Steve Benen

Ruy Teixeira makes a strong case today that the youth vote will be critical to President Obama’s re-election chances, and if young adults don’t show up, Republican odds improve significantly. This point is not lost on GOP officials. Indeed, as a New York Times editorial makes clear today, the importance of the youth vote has […]

Dave Weigel had a good item yesterday on his “2011 Pundit Audit.” It’s a worthwhile idea, so I thought I’d join the fun. For reasons that have never made sense to me, people seem to trust the instincts of political reporters. There’s a whole industry — I’m part of it, as an MSNBC contributor — […]

Generally, when disgraced former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s (R) first marriage draws attention, it’s because of questions about timing. Gingrich has been accused, for example, of haggling over the terms of his divorce from his first wife while she was in the hospital, recovering from uterine cancer surgery. What’s more, there’s evidence he had already […]

We covered a fair amount of ground over the holiday weekend. Here’s a quick overview of what you may have missed. On Monday, we talked about: * The right is still desperate to blame government regulations for the 2008 crash. They’re still wrong. * At least in the traditional sense, there’s nothing “conservative” about the […]

Today’s edition of quick hits: * Boko Haram attacks: “A series of Christmas Day church bombings rocked Nigeria on Sunday in what appeared to be a coordinated assault by a radical Islamist sect with suspected training links to Al Qaeda, raising the sect’s violent antigovernment struggle to a new and more dangerous level that the […]

Identifying the culprits for global financial industry collapses can be challenging. When it comes to explaining who caused the Great Depression, for example, there are still some spirited debates among legitimate experts. That said, it’s generally easier to understand what didn’t cause a crash. And when it comes to the 2008 crisis and the ensuing […]

All kinds of prominent national figures are characterizing the 2012 presidential election as a key turning point, and in his latest column, E.J. Dionne Jr. agrees. For the first time since Barry Goldwater made the effort in 1964, the Republican Party is taking a run at overturning the consensus that has governed U.S. political life […]

Among the many problems surrounding Ron Paul’s presidential campaign is the series of radical materials he published in the 1990s. Paul’s newsletters and fundraising appeals, as has been well documented, included racist, homophobic, and anti-Israeli propaganda, as well as bizarre conspiracy theories. Paul, when asked about his publications, tends to stick to the same line: […]

On Friday, a college student in New Hampshire reminded Mitt Romney that “many” of those in her generation “find it especially hard to relate” to the former governor as a candidate. She asked why those in her age group should “mobilize” for the Romney campaign, instead of President Obama. His response was rather mind-numbing. “What […]

The New York Times‘s Justin Gillis reported over the weekend on the extreme weather conditions seen in the United States in 2011. Whereas a typical year features three or four weather disasters with costs exceeding $1 billion each, this year has seen 12 — and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration “has not finished counting.” […]