The deficit is going down. Woo-hoo! Let the celebrations begin.

Oh, wait. That may not be altogether a good thing. Certainly not for Republicans. They need an out-of-control deficit to bludgeon Democrats into cutting more spending. It may not be good news for the economic recovery either. Budget austerity means...

Syria is a test for President Obama and the New America coalition he brought to power. Can the U.S. fulfill its obligation to be "the world's indispensable nation" while at the same time avoiding the kind of military quagmire that enrages Democrats?

The Obama administration did it once before,...

We are at a turning point in American politics. Wedge issues no longer threaten Democrats. The social issues that destroyed George McGovern in 1972, Michael Dukakis in 1988, John Kerry in 2004 and the Democratic Congress in 1994 -- "God, guns and gays" -- have reversed direction. Republicans are on...

"The truth is, we're going to have to have some higher taxes in order to generate the money we need to solve the problem."

When was the last time you heard a Republican talk like that? That was Virginia's Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling talking to the Washington Post...

The White House is not positioned to win on the sequester showdown. That's got congressional Democrats worried. Nevertheless, President Obama is feeling confident that he has the upper hand. There's a good reason to believe he does.

Senate Democrats started worrying during the fiscal cliff negotiations in December. They warned...

Democrats don't talk about it, but they have become the party of the unchurched in America. It's right there in the 2012 exit poll. Asked, "Are you Protestant, Catholic, Mormon, other Christian, Jewish, Muslim, other or none?" Twelve percent of the voters last year called themselves "None." They...

"Preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action."

With that bloodless, analytical sentence from his second inaugural address, President Obama set off a firestorm of protest among conservatives. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell called the speech "unabashedly far-left-of-center." House Speaker John Boehner said the president's mission was to "annihilate the...

Yes, it could happen. Mitt Romney could win the popular vote while Barack Obama wins the electoral vote -- and gets re-elected. It could happen if Romney wins overwhelming popular majorities in the South while Obama ekes out narrow victories in the rest of the country. But the consequences this...

Politics is a blood sport. President Obama is not, by temperament, a warrior. That's why he lost last week's debate. Obama is rational, deliberate and thoughtful. They are good things if you're a college professor. They're not if you're fighting a battle.

Democrats were enraged by Obama's performance. It was...

Debates are rarely game changers. That's bad news for Mitt Romney, who is depending on the debates to turn his campaign around. The most likely way that would happen is if President Obama made some kind of unforced error. That's a risky thing to count on.

In 2004, CNN polled...

Smaller government. That's the big theme Mitt Romney has chosen to run on. It's why he chose Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) as his running mate. Ryan makes the strongest case for smaller government since Ronald Reagan. But will it sell?

Election campaigns are driven by market research. The party out...

Jump! Run for your lives! We're about to go over the fiscal cliff!

That just about sums up the message coming out of Washington these days. Is there reason to panic? Not really, because brinkmanship has become an essential part of the political process. It's the answer to gridlock....

The economy is stalled. So is the campaign. Nothing much has changed since it became clear in February that Mitt Romney would be the Republican nominee.

Some 65 non-partisan national polls have been taken since early February. Average the poll results every two weeks and what happens? Nothing. Obama's lead...

Barack Obama is facing the most dangerous period of his presidency. The danger is that he will not appear to be in control of events. If that perception takes hold, voters will conclude that the president is not up to the job. And they will abandon him.

It is a...

Can President Obama get reelected the same way President Bush did in 2004? The recall election in Wisconsin on Tuesday will give us a pretty good idea.

Bush got reelected with a base strategy. He rallied conservatives with an "us versus them" campaign. Republicans demonized John Kerry and tried to...

Will Mitt Romney or the Republicans in Congress define the Republican message this year? That's a big problem for the Romney campaign. It's beginning to look like congressional Republicans want to put Romney in office so he can sign off on the Tea Party agenda -- their agenda, not his.

The Supreme Court debate on health care was shocking to many Americans. The shock was that the arguments going on inside the court sounded so much like the arguments going on outside the court. It was nakedly political. The partisan takeover of American politics has now engulfed the Supreme Court.

"Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'
It'll soon shake your windows
...

The 2012 election has crossed a barrier. In the latest CNN poll, 40 percent of Americans say things are going well in the country. Is that good? After all, 60 percent still say things are going badly.

For the Democrats, it is good.

When the number of Americans...

They say Democrats fall in love and Republicans fall in line. Not in South Carolina, they didn't.

Newt Gingrich insisted that his victory in the South Carolina primary was an act of defiance of the nation's elites. In his victory speech, Gingrich called it a victory for those...