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Category Archives: Political Commentary: Campaign 2012
The Biggest Surprise of the ’12 Election | USNews.com | 11.12.12
A day or two before the election, U.S. News opinion editor Robert Schlesinger and I exchanged predictions to the percentage point for both tickets. Robert is the son of former John F. Kennedy presidential speechwriter and historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., so you can imagine his preference, as you can mine. I’m a former Reagan presidential speechwriter. Our prognostications […]
Posted in Political Commentary: Campaign 2012 Tagged 2012 election, campaign, election 2012, U.S. News Comments closed
Confessions Of A ConfoBiOholic | Ricochet.com | 11.11.12
My name is Clark and I am a ConfoBiOholic. As you know, ConfoBiOholism is a well documented addictive disorder. As with most addictions, the first step to recovery is acknowledgment. In ConfoBiOholism, acknowledgment is known to be especially challenging. The condition is all but invisible to the addict himself, no matter how persistently friends and […]
Posted in Political Commentary: Campaign 2012 Tagged 2012 election, campaign, election 2012, Ricochet Comments closed
OK, Here’s My Election Prediction. What’s Yours? | Ricochet.com | 11.3.12
The shouting has almost stopped. Weeks ago the voting began, but Tuesday the balloting storm reaches landfall. It is time for pontificators to prognosticate. So here you go. My call: Romney 52%, 277 electoral votes; Obama 47%, 261 electoral votes. Romney wins Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, New Hampshire, Iowa, Colorado, and Wisconsin — and loses […]
Posted in Political Commentary: Campaign 2012 Tagged 2012 election, campaign, election 2012, Ricochet, Romney Comments closed
The Choice For Tomorrow | HughHewitt.com | 11.5.12
Among the great failures of the mainstream media in this campaign has been to claim that neither candidate has laid out an agenda. Both have been as clear as candidates can be about their plans for the nation in the next four years. On this, the day before Election Day, let’s review the particulars: Energy: […]
Posted in Political Commentary: Campaign 2012 Tagged 2012 election, campaign, election 2012, GOP, HughHewitt.com, Romney Comments closed
The Bottom Is Dropping Out of the Obama Presidency | USNews.com | 10.29.12
Last week, we may have seen the bottom beginning to drop out of the Obama presidency. Even the MSMosphere is starting to feel the good Mitt Romney (or maybe it’s bad Barack Obama) vibrations. Last Friday, ABC News’s Terry Moran tweeted, “Obama’s campaign seems small-bore, predominantly negative, and downright weird (Lena Dunham)—a candidate off-stride in […]
Posted in Political Commentary: Campaign 2012 Tagged 2012 election, campaign, election 2012, U.S. News Comments closed
Benghazi v. Findlay: The National Security Stakes in the Election | HughHewitt.com | 10.29.12
In the week since the last presidential debate, national security – supposedly something the American people don’t care about – has become Exhibit A in the case for a new president. Why were reinforcements and air cover denied to our men in Benghazi under jihadist fire? The White House never misses a chance to trumpet […]
Posted in Political Commentary: Campaign 2012 Tagged 2012, 2012 election, campaign, HughHewitt.com Comments closed
What The Veep Smackdown Tells Us About Tonight’s Debate | Ricochet.com | 10.16.12
Since March, the lead in the Rasmussen daily tracking poll – perhaps the country’s most reliable poll – has switched more than thirty times. It could happen again. The president has said he was “too polite” last time. I say that if that is what he believes he did wrong in the first debate and […]
Posted in Political Commentary: Campaign 2012 Tagged 2012 election, campaign, election 2012, Ricochet Comments closed
Foreign Policy Debate, Romney Looked Like The Real President | HughHewitt.com | 10.23.12
Four debates, including the Veep debate. Four wins for Romney-Ryan. Everyone had said about this debate that Romney needed to show we could trust him as commander in chief and head of our foreign policy. He cleared that hurdle and then some. Given the political moment, the incumbent needed to look far superior to his […]
Posted in Political Commentary: Campaign 2012 Tagged 2012, 2012 election, campaign, election 2012, Ricochet, Romney Comments closed
Who’s Right, Gallup or Rasmussen? Today may tell. | Ricochet.com | 10.19.12
By now it is clear that, in terms of public perceptions (maybe on points, too), all three debates have been winners for Romney-Ryan. But have they been big enough winners to push the GOP ticket over the top? In Washington, the question is being framed this way: Is Romney up 49-47 points, as pollster Scott […]
Posted in Political Commentary: Campaign 2012 Tagged 2012 election, campaign, election 2012, Obama, Ricochet, Romney Comments closed
Biden’s debate night bluster looks even worse 48 hours later | Ricochet.com | 10.13.12
