What we’ve learned so far in the short primary season is that political advertising still has a major impact. Newt Gingrich was obliterated in Iowa and Florida by a negative ad attack, and that also played a role in Mitt Romney losing his grip on South Carolina. While polling indicates that the President has benefited [...]

It appears that Mitt Romney will win the Florida primary going away, as polls show a double-digit lead or more. Newt Gingrich has downplayed the loss already and vows to take the fight to Super Tuesday and all the way to the convention if necessary. Gingrich’s problem is that there aren’t 10 Sheldon Adelsons willing [...]

Antonin Scalia thinks that everyone should be blamed but him for the hash that the Citizens United decision, among other things, has made of the campaign finance system. Super PACs have raised more than $30 million just three races into the 2012 presidential race, according to the website opensecrets.org, run by The Center for Responsive [...]

One of the biggest disasters with the broken campaign finance system is that we actually have no reporting mechanism for assessing how much money gets spent on campaigns, at least on television. Sometimes candidates and PACs will announce their spending on ads, but local stations are not obligated to publicly and fully report how much [...]

The oil industry, which has previously worked behind the scenes on urging a permit for the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, is now openly threatening the President, who must decide by February 21 to accept or deny a permit for the project. The oil industry’s top lobbyist warned the Obama administration Wednesday to approve the [...]

The big story for the 1,500 media members scurrying around Iowa trying to find something for cable news to shout about for the next few hours is that Newt Gingrich called Mitt Romney a liar. Specifically, Gingrich accused Romney of illegal coordination with the Super PACs that firebombed Newt’s candidacy with negative ads in Iowa. [...]

I’m not sure I should be paying this much attention to polls with almost a year to go until the election, but given that the Elizabeth Warren-Scott Brown race incorporates all the themes of contemporary politics in the 21st century, particularly the 1% vs. the 99%, it’s worth pointing out that this message is resonating [...]

If Elizabeth Warren were no threat to the established order, they wouldn’t get around to any effort to stop her ascension in the Massachusetts Senate race until much later in the cycle, if at all. But her surge over Scott Brown, and the possibility that she would have an even bigger perch from which to [...]

Today was the day that challengers in the Republican Presidential primary took out their heavy machinery on the front-runners. In two pretty devastating Web ads, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney are filleted, cut down by their own past public statements. First, we have Ron Paul going after Gingrich: This one includes the TV ad Gingrich [...]

At midnight last night, organizers in Wisconsin commenced a recall against Scott Walker and three Republican state Senators, kicking off the next wave of a process that began when Walker pushed for an anti-union law that stripped most collective bargaining rights from public employees. There were over 100 events last night across the state – [...]

There are elections for statewide officers next week in Mississippi and Kentucky, though aside from the Mississippi personhood amendment that is even giving conservatives second thoughts, they offer little drama. The Louisiana gubernatorial election already completed when Bobby Jindal broke 50% in the primary. There’s also a primary for OR-01, the seat vacated by Democrat [...]