Ronald Reagan
Here’s Why Paul Ryan Is No Jack Kennedy
Ronald Reagan Lives! But Will He Endorse Mitt Romney?
Tony Reynolds has long been a fan of Ronald Reagan. The Ohio-based Web developer and Gulf War veteran admired the former president’s oratorical prowess, focus on small business, and ability to reach across the aisle and longed for a way to remind today’s politicians what Reagan was like in action. He then found an unlikely inspiration: the late rapper Tupac Shakur. READ MORE >>
How the GOP Destroyed its Moderates
Mitt Romney has been running for president as the Republican nominee, de facto or de jure, for eight months now, and the grand historical joke of it has not yet worn off. A party that has set itself to frantically, fanatically expunge its moderates, quasi-moderates, suspected moderates, and fellow travelers of moderates chose as its standard bearer the lineal heir, biographically and genealogically, to its moderate tradition. It entrusted its holy crusade to repeal Barack Obama’s hated health-care law to the man who had inspired it and run, four years before, promising to do the same for the rest of America. The man and his historical moment could not be more incongruous. It was as if the Mongol tribes of the thirteenth century, setting out to pillage their way across the Asian steppe, had somehow chosen Mahatma Gandhi as their supreme khan.Romney’s capture of the nomination required an incredible confluence of good fortune. Any one of several Republicans—Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Paul Ryan—could have outflanked Romney in both grassroots enthusiasm and establishment support but chose not to run. The one candidate with the standing and financial reach to challenge him who did grasp for the prize, Rick Perry, performed his duties with such comic, stammering ineptitude that his final oops-de-grace by that point was not even startling. What remained to challenge Romney was a gaggle of third-raters lacking the money or the rudimentary organization even to get their name on the ballot everywhere. Still, running even against the likes of Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum (which is to say, running essentially unopposed), Romney still trudged laboriously to victory after endless weeks.But there is another way to make at least some sense of the Romney nomination. READ MORE >>
As John Kerry and Ronald Reagan can attest to, debates can move the polls and influence the narrative of the horse race. But despite movement in the direction of the challenger, there's not much evidence that the debates have ever fundamentally reshaped a race. READ MORE >>
Two Issues Romney Needs to Stop Obsessing Over
Presidents who seek re-election in the midst of a sagging economy don’t usually win. The prime example is Herbert Hoover in 1932, but there is also Jimmy Carter in 1980 and George H. W. Bush in 1992. So, with the current economy still in the doldrums, Mitt Romney should be poised to deny re-election to Barack Obama. But instead he seems poised for defeat. READ MORE >>
Yes, Virginia, The Rich Pay Less Tax Now
How to be a Real “Redistributionist”
Why Is Romney Afraid to Talk About Tax Cuts?
Here is what James Pethokoukis of the American Enterprise Institute suggests Mitt Romney should say in response to the Fed's launching of QE3: "Like JFK and Ronald Reagan, we should cut tax rates on business and entrepreneurs and small business and the middle class." It's an old conservative refrain, and it's worked like a charm—as politics, though not as policy—for three decades. READ MORE >>
