By Rand Paul
Obama acts as though we no longer have a Constitution
Independent voices from the TWT Communities
While the world's attention is fixed on the race for president and second-in-command, the fate of the third person in the line of White House succession also will be decided Tuesday, as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi hopes her Democratic Party defies the odds to recapture the chamber.
Baseball great Hank Aaron is a Barack Obama guy. Golf legend Jack Nicklaus is in Mitt Romney's camp.
Democrats have vilified super PACs since the Supreme Court deemed the murky megamoney-spenders legal in early 2010. And leading that charge has been President Obama, who, during his State of the Union speech that year, famously chastised the PACs' power for unlimited political spending with little transparency.
Call it the built-in gravitas gap: President Obama flies the country in a grand 747, cruises in plush limousines adorned with American flags, and speaks from the White House Rose Garden, while his campaign opponent, Mitt Romney, flies in a smaller MD-83 passenger jet, rides in nondescript SUVs and makes speeches at factories and strip malls.
After this, politicians everywhere should surely get the message. Mitt Romney's secretly recorded remarks at a Florida fundraiser — and the uproar that has followed — reinforce a key reality of the digital media era: the power of viral video to disrupt and potentially alter a high-stakes political contest.
After this, politicians everywhere should surely get the message. Mitt Romney's secretly recorded remarks at a Florida fundraiser — and the uproar that has followed — reinforce a key reality of the digital media era: the power of viral video and the unauthorized audio to disrupt and potentially alter a high-stakes political contest.
Mitt Romney and his presidential campaign are invading living rooms in key states across the country through a barrage of television ads that aim to convince voters that their economic well-being hinges on a change in the White House.
Congress is heading into the final stretch of its summer work period having passed none of its annual spending bills. What's more, with the start of the next budget year some 70 days away, it's unlikely that any of the bills will reach the president's desk for his signature.
While some Democrats have made it clear that they would rather not be seen with President Obama on the campaign trail this fall, likely Republican nominee Mitt Romney doesn't appear to face the same problem.
It's no longer just the economy, stupid. Social issues such as gay marriage, abortion and religious freedom have elbowed their way back into the political debate in the 2012 presidential race.
Mitt Romney's above-the-fray campaign strategy will be put to the test this week in Iowa.
House Speaker John A. Boehner has preached the need for Congress to have "an adult conversation" with the public. President Obama, when he was running for the office, promised to bring greater transparency to Washington.
In a world where corporations and unions have growing influence over political races - thanks to a Supreme Court ruling last year - some lawmakers and fiscal hawks worry that the lack of restraints on these groups could cripple efforts to revamp the nation's tax system.
Republicans could win Tuesday by losing their bid to take over control of the Senate.
Two years ago, it would have been unthinkable that both seats held by Kennedy family members could be won by Republicans.
"Republicans love governors because they tend to be more visionary and energetic," said Darrell M. West, a politics scholar at the Brookings Institution, a liberal-leaning Washington think tank. "Governors do not have the luxury of inaction. Most of them are required to balance their budgets each year and deal with major policy problems. Unlike legislators who talk a lot, executives have to act. Some of the most successful GOP presidential nominees previously served as governor and went on to become president."
"It's going to be complicated under any scenario," said Darrell M. West, a political analyst at the Brookings Institution. "Neither side is going to want to do things that's going to help the other."
