Mitt Romney's convincing victory in the Florida primary erased his earlier defeats and perhaps any serious obstacle to his nomination. The question that still troubles party leaders, however, is the damage he will sustain before returning to Tampa in September for their convention.
Two of the hottest topics on the political circuit are illegal immigration and "Obamacare." They can come together into a third steaming discussion: How the Democrats' Affordable Care Act of 2010 would hasten America's journey toward a more orderly immigration program.
Mitt Romney's impressive victory Tuesday makes it very likely that we will look back on the Florida primary as the contest that determined the 2012 Republican nomination.
To be sure, the campaign fight will go on, and Romney is by no means assured of a sweep of the relatively few February contests.
With an election approaching and at least some Americans upset about irresponsible spending, the president has finally expressed a political interest in cutting something. He says the Pentagon will spend "only" $525 billion next year. That's slightly less than the current $531 billion.
Celebrity chef Paula Deen lustily massages salt into "a mighty fat hog," as the dogs circle the cooking island. For the yams, "I'm only using half a stick of butter," she drawls before breaking into high laughter. Deen's popular Food Network show does Southern cooking with no brakes on the pork fat, butter, sugar or other dietarily incorrect ingredients.
We got mixed signals from a turbulent political week. Barack Obama seems to be enjoying an uptick in polls -- up toward, but not quite at, 50 percent approval. It's a reminder that he can expect to benefit from Americans' desire to think well of their presidents and from the reluctance of many voters to be seen as rejecting the first black president.
Florida is the state that put the first man on the moon, NBC's Brian Williams noted at the Republican presidential debate in Tampa. He asked the candidates, "At a time when you all want to shrink federal spending, should space exploration be a priority?"
Of course it should be, Mitt Romney said. The former Massachusetts governor accused President Obama of having no vision for NASA, "and as a result of that, there are people on the Space Coast that are suffering." He spoke of the need for "a collaborative effort" among business, the government and the military.
Newt Gingrich has surged to the lead in the race for the Republican presidential nomination with the strong support of evangelical Christian voters. To some, given Gingrich's personal life, this support is puzzling. Whatever else people say about Mitt Romney, his personal life seems above reproach and a good role model for others.
Why the Republicans chose Mitch Daniels -- the Indiana governor who once thrilled right-wing pundits as a 2012 hopeful -- to deliver a rebuttal to President Obama's State of the Union address is puzzling. His uninspiring remarks surely killed the Daniels fad, revived lately as Republicans fret over the unappetizing choices available in their primaries.
You know politicians are serious when they move from campaigning to governing. Something like that may be happening on the Republican campaign trail -- but, unfortunately, not at the Obama White House.
Has Barack Obama learned nothing in three years? Last night, during his State of the Union address, he promised "a blueprint for an economy." But economies are crushed by blueprints. An economy is really nothing more than people participating in an unfathomably complex spontaneous network of exchanges aimed at improving their material circumstances. It can't even be diagrammed, much less planned. And any attempt at it will come to grief.
It's no secret that Mitt Romney is rich. He was born rich and got mega-millions richer as a financier. Nor is it a secret that his income is mostly taxed at 15 percent, a far lower rate than middle-class grunts pay. Nor does he have any obligation to pay more in taxes than he legally owes.
Those who take a certain pleasure in denouncing the evils negative political advertising should have spent the last week in South Carolina. They could have plunked down in front of TV sets, especially during morning, early evening and late evening news programs, and by adroit use of the remote control seen one negative spot after another.
While Mitt Romney may very well be on his way to winning the GOP nomination, he is not completely out of the woods yet. With so many primaries and caucuses left to be decided, it is perfectly possible that other candidates will win some of the remaining states as long as they stay in the race. We only have to look at the party nomination struggles in 1976 to see how frontrunners who started fast ended up facing long, hard slogs to the nomination.
Mitt Romney's latest flip-flop is almost complete. Having vowed a month ago not to release his federal income tax returns, the Republican presidential front-runner conceded during Saturday night's debate that he would "probably" release his returns, and then on Tuesday afternoon finally said he will do so -- in April, long after he is likely to have secured his party's nomination. With characteristic arrogance, he excused the delay by suggesting that April 15 is the traditional date when public officials supply this information, which is certainly true if you're already president.
We here at the Crystal Ball, and of course our readers, love politics. But Americans don’t, especially now: Congress is historically unpopular, and Americans are so sick of politics that more than two-thirds of them according to one survey wished the presidential campaign was over even before it officially started.
When his tenure at the investment firm Bain Capital became an issue in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, Mitt Romney responded by saying he "was disappointed ... to see one of my opponents attacking free enterprise, just like the president was.”
Every Sunday night, the mega-carriages drop millions of us off at "Downton Abbey," the hit PBS series about an aristocratic family, its English country estate and the complexities of being Them at the dawn of the 20th century. We revel in the patricians' finery, their posture, their free time and their skill at draping the sharpest remarks in tempered rhetoric. And we marvel at their access to over a dozen specialized servants meeting every need. The servants live off the kitchen or with the horses.
The crowd at the Fox News/Wall Street Journal debate in Myrtle Beach was feisty, with whoops and cheers for Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Rick Perry, though not so much for Ron Paul.
Politically astute Republicans, including many social conservatives, see Mitt Romney as the strongest candidate to beat President Obama in November. The former Massachusetts governor may not be their kind of Republican, but any Republican would be better than Obama, in their opinion.
