Steve Benen

Virginia will hold its Republican presidential primary on Super Tuesday (March 6), it would appear to be one of the more important contests. But the state’s unwise ballot-access laws have ensured that Virginia will be largely ignored. By late Thursday, it looked as if Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry had collected the necessary signatures and […]

It’s likely to be a pretty slow news day, and I don’t imagine too many readers will be stopping by, so expect a very light posting schedule today (which is to say, this may be the only post). I will, however, be around in case something dramatic and/or unexpected happens, but if the political world […]

It wasn’t a great week for congressional Republicans, who ended up hurting themselves twice — they looked bad fighting to raise middle-class taxes, and then looked worse caving when the heat was on. Jon Chait argued this week that GOP policymakers were so far around the bend, they looked politically “suicidal.” The payroll tax debacle […]

For all of the times American Crossroads, Karl Rove’s attack operation, is truly exasperating, once in a while, the group’s hatchet jobs are actually rather amusing — in an unintentional sort of way. Yesterday, Crossroads released a memo accusing the Obama White House with prioritizing politics over economic policy, and allowing political strategists to replace […]

Vice President Biden had an op-ed in the Des Moines Register yesterday on what “a real opportunity society looks like.” It was a direct, unambiguous response to Mitt Romney’s bizarre speech this week, accusing the White House of secretly wanting to conspire to turn the United States into a communist-like society in which everyone makes […]

The presidential practice that became rather scandalous during the Bush/Cheney era hasn’t gone away completely. When President Obama signed a budget bill on Friday, he issued a signing statement claiming a right to bypass dozens of provisions that placed requirements or restrictions on the executive branch, saying he had “well-founded constitutional objections” to the new […]

First up from the God Machine this week is a look at the challenge evangelical voters are facing in choosing a favorite Republican presidential candidate. Among the most competitive candidates, do these Christian conservatives back the Republican with the scandalous personal life or the Mormon, whose church many evangelicals consider a “cult”? My friend Kyle […]

It’d be a shame if the Justice Department’s actions in South Carolina get lost in the holiday-weekend shuffle, because this is an important move. The Obama administration entered the fierce national debate over voting rights, rejecting South Carolina’s new law requiring photo identification at the polls and saying it discriminated against minority voters. […] In […]

Today’s edition of quick hits: * As promised, President Obama signed the two-month extension of the payroll tax cut this afternoon in the Oval Office, and soon after left for Hawaii to join his family for the holidays. * Syria: “Twin car bombs ripped through the morning calm of Damascus on Friday, killing at least […]

The Washington Examiner‘s Conn Carroll takes a cheap shot at Greg Sargent today, based on a piece he published referencing one of my posts, so I thought I’d take a moment to weigh in. DNC stenographer Greg Sargent is attacking Mitt Romney again, this time for Romney’s claim that Obama “has not created any new […]