January 14, 2012

Mad at Santorum over Specter? What Would Reagan Do?

What would President Reagan do if he had had a good conservative challenging Sen. Arlen Specter in a primary in Pennsylvania?  Former Sen. Rick Santorum is taking a lot of heat in his presidential campaign for backing the RINO Specter over true-...

December 10, 2011

Newt: A Menace to Society?

"Two plus two is...?" he asked.  He followed up with: "If you can't afford a house?" The answer is obvious, said the former speaker of the House: "Don't buy it."  Well said by the man who accepted $1.6 million from Freddie Mac to talk the i...

November 19, 2011

Time for Another Look at the GOP Bench

(See also: Prepare Yourself for Obama's Second Term and The Prism of Electoral Reality) At the outset of the Civil War, President Lincoln said of the Union armies that "there are many single Regiments whose members possess full practical knowledge of...

October 31, 2011

Washington Post: Marco Rubio Embellishes!

Well, they finally got him.  Stopped him cold.  Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) had told the story of his parents fleeing Castro's Cuba over and over. And it's all a hoax.  The Washington Post is dancing in the end zone.  It's their big...

October 22, 2011

No Mitt, No Más

Sometimes it seems as if the GOP Establishment is sleepwalking off a cliff.  In 1996, having scored the stunning victories of the off-year congressional elections, the GOP suits dutifully lined up behind the impossible Bob Dole.  From the m...

October 14, 2011

If we can't nominate Rush Limbaugh

 It's too bad we can't nominate Rush Limbaugh. He's been the most consistent conservative with the broadest appeal. But can we at least listen to this great American? Here's what Rush told his huge audience recently:  "But Rubio, Rubio wou...

August 27, 2011

Will it be Rubio, by Acclamation?

For vice president?  It's beginning to seem that way.  Romney's senior people are touting the Florida senator for the second slot.  So are innumerable journalists.  Rubio was asked this week at his speech at the Reagan Library if ...

July 9, 2011

The Good News: Rubio's Eligible

Conservatives are right to be deeply committed to constitutionalism and to test all government actions against the plumb line of that great charter of liberty.  We would never dismiss concerns about the constitutionality of legislation or the el...

June 18, 2011

Don't Worry, Be Happy: Rubio-Kyl in 2012

More than 50% of National Review Online readers -- in an admittedly unscientific poll -- say they're depressed as they consider the GOP field.  A recent Washington Post/ABC News poll confirmed Republicans' dissatisfaction with the candidates ann...

May 24, 2011

Jon Huntsman: The Mandarin Candidate 'Resets'

Jon Huntsman has come home from China.  He gave an address this week in Manchester, New Hampshire.   Many are expecting the former U.S. Ambassador to the People's Republic to announce that he is running for president as a Republican. ...

May 7, 2011

The Donald's [Expletive Deleted] Desert One Experience

Maybe it's in the water out there in the desert. But when a prospective candidate for president goes to Las Vegas, it would be a good idea to avoid drinking too deeply at the local fountains of wisdom. One New York gentleman recently created news aro...

April 30, 2011

When the Epochal Voters Come Back

Millions of new voters came to the polls in 2008 to create a wave for Barack Obama.I call these new actors in the political drama epochal voters because they were caught up in the excitement of doing something really new and different in politics. We...

April 11, 2011

Trumped-Up

George Will cites the presidential nomination process as the weakest point of the American political system. He thinks the Founders would have been appalled at letting Iowa and New Hampshire weigh in so decisively. He's probably right about that. The...

February 24, 2011

Rubio and Reassurance

If there is one word that answers Sigmund Freud's old question, What do women want?, it is this: Reassurance. That's Reassurance with a capital R. This is especially the case when we speak about modern American politics.And even not-so-modern Am...

February 21, 2011

A Madisonian Case for Rubio in 2012

When James Madison described an "extended republic" in his famous Federalist No. 10, he rejected the received wisdom of his day. Most educated Americans then agreed with Montesquieu and many other political theorists that a republic co...