Steve Benen

Brenda Buttner, a senior business correspondent at Fox News, reflected yesterday on the latest jobs report, and made a curious comment when asked about which areas of the economy aren’t faring well. “Well, government is a little bit losing jobs. That’s something we see as a positive because we want government to lose jobs to […]

There are quite a few elements to Jon Huntsman’s background and ideology that contribute to his struggling campaign, but his service in the Obama administration is probably near the top of the list. Republicans voters are desperate to replace President Obama, and one of the GOP candidates worked for the president as recently as eight […]

Newt Gingrich’s status in the Republican presidential campaign went from “frontrunner” to “barely hanging on” over the course of about two weeks. There’s no great mystery as to why: $4 million in attack ads from Mitt Romney’s Super PAC tore the disgraced former House Speaker to shreds. Gingrich, not surprisingly, is pretty unhappy about it, […]

We covered a fair amount of ground over the weekend. Here’s a quick overview of what you may have missed. On Sunday, we talked about: * When it comes to job creation at Bain Capital, Mitt Romney and Mitt Romney’s campaign are making two very different claims. * Jon Huntsman is looking forward to the […]

In last night’s debate, Mitt Romney made a new boast about his record on job creation at Bain Capital. “[I]n the business I had, we invested in over 100 different businesses and net-net, taking out the ones where we lost jobs and those that we added, those businesses have now added over 100,000 jobs. “I […]

Jon Huntsman appears to be coming to terms with the fact that he won’t be the Republican presidential nominee in 2012. Ordinarily, competitive candidates who still expect to win wouldn’t openly question their party’s sanity in an on-the-record interview. In an interview Friday, the Utah governor turned China ambassador said bluntly that the GOP had […]

About 10 hours after last night’s debate, the six Republican presidential candidates met again this morning for another debate, this time sponsored by NBC and Facebook. This one was far livelier than its predecessor — maybe the GOP field is made up for morning people? — and one line in particular jumped out early on: […]

One of the more noteworthy exchanges in last night’s debate came about mid-way through the event, when ABC’s George Stephanopoulos asked Mitt Romney about, of all things, contraception. The question was a bit of a mess, and the back and forth seemed to annoy just about everyone, but the exchange wasn’t completely inane. Stephanopoulos asked, […]

Rick Santorum was asked last night about the 1,800 same-sex couples who are married in New Hampshire, and what would happen to them if he succeeds in adding an anti-gay amendment to the U.S. Constitution. He replied: “If we have a — if the Constitution says marriage is between a man and a woman, then […]

Before every recent debate for the Republican presidential candidates, I think to myself, “OK, this will finally be the one in which the GOP field goes after Mitt Romney.” And after every debate, I think to myself, “Do these guys not understand how this game works?” Last night’s gathering in New Hampshire was supposed to […]