Rick Wilson persuasively argues below that Vice President Joe Biden’s principal objective going into Thursday night’s debate was to reenergize the dispirited Democratic base. If so and if the vice president’s clownish performance fitted the script, it only confirms the cluelessness of the supposedly brilliant Chicago-based managers of the Democratic campaign. Everything I learned about […]
Posted in Political Commentary: Campaign 2012 Tagged 2012, 2012 election, campaign, Democrats, Obama, Republicans, Ricochet, Romney Comments closed
“Lesson for POTUS Debate #2: It isn’t over ‘til it’s over” | HughHewitt.com | 10.15.12
Can things get any worse for the Obama-Biden ticket? Two weeks ago the president debates the first capable opponent of his career and comes off as an empty suit. One week ago the vice president puts on a clownish performance in his matchup with Congressman Paul Ryan. Then the polls tanked. On Saturday this week, […]
Posted in Political Commentary: Campaign 2012 Tagged 2012, 2012 election, campaign, Democrats, HughHewitt.com, Obama, Republicans, Romney Comments closed
Biden Unhinged! | USNews.com | 10.12.12
What was that all about? The inappropriate smiles, the aggressive laughs, the all but unhinged finger-pumping raging at moderator Martha Raddatz–I suppose Vice President Joe Biden could have come in with a less appropriate performance last night. I just don’t know how. Then there was the substance. The vice president’s charges that Rep. Paul Ryan […]
Posted in Political Commentary: Campaign 2012 Tagged 2012, 2012 election, campaign, election 2012, U.S. News Comments closed
Hidden factor in the election: Obama advertising advantage | Ricochet.com | 10.09.12
While, as Mollie notes below, the just released Pew poll showed a big move of voters producing a convincing Romney advantage, the Rasmussen poll today rates the race tied. This was after a post-debate shift that that took Romney from two points down in Rasmussen’s tracking to as many up. The two-point move between yesterday […]
Posted in Political Commentary: Campaign 2012 Tagged ads, election 2012, Obama, Romney Comments closed
“Why the Obama Campaign and Such Friends as Paul Krugman Shout “Romney Lies” Even Though Romney Speaks the Truth” | HughHewitt.com | 10.08.12
Yesterday, the Sunday morning talk shows were filled with Democrats touting their new excuse (they always have excuses) for President Obama’s inability to engage during last week’s debate: Mitt Romney lied. Governor Romney’s brazen misstatements, they said, left the president so overwhelmed with disbelief that he found himself all but speechless. If you are like […]
Posted in Political Commentary: Campaign 2012 Tagged debate, election 2012, Obama, Paul Krugman, Romney Comments closed
Five Debate Night Ideas for Romney and His Team | Ricochet.com | 10.02.12
Last week Peter emailed me an invitation to join the Ricochet gang. I immediately said yes. As he explained in his generous introduction below, Peter and I met in Ronald Reagan’s White House, where we both served as speechwriters, first to Vice President George H.W. Bush, then to President Reagan. Peter was one of the […]
Posted in Political Commentary: Campaign 2012 Tagged debates, election 2012, Obama, Ricochet, Romney Comments closed
Reality Check: Mitt Romney’s Campaign Is Not Over | USNews.com | 09.29.12
To read Politico, The Washington Post, and just about every publication in the MSMosphere, the Romney campaign is over. Done. Running 4.1 percentage points behind the president, as of Friday morning in the RCP average he is deader than a doornail. I don’t believe it. Yes. Yes. I’ve seen all those polls in the average: Rasmussen, Fox, Gallup, Bloomberg, […]
Posted in Political Commentary: Campaign 2012 Tagged 2012 election, media bias, Obama, polls, Romney, US News Comments closed
Advice to Romney: Go Big, All In | HughHewitt.com | 10.01.12
In GOP circles, the call continues to build for Governor Romney to deliver major addresses on the economy and foreign policy. In last week’s column, I noted that, in addition to my column the week before, this sentiment was being expressed among Republicans and conservatives around the nation. I mentioned hearing it from another former […]
Posted in Political Commentary: Campaign 2012 Tagged 2012 elections, GOP, Obama, Romney Comments closed
Advice to the Romney Campaign: Time for Something Old (Policy Speeches); Something New (Twitter) | HughHewitt.com | 09.24.12
A tide of opinion is rising inside Republican ranks. In last week’s column, I said that Mitt Romney needed at least two policy speeches – one on the economy and spending, the other on foreign policy. Pull his positions together. Put them in the context of the nation and the times. For example, in a […]
Posted in Political Commentary: Campaign 2012 Tagged 2012, 2012 election, campaign, HughHewitt.com Comments closed
Two Speeches Governor Romney Should Deliver on National Television | 09.17.12 | HughHewitt.com
If you are wondering why President Obama came out of Charlotte with a week-long bounce, consider this: In the fortnight covering the Republican and Democratic conventions, the Obama campaign and allied independent expenditure committees ran roughly 41,000 ads, twice as many as their pro-Romney counterparts (http://tinyurl.com/8r2rhqq). Apparently the Obama people did not trust their man’s […]
Posted in Political Commentary: Campaign 2012 Tagged advertising, economic policy, foreign policy, HughHewitt.com, Middle East, Obama, Romney, speeches Comments closed
Real Story of the Campaign: President’s Crony Capitalism Prolonged the Downturn | 09.11.12 | HughHewitt.com
Last week, the Democrats in Charlotte partied as if there were no tomorrow… and no yesterday. Friday morning, following the president’s peculiarly disconnected speech of Thursday night, reality returned. Last week’s jobs numbers – few new ones, an entire city of Americans dropping out of the workforce in the month before – were enough to […]
Posted in Political Commentary: Campaign 2012 Tagged 2012, 2012 election, campaign, HughHewitt.com, Obama Comments closed
Why the Obama-Romney Race May Not Be the Dead Heat Polls Describe | USNews.com | 09.04.12
As the Republican convention closed on Thursday night, a new poll pointed to the potential for a major surprise when Americans go to the voting booths in November. Pollsters will tell you that they cannot always count on voters to level with them about which candidates they favor. For example, Gov. Scott Walker’s victory in the […]
Truth in Tampa; Hysteria in Charlotte | HughHewitt.com | 09.03.12
How do you know that the GOP convention was a big success? Just look at the near hysteria of the Paul-Ryan-lied stories coming out of the Obama campaign. Obama manager David Axelrod and his minions want to make America forget that Mr. Ryan spoke the truth in his acceptance speech on Wednesday night, as Governor […]
Right Time Right Man: GOP Mood in Tampa | HughHewitt.com | 08.28.12
As Republicans prepare in Tampa for their convention to at last get underway, the mood of the party is vastly different from four years ago. On the day John McCain delivered his acceptance speech to the St. Paul convention, I wrote in the Wall Street Journal that the GOP was “a party that doubts itself.” […]
Joe Biden Is the Problem VP Candidate, Not Paul Ryan | USNews.com | 08.18.12
It wasn’t supposed to go this way. For more than a decade now, the announcement of a GOP vice presidential pick has, with few exceptions, sparked a trumpeting from the Democratic campaign of the day on how extreme the candidate was, how unfit for the office. The idea has been to use the lesser-known veep […]
Obama versus Romney, a choice not of how to fix the fiscal mess but if to fix it – President No versus Governor Yes | HughHewitt.com | 08.21.12
With a little short of a week to go before the Republican convention, the campaign has taken a startling turn. Cautious, bland Mitt Romney didn’t just pick a running mate when he tapped Paul Ryan. He bet his entire campaign on grabbing the forbidden third rails of American politics: Social Security and Medicare. At this […]
Picking Ryan – Romney Shows He’s Got Serious Policies and Great Political Instincts | HughHewitt.com | 08.13.12
On Saturday Mitt Romney proved he is a serious man and will be a serious president. He also demonstrated that he is a shrewd political strategist. In picking Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan to be his running mate, Romney bet both his election and his administration on a central task, reducing the national deficit and debt […]
Posted in Political Commentary: Campaign 2012 Tagged debt, deficit, election 2012, HughHewitt.com, Medicare, Obama, Obamacare, Obamacare decision, Romney, Ryan, Social Security Comments closed
Is the Bain Bashing Campaign Backfiring on the President? | HughHewitt.com | 7.17.12
Team Obama has spent the last couple of weeks pummeling Mitt Romney over his long-ago leadership of Bain Capital and that Romney is (wasn’t this the revelation of the year) wealthy. Yesterday the Obama people were comparing Romney’s former company to the villain in the new Batman movie, whose name is the homonym Bane. The […]
Communications Advice for the Romney Campaign | HughHewitt.com | 07.10.12
Anyone who has been in a presidential campaign knows that everyone has advice for how you can do better. Right now everyone is telling Mitt Romney: You need to do a better job of connecting. Not me. Yes, I have advice – just not that advice. The campaign is in its battle of the agendas […]
Advice to Mitt Romney on How to Pick a Veep | HughHewitt.com | 06.04.12
On Sunday, Reuters reported that GOP-nominee designate Mitt Romney might announce his running mate selection “earlier in the summer.” Here are three names for Romney’s reviewers to consider: Dan Quayle, Sarah Palin, Dick Cheney. Together they tell you a lot about what’s ahead and how the campaign should prepare. Dan Quayle: Though all but forgotten […]
The “War on Women” and the “War on the Middle Class” Backfire as Obama Campaign Themes | HughHewitt.com | 05.22.12
Here’s a shocker. Judging by this morning’s top line polling data, almost nothing in the presidential race has changed since mid-January. Think of it. The first three-day Rasmussen head-to-head tracking poll in 2012 (taken January 19-21) found 46 percent of voters supporting President Obama to 43 percent supporting Governor Romney, a three-point spread. In Rasmussen’s […]
The Constitutional Convention and The 2012 Election | HughHewitt.com | 05.14.12
Today is Monday, May 14. In 1787, also on Monday, May 14th, in Philadelphia, the Constitutional Convention held its opening session. Now, two hundred and twenty five years later, we are engaged in a great presidential campaign that, at its most essential level, is about the future of the governmental system the delegates to that […]
Three Political Evenings and State of the Presidential Election Campaign | HughHewitt.com | 05.09.12
Here are three scenes from three recent evenings that to me told volumes about the state of this year’s presidential campaign. The first was last night — a gathering of Washington conservatives. At the reception before the dinner, I questioned a number of pollsters and pundits about the shape of the race. The daily Rasmussen […]
The Beltway Snobbery of Hilary Rosen’s Attack on Ann Romney | U.S. News and World Report | 04.13.12
This week—in the person of attack pro Hilary Rosen—the Obama campaign tried out what must have struck them as a gambit born of genius. Call it the mother of all linkages. How do you link Big Campaign Theme No. 1 (class warfare) with Big Campaign Theme No. 2 (the GOP “War Against Women”)? I’ve got […]
What Now: the GOP Race and the Election to Come? | HughHewitt.com | 04.10.12
Yesterday, Newt Gingrich all but conceded the presidential race to Mitt Romney. In an interview, the one-time front-runner acknowledged that the former Massachusetts governor was the running away favorite to snag the GOP nomination. The former speaker of the House effectively said he would be going only through the motions of a campaign from here […]
Few Questions Answered for Romney, Santorum, and Gingrich on Super Tuesday | USNews.com | 03.09.12
With a not-so-Super Tuesday behind us (only about half as many states participated this time as in 2008), where does the GOP nomination race stand now? The voting this week revealed both nothing and everything about the contest—and general election in the fall. The nothing part was thanks to an unappreciated oddity about this year’s […]
How the GOP Will Win… or Lose | HughHewitt.com | 02.28.12
As two more states hold Republican primaries today, the message out of national data is that the election is the GOP’s to lose – and the party may prove fully up to the task. Yes, I have heard talk about the president’s approval ratings surging. But look at the Rasmussen tracking graph (http://tinyurl.com/5tnd2b). If the president’s […]
Posted in Political Commentary: Campaign 2012 Comments closed
The Administration, the Constitution and the Campaign | HughHewitt.com | 02.07.12
In 1961, Ronald Reagan warned that embracing government-mandated health care would be a big step toward losing our freedoms. This week we saw how big a step that could be. Leave it to the Obama Administration. If they have a choice between restraint and respecting national norms on one hand and maximization of government power […]
Posted in Political Commentary: Campaign 2012 Comments closed
Two Polls Show What is Driving the GOP Presidential Race | HughHewitt.com | 11.29.11
The best poll for grasping the ups and downs of the Republican presidential contest ran in the National Journal magazine in late October (http://tinyurl.com/7nnvpw3) and has been updated several times since (http://tinyurl.com/d92zrqh). In prior columns I have argued that GOP voters in this cycle are breaking differently than in 2008, when there were distinctly social, […]
Gingrich and the Logic of the 2012 Race | HughHewitt.com | 10.31.11
All of a sudden, Newt Gingrich is the talk of the GOP presidential contest. A story anticipating his resurgence ran on the front page of Sunday’s Washington Post. This was not too many days after Weekly Standard editor William Kristol first suggested that the former speaker of the House might be getting a second look […]
The Week’s Most Impressive News About the GOP Race | HughHewitt.com | 09.26.11
The GOP presidential sweepstakes this past week has been an ongoing tale of ups and downs. But the most interesting campaign story I heard in the past seven days received only footnote level notice when it broke – and that was three months ago and overseas. This week all the top-level talk has been about […]
Exactly One Year to the Nomination | HughHewitt.com | 08.29.11
One year from today, the Republican National Convention will nominate the party’s 2012 candidate for president. With Texas governor Rick Perry now in the race, the field is almost complete – almost but very likely not quite. With President Obama’s disapproval ratings having hit a remarkable high of 55 percent in Gallup daily tracking results […]
What Really Happened on Election Day? The Big Clue. | HughHewitt.com | 11.16.12