Archive for December, 2011

Other Candidate Venn Diagrams Newt Gingrich , 12/19/11 Jon Huntsman, Jr., 12/20/11 Willard Mitt Romney, 12/21/11 Michele Bachmann, 12/22/11 Rick Perry, 12/23/11 Herman Cain, 12/25/11 Rick Santorum, 12/28/11
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Other Candidate Venn Diagrams Newt Gingrich , 12/19/11 Jon Huntsman, Jr., 12/20/11 Willard Mitt Romney, 12/21/11 Michele Bachmann, 12/22/11 Rick Perry, 12/23/11 Herman Cain, 12/25/11 Ron Paul, 12/31/11
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I’m reasonably confident (i.e. I’ll lay you 30-1 or 40-1, i.e. I think there’s a 97%+ chance)  that Mitt Romney is going to be the 2012 GOP nominee for President. Now, I could be wildly wrong in my estimation. And regardless of whether Romney wins or not, we’ll never know for sure. Unless you...
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Other Candidate Venn Diagrams Newt Gingrich , 12/19/11 Jon Huntsman, Jr., 12/20/11 Willard Mitt Romney, 12/21/11 Michele Bachmann, 12/22/11 Rick Perry, 12/23/11 Rick Santorum, 12/28/11 Ron Paul, 12/31/11
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A quick word on Ron Paul, then some links and my schedule next week. Given all the stuff that’s come out over the past few days — and it’s just way too much to link to, just get on the internet or twitter and open a few doors — I don’t think any libertarian...
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Other Candidate Venn Diagrams Newt Gingrich , 12/19/11 Jon Huntsman, Jr., 12/20/11 Willard Mitt Romney, 12/21/11 Michele Bachmann, 12/22/11 Herman Cain, 12/25/11 Rick Santorum, 12/28/11 Ron Paul, 12/31/11
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Other Candidate Venn Diagrams Newt Gingrich , 12/19/11 Jon Huntsman, Jr., 12/20/11 Willard Mitt Romney, 12/21/11 Rick Perry, 12/23/11 Herman Cain, 12/25/11 Rick Santorum, 12/28/11 Ron Paul, 12/31/11
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“The Republicans? They’re just the opposition. The Senate is the enemy.” -variously attributed (usually to former Speaker Tip O’neil) There’s really nothing quite like a good inter-chamber standoff on the Hill. Most of the time, I think, inter-chamber conflict is overstated; many of the disputes are partisan rather than chamber, and the chamber leaders...
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Other Candidate Venn Diagrams Newt Gingrich, 12/19/11 Jon Huntsman, Jr., 12/20/11 Michele Bachmann, 12/22/11 Rick Perry, 12/23/11 Herman Cain, 12/25/11 Rick Santorum, 12/28/11 Ron Paul, 12/31/11
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A few interesting things on the House floor today: 1. The House adopted a special rule today (H.Res.502; here is the committee report from the Rules Committee) to take up the Senate amendment to the payroll tax bill and to disagree with the amendment and propose a conference. Last week, I brought the full-court...
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Other Candidate Venn Diagrams Newt Gingrich , 12/19/11 Mitt Romney, 12/21/11 Michele Bachmann, 12/22/11 Rick Perry, 12/23/11 Herman Cain, 12/25/11 Rick Santorum, 12/28/11 Ron Paul, 12/31/11
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Other Candidate Venn Diagrams Jon Huntsman, 12/20/11 Mitt Romney, 12/21/11 Michele Bachmann, 12/22/11 Rick Perry, 12/23/11 Herman Cain, 12/25/11 Rick Santorum, 12/28/11 Ron Paul, 12/31/11
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John Sides and friends on whether or not GOP primary voters care about electability. Seth Masket explains why all the cultural-divide-predicts-election stories are worthless. Jordan Ragusa follows up. This Nate Silver forecast post for Iowa is a good read for thinking about how to forecast, although a bit out of date in those fast-changin’...
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Josh Krashaar wrote today about the possibility of a tied electoral college, 269 to 269, which would hand the election to the House of Representatives, since neither candidate would have a majority. Way back in October 2004, I wrote a piece which raises a little-known fact about such House-thrown elections: the 12th amendment puts...
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Last night, it became clear that the omnibus appropriations bill might not make it out of conference, apparently due to political issues related to to the payroll tax cut extension. In order to prepare for this possibility, late in the evening on Wednesday, three new pieces of legislation — including a new omnibus —...
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Matt Yglesias is backing a proposal by Senator Lieberman that would allow any legislation that meets the supercommittee charged standard (i.e. achieves $1.5 trillion in additional deficit reduction over 10 years, has bipartisan support) to receive the expedited consideration that was arranged for the supercommittee legislation (i.e. no filibusters, no amendments). The idea is...
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In the wake of the Senate’s failure to invoke cloture on the nominations of Caitlin Halligan to the D.C. Court of Appeals and Richard Cordray to head the new Consumer Protection Board, there has been a lot of criticism about the filibuster. A number of writers are very concerned about the use of the...
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Mitt Romney, from Saturday night’s GOP primary debate: We don’t need– we don’t need folks who are lifetime– lifetime Washington people to– to– to get this country out of the mess it’s in. We need people from outside Washington. You hear this a lot, the idea that coming in as an outsider to shake...
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From the transcript of Saturday night’s GOP debate: DIANE SAWYER: That is true. And it’s 24 days now and counting until the voting begins in the caucuses. And– and it’s at the time for closing arguments, so let us introduce the presidential candidates from the Republican party for the United States of America here...
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David Post’s guide for students on exam-taking mistakes. Newt Gingrich is a populist technocrat, says Conor Friedersdorf. And then he demolishes him here. Lots of people are saying Gingrich can or can’t win the nomination. Call me a beltway insider, but I say “no chance.” And I basically agree with Ezra’s reasoning here. President...
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