If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
The Blog
As millions of Republican voters cast ballots on Super Tuesday, many are no doubt wondering how the GOP managed to squander a 2010 electoral victory into such a mistake-riddled 2012 presidential campaign. I'm not a Republican, but as a former White House aide and veteran of several political campaigns, I'm quite frankly shocked and stunned by how badly the Republicans have campaigned this year. That doesn't mean the Democrats will win in November, but at times it seems as though the Republicans have been trying to lose this election.
No matter how all the states on Tuesday finish in voting preference, it will be readily apparent on Wednesday morning that the delegate math does not allow any candidate other than Romney to get to 1,144, the magic number needed to secure the nomination.
Romney's failure to do the politically bold and smart move can only be interpreted to mean that he is either not bothered by Rush Limbaugh's vitriol or too fearful to say anything about it.
The Constitution provides for the separation of church and state, preventing government from mixing religion and politics. What the Obama administration has done with health care and its contraception policy is to protect religious freedom, not assail or violate it.
For all the attention now being given to the fiercely contested contest between Romney and Santorum in Ohio, Gingrich's expected win in Georgia could partially upstage them.
It would behoove every one of us, especially those of us who are husbands, fathers of daughters or who have women as friends and colleagues, to also ask ourselves one simple question before we vote for anyone: Has he or she been willing to stand up to the likes of Rush Limbaugh?
The reality is that the former Speaker of the House, who led the stealth Republican takeover of the House and Senate in the 1994 election, has been a strong partisan of the religious right for decades.
A POGO investigation has found that a Gingrich advisor, Robert McFarlane, covertly lobbied for interests in southern Sudan and reportedly on behalf of the Sudanese government -- without properly disclosing his activities to the U.S. government.
The story is about more than one judge doing something wildly inappropriate. It's about a conservative movement in which the bile and animosity directed at the president are so poisonous that even someone who should know better confuses political criticism and sick personal attack.
The factors that would typically lead to a campaign's demise -- the absence of popular support, too few donors -- have become irrelevant in an era where a few billionaires can resurrect campaigns from the dead through Super PACs.
Vaginas are the Republican volcanoes. They lay dormant for years and then, just when everything seems fine, they suddenly erupt, usually around election time.
Republican presidential candidates' extreme comments about economics and culture have dominated headlines, but lurking in the shadows is a hawkish Cold War mentality. Gingrich, Romney and Santorum want to beef up the military and put nuclear weapons back on the table.
No Republican presidential candidate has been willing to take on the hard myths. The myths that are killing us. Here are a dirty dozen.
Elections aren't won entirely on the ground -- the national mood will obviously matter, as will the state of the economy and the effectiveness of the rival campaigns' messaging. But field organizing can make a crucial difference, particularly in tight races.
"What you have just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it." This is a line from Billy Madison, but it really could be directed towards the GOP candidates for president.
U.S. Religious Capitalism, humbly defined, is the buying and selling of American souls for the purposes of gaining political and economic power.
