While most political attention these days is focused on the nation’s capital and President Barack Obama’s second term, across the river in Virginia, politicians from both parties are preparing for what seems to be the oddest gubernatorial race the state has seen in years.
Having just barely avoided plunging the economy off a cliff, Republicans and Democrats ought to consider: Do we really want to put ourselves and the country through this again and again?
I used to hold an open house at the Wilson Center on the first day of a new Congress so staff and fellows could drop by and observe on a big screen the pomp and pageantry of the world’s greatest democratic legislature organizing itself. In addition to providing coffee and doughnuts, I put together helpful handouts and provided a running commentary on what was transpiring in the House chamber.
We’ve just seen Round One in what amounts to a political heavyweight championship fight between Democrats and Republicans. Get ready for the next 11 rounds.
As the end of the year approaches, it’s difficult not to see the two parties heading in very different directions.
The horrific Newtown, Conn., massacre has gripped and appalled the nation, and it dramatically changed the national conversation about guns. When a gun rights advocate as prominent as Sen. Joe Manchin III, D-W.Va., talks about the irrelevancy of assault rifles and high-capacity magazines to hunters or other legitimate gun users, it is a sign that the tectonic plates have shifted.
For the third year in a row I am not writing a year-in-review column because, honestly, they’re boring and unnecessary. If you’ve been interested enough in the federal budget to read my column in 2012, you already know what happened and probably don’t want to be reminded. If you didn’t care during the year, you don’t need to know now.
Wow, what a political cycle. It was filled with twists, turns and surprises.
My last column included awards for a number of 2012 campaign and candidate categories, including the luckiest candidate and the biggest upset. But those only scratched the surface in an election year during which candidate quality mattered a great deal. Part II of my guide of the best and worst of the 2012 election cycle features some usual and a few more unusual categories.
President Barack Obama is on his way to bludgeoning Republicans into agreeing to raise taxes. The big question is: Can he reach a deal on entitlement spending?
I have been bemused over the past few weeks by the often breathless commentary and analysis on the ins and outs of the fiscal cliff negotiations.
As another election year draws to a close, it’s time again for me to pick the cycle’s winners and losers, my most and least favorite candidates, and those who distinguished themselves by skill or by old-fashioned dumb luck.
Early in his second term as vice president, John Adams lamented to his wife, Abigail, that he held “the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.”
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