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“Clowns, Stunts, And Acrobatics”: The ‘Traveling Circus’ The RNC Can’t Stop
Nearly two years ago, with his party still licking its wounds after a rough 2012 cycle, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus looked ahead to the 2016 presidential race and focused on a specific goal: far fewer...
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“Doing Real Vetting Should Be Part Of The Job”: Why Conservative Media Should...
When the RNC announced a few weeks ago that conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt was going to moderate a primary debate, many liberals ridiculed it as evidence that they wanted to shield their...
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“Bad For The Party, Bad For The Country”: The GOP’s Clamorous,...
Another day, another trio of new candidates for the Republican presidential nomination. A brain surgeon with no particular feel for politics. A business executive who lost the only election she ever...
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“The Golden Parachute Candidate”: Corporate-Jet Conservative Carly Fiorina...
For reasons that remain unclear, Carly Fiorina is running for president. The former Hewlett-Packard CEO and failed Senate candidate has been teasing a potential run for months now, but this morning she...
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“Governor Goldilocks”: Scott Walker’s Pitch, To Many Conservative Activists,...
There was another big GOP presidential cattle call this weekend, at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference in Oklahoma City. The ostensible star, because he won a straw poll among about a...
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“What Are They Thinking?”: The Many (Possible) Motivations Of The GOP’s Many...
The list of Republican presidential candidates seems to be getting longer by the day. On Wednesday, Rick Santorum entered the race, and on Thursday, former New York Governor George Pataki is expected...
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“How Do You Solve A Problem Like The Donald?”: The Republican Party Just Got...
For years now, Donald Trump has threatened to run for president. In the past it has been just a publicity stunt — he says he might run, he gets some attention, eventually he gives it up. And pretty...
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“Not Sounding Like A Professional Politician”: The One Reason Donald Trump...
It was billed as The Donald Trump Show, and the Republican front-runner delivered. He mugged. He pouted. He projected outrage without being troubled by specificity or fact. When he got punched — and...
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“Fox News Created The Trump Monster”: The Billionaire Egoist Is The Creation...
Okay, so as I write these words, someone could be about to release a post-debate poll showing exactly what establishment Washington, which now apparently includes even Fox News (!), yearns to see a...
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“No Experience Necessary”: A Cycle In Which ‘The Base’ Isn’t Buying...
My editor at TPM asked me to take a look yesterday at the historical precedents for so many candidates with no experience in elected office managing to run non-trivial presidential campaigns at the...
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“What A ‘Career Politician’ Looks Like”: Even Though He’s Been In Elected...
If recent polling is any indication, Republican voters place a premium on inexperience. Donald Trump, who’s never worked in government at any level, is obviously the dominant GOP candidate, at least...
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“It’s Hogwash, But People Never Seem To Learn”: The Outsider Delusion And The...
As you will read in a hundred news stories over the next few weeks, the outsider’s moment in the presidential campaign has arrived. This is going to be the prevailing narrative of the 2016 race, until...
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“Providing Breathing Room For The Dying Beast”: Clearing Out Space In Our...
I recently wrote about Trump and white supremacists based largely on an article by Evan Osnos, who had been reporting on these groups when Trump-mania broke out. A few days later, Osnos was interviewed...
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“Fire And Brimstone Coming Down From The Sky”: Scott Walker Vows To ‘Wreak...
Can one candidate steal adopt another candidate’s tone and thereby revive his struggling campaign? Scott Walker, currently languishing at around four percent in Republican primary polls, is going to...
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“Hillary Was The CNN Debate’s Real Winner—Seriously”: “It’s Clearer Than Ever...
Well, that was all kind of…interminable. For a time there in the middle, I thought Ben Carson had strolled out to perform some elective surgery. I guess we kind of agree that Carly Fiorina won, since...
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“So Sad, Too Bad”: Sorry, Republicans; It’s Still Donald Trump’s World
Sorry, Republicans, but it’s still Donald Trump’s world. And sorry, Donald, but now you have to share it with Ben Carson. The conventional wisdom seems to be that Carly Fiorina won herself a big patch...
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“It’s A Republican Politician Problem”: Trump Is Far From The Only Republican...
At a big, classy town hall event in Rochester, New Hampshire, on Thursday evening, Donald Trump fielded a question from an unidentified man, who announced, “We have a problem in this country. It’s...
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“Batten Down The Hatches!”: A Perilous Week Ahead For Our Republican Friends
There’s really only one way to say it: the week of September 21, 2015 could be unpleasant for a Republican Party struggling to find its way in the runup to a big, high-stakes election. Its presidential...
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“The Perils Of A Small-Tent Party”: An ‘Archie Bunker’ Posture In A ‘Modern...
In the last national election cycle, the Republican losses obviously counted, but so too did the way in which they lost. GOP candidates, party officials later acknowledged, were catering to an...
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“Quick Lesson In Political Language”: The Resurgence Of The America George...
A quick lesson in political language. In 1958, Democrat George Wallace, running as a candidate for governor of Alabama and racially moderate enough to be endorsed by the NAACP, was swamped by a...
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