Let the Republicans Talk About Clinton's Age and Health →

Karl Rove's latest attempt to make Hillary Clinton's health and age an issue in her campaign, or non-campaign, for president was buffoonish and embarrassing for Rove, but it was also probably not very effective. Although voters have a right to know these things about a candidate who would be 69 years old on inauguration day, and who had a head injury not that long ago, the corollary that it helps the Republicans to have Rove raise them in such a way, is not true. It also demonstrates that Clinton is a truly unusual, and increasingly lucky, politician.

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Romney's Running Mate Dilemma →

While there are numerous potential running mates who can provide ideological balance to the ticket, Romney cannot make the same mistake McCain did and choose somebody who will alienate swing voters, not because of his or her ideology, but because of his or her ignorance. The first question Romney should ask about any potential running mate is whether or not that candidate is able to speak intelligently and fluently about the major issues. This should not be a difficult standard, but at least three of the party's major candidates for the nomination, Cain, Bachmann and Perry did not meet this standard. This will be a difficult needle to thread for Romney because a large proportion of his party, appears to view ignorance as an important and desirable trait in a politician, often mistaking ignorance for toughness. Romney will have to find a way to win these voters through finding a running mate who appeals to their conservatism, but not their ignorance.

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Romney Wraps It Up →

Romney's victory, in addition to being an important win for the candidate himself, is also a triumph of the older, more traditional Republican Party. Romney, like other Republican nominees including John McCain in 2008, Bob Dole in 1996, George H.W. Bush in 1988 and Ronald Reagan in 1980 is a figure from the Republican establishment who finished second in the last open Republican primary, making him next in line for the nomination. This pattern of orderly succession with regards to nominees had existed for decades before 2012, but this year was supposed to be different. This was the year that the Tea Party and other radical Republicans were going to change the Republican Party. The faces of the Republican Party in the age of Obama were supposed to be radicals given to extremist rhetoric, a populist contempt for big government and a distrust of political and financial insiders.

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Republicans Aren't Falling in Line in 2012 →

The Republican nomination, on the other hand, for the first time in many years, has neither a clear frontrunner, nor somebody who can legitimately lay claim to having paid their dues and waited their turn as, for example, was the case with John McCain in 2008, Bob Dole in 1996 or George H.W. Bush in 1988. The candidate who comes closest to meeting this description is Mitt Romney who finished second to McCain in 2008, but has not been a mainstay of Republican politics for very long and was an unknown outside of his home state a mere five years ago. Haley Barbour and Newt Gingrich, unlike Romney, have been prominent national Republicans for years, but have failed to mobilize sufficient support to plausibly present themselves as frontrunners.

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Looking Backward-McCain Style →

The Republican campaign has collapsed among a sordid and backward looking combination of incompetence, red-baiting that feels bizarrely anachronistic and almost quaint, the growing acceptance among many in the Republican establishment that Sarah Palin is about as qualified to be president as I am to play first base for the Yankees, an adolescent, but deeply disturbing attempt to fake a racially charged attack on a McCain supporter, attempts to suggest that the Democratic president is a supporter of terrorism essentially because he has an unusual name and through ugly anti-Muslim bigotry. Lastly, the dreaded October surprise that many Democrats feared would turn this election upside down and defeat Obama turned out to be a shopping spree in which Republican handlers bought Sarah Palin $150,000 worth of clothes and makeup.

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Has Sarah Palin Really Shaken Up the Race? →

In the last few weeks the Republican Party has gone back to its base by nominating a right-wing extremist with reactionary views on a range of social policies. They have sought to represent John McCain, of all people, as an agent of change in Washington, tried to build an appeal to voters based on the notion that they are the regular Americans and the Democrats are out of touch elitists, accused Senator Obama of being a sexist for using a common figure of speech and more or less lied about their records and that of their opponents.

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Lincoln Mitchell