Steve Benen

House Republicans said last week they’ll consider an extension of the payroll tax break, but Democrats have to accept a fairly long list of conditions. The one that got most attention was the demand that the Keystone XL pipeline be approved, but the changes to unemployment benefits are arguably the most extraordinary. Republican officials, well […]

As a political story, Mitt Romney’s offer of a $10,000 bet on Saturday night has a lot going for it. The story reinforces allegations that Romney is out of touch and unable to relate to middle-class anxieties; it comes at an awful time for Romney as Newt Gingrich surges; and perhaps best of all for […]

Though he’s repeatedly vowed to avoid negative campaigning, Newt Gingrich took a pretty sharp swipe at Mitt Romney today, using one of Romney’s biggest vulnerabilities against him. On Fox News earlier, Romney went after Gingrich on the money he received from Freddie Mac. Soon after, campaign reporters asked the disgraced former House Speaker for his […]

Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that won’t necessarily generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers: * A new poll out this morning from University of Iowa shows Newt Gingrich continuing to lead the Republican presidential field in the first caucus state. Gingrich is out in front with […]

When Illinois Republican Robert Schilling was running for the House last year, he based part of his platform on his opposition to earmarks. “We need earmark reform that improves transparency, roots out corruption and eliminates wasteful spending,” he wrote in an op-ed two weeks before the election. “My opponent never met an earmark he didn’t […]

At the end of Saturday night’s debate for the Republican presidential candidates, the field was asked to offer an example of something they’d learned from one of their GOP rivals. Newt Gingrich pointed to the former senator from Pennsylvania. “Rick Santorum’s consistency and courage on Iran has been a hallmark of why, if we do […]

Newt Gingrich ran into some trouble recently when we learned that he lobbied for Freddie Mac and then lied about it. That said, despite exceedingly unflattering revelations, voters didn’t seem to care much about the story, and the headlines soon faded. Mitt Romney, scrambling to stem Gingrich’s rise, hopes to bring the story back. Mitt […]

It’s going to be tough for Rick Perry to top last week’s embarrassing gaffe — he apparently thinks the Supreme Court has eight justices — but when we reflect on the 2012 race and come up with the governor’s top 10 funniest screw-ups, this one will probably make the cut. While criticizing President Barack Obama […]

On “Fox News Sunday” yesterday, Chris Wallace asked Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) about Republicans refusing to allow lawmakers to vote on Richard Cordray’s nomination to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The GOP Senate leader wasn’t the least bit embarrassed about his party’s abuses. “[W]hat we are saying to the president is: join […]

Clearly, the most memorable moment in U.S. politics over the weekend came in Saturday night’s debate, when Mitt Romney challenged Rick Perry to a $10,000 bet over a line from Romney’s book. It caused an immediate firestorm — for the multi-millionaire vulture capitalist to try to intimidate a rival with his wealth, throwing around a […]