When asked to describe Pennsylvania, Washington political consultant James Carville, who helped elect Pennsylvania Gov. Bob Casey and U.S. Senator Harris Wofford, once declared that the state was “Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with Alabama in between.” … But the past may no longer be prologue for Pennsylvania. Indeed, much recent polling [...] Read more »
As Virginia moves to the middle, Republicans face difficult choices
Virginia Republicans will gather in Richmond this weekend at a convention dominated by conservatives, even as fresh evidence shows them increasingly at odds with most voters in the commonwealth when it comes to key issues such as gay marriage, gun rights and immigration policy. A new Washington Post poll shows [...] Read more »
Love Thy Stranger as Thyself
… Some of the most enthusiastic endorsements of the new immigration bill have come from traditional evangelicals, who insist that reform “respects the God-given dignity of every person.” … Evangelicals’ growing support for immigration reform suggests an important shift in how conservative Protestants — who policed the boundaries of our [...] Read more »
Obama has problems, but what has the GOP done since November?
President Obama passed the 100-day mark of his second term facing questions about whether his political capital is already disappearing. Republicans took delight in his discomfort. But they have their own 100-day question to answer: What have they done since November to turn around their fortunes? … The most recent [...] Read more »
Why No One’s Winning in Washington
Each party emerged from the 2012 presidential election facing one overriding political test. So far, both are flunking. For Republicans, the key question was whether a congressional caucus rooted in the nation’s most conservative areas could court the broader coalition the party needs to regain the presidency. For President Obama [...] Read more »
The ties that should bind the GOP
We Republicans are meeting the enemy this year, and as a comic strip character once mused, the enemy might be us. In this off-off year, when we should be coalescing and preparing for the challenges ahead of 2014 and 2016, we are testing the ties that should bind, imitating Harry [...] Read more »
Tweedledee-Tweedledum Nostalgia
Back in the day – roughly the third quarter of the 20th century – observers of American politics debated the wisdom of what seemed to be a Tweedledee-Tweedledum party system. Some thought it was pretty good. In the 1960s, political scientist Robert E. Lane hailed an emerging “politics of consensus [...] Read more »
Three New Facts About the Tea Party
For a movement that’s helped to reshape the Republican Party—and by extension, reshape American politics—we know shockingly little about the people who make up the Tea Party. While some in the GOP once hoped to co-opt the movement, it’s increasingly unclear which group—the Tea Party or establishment Republicans—is running the [...] Read more »
Washington confronts still-divided America
Bipartisanship and cross-party alliances are suddenly in vogue in the Senate this spring. The question is whether the Senate is a leading indicator of a change in politics or still largely an aberration in a nation divided along red and blue lines. … The 2012 elections may have provided a [...] Read more »
Video: GOP risks seeming out of step with the rest of the US
Democratic pollster Fred Yang and conservative pollster Bill McInturff join The Daily Rundown’s Chuck Todd for a “deep dive” look at the latest NBC and Wall Street Journal poll numbers and the cultural divides in America. NBC News Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy Read more »