Columns

I had the privilege of being part of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s magic when I heard him speak in 1962, while I was in college in North Carolina. There -- in a segregated city where whites used one toilet and "coloreds" another, where the largest hospital admitted blacks only to windowless basement rooms -- the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., in a single afternoon, welded into one thousands of people, black and white.

Republicans often reward presidential candidates making second tries for the White House but some candidates--Rick Perry, Lamar Alexander--simply wear out their welcome. That seems to be the case with Mike Huