As someone who believes that excessive partisanship and Balkanization is poisoning our politics, I have tried to view Hillary Clinton as something other than the ghoul she is portrayed as in conservative circles. No accusation against her is considered too outlandish to gain assent in some precincts of the right: Vince Foster was murdered. Clinton covered up a cocaine smuggling operation in Arkansas. She assassinated Kathleen Willey's cat. 

The greatest failures of the past generation concern men, women and sex -- and there could not be two more awful representatives of what has gone wrong than Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

A longtime Republican conservative emailed me after Donald Trump's Tuesday night romp through the "Acela corridor." "Is the GOP now the anti-trade, anti-immigrant party?" 

When a Republican has been in the presidency for eight years, as George W. Bush was, Democrats run against the Republicans. When a Democrat has been in office for eight years, as Barack Obama will soon have been, Republicans run against Republicans.

In a year of floors falling away under one's feet (such as the assumption that nearly all Americans demand a minimal level of civility in public life), the Corey Lewandowski story represents one more gob smack. That Donald Trump stands by the belligerent Lewandowski tells us more of what we already knew about Trump, and also hints at the coward beneath the blowhard.

I first became aware of Donald Trump when he chose to make cheating on his first wife front-page news. It was the early '90s. Donald and Ivana Trump broke up over the course of months.

Mitt Romney made a compelling and urgent case for why the Republican Party's soul is at stake in this election cycle. And speaking of Romney, his experience in 2012 illustrates why those who are shrugging that it is too late to stop Donald Trump are mistaken.

As the results of New Hampshire's primary were coming in Tuesday night, some commentators on Twitter were jubilant about the "disruption": that is, the victories of an inane socialist demagogue and a foul-mouthed nationalist demagogue and what they represented to the "establishment." Yes, mobs are disruptive. Madame Defarge enjoyed a good shakeup herself.

A new movie that touches upon the election prospects of one female candidate for president debuts this week. Will "13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi" provoke thousands of angry viewers to march on Hillary Clinton's home with torchlights and pitchforks? Doubtful.

In December 2011, the candidate who led in the Iowa polls was not Rick Santorum (who ultimately squeaked out a victory there), nor Michelle Bachmann (who had driven Gov. Tim Pawlenty from the race by winning the Iowa straw poll earlier in the year), nor Mitt Romney. No, the leader was Ron Paul, with 23 percent.