantasy of a brokered convention, which American politics has not seen since 1952, is rearing its head again, and it’s no more likely now than it was when we talked about this four years ago.

Two months after seemingly promising to remain loyal to the Republican Party, Donald Trump is again refusing to rule out an independent run for the White House next year.

Different criteria than in the past, but there may not be much of a change in the participants.

Hillary Clinton’s attempt to explain her relationship with Wall Street and banking interests makes it sound like she’s channeling Rudy Giuliani.

Why Republicans nominate moderates for president and not other offices.

Virginia Democrats tried to capture control of the Virginia State Senate by, in part, emphasizing gun control issues. The fact that they failed is instructive.

The effort to forge some kind of consensus independent of the RNC among the Republican candidates for President regarding debates appears to have failed. To the surprise of nobody who has been paying attention.

Donald Trump is refusing to sign a joint letter to debate organizers drafted by representatives of all the GOP campaigns. Instead, he wants to negotiate with the networks himself.

Representatives from most of the Republican Presidential campaigns met to discuss reforms to the debate process, but none of their ideas will actually improve the quality of debates.

In the wake of Wednesday’s debate, the Republican National Committee has suspended its partnership in a planned February debate with NBC News and Spanish language network Telemundo.

Everyone is sick of the current approach. The candidates are looking for a new one.

Several Republican candidates for President want to “fix” the debates, but they wouldn’t like the one thing that would definitely fix them.

While it did draw 14 million viewers, last night’s CNBC debate had the smallest audience of any Presidential debate so far. That was probably a good thing for CNBC considering how bad the debate was.

A new poll shows that the Tea Party movement is more unpopular than it has ever been before, even among Republicans and conservatives.

What will likely be the apex of the House Select Committee’s investigation of the Benghazi attack begins and ends today with the testimony of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

After complaints from several campaigns, and threats of a boycott by the men at the top of the field, CNBC and the RNC have agreed to some rule modifications for the upcoming Republican debate.

Donald Trump is threatening to boycott the next Republican debate if there aren’t format changes. The GOP should call his bluff.

Another Republican Congressman has said that the Select Committee investigating the Benghazi attack is primarily concerned with scoring political points against Hillary Clinton.

In addition to doing everything she needed to do last night, Hillary Clinton also destroyed whatever logic remained for a Joe Biden candidacy.

The criteria for next month’s third Republican Presidential debate have been announced, and they’re likely to end up being bad news for several Republican candidates.

RNC Chairman Reince Priebus suggested that Iowa and New Hampshire shouldn’t get used to their place at the top of the primary calendar. He’s right, but fixing the crazy system that put them there isn’t going to be easy.

The next Republican debate is likely to be a lot smaller than the previous two, and that could prove fatal for several candidates.

Contrary to his claims, Donald Trump would not win the Latino vote if he were the nominee. In fact, it looks like he’d end up doing much, much worse.

The RNC wants Donald Trump to sign an oath that he will not run as a third-party candidate if he doesn’t win the Republican nomination.

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

Carly Fiorina will most likely be excluded from CNN’s prime time debate in September, so of course her campaign is complaining about rules that were established months ago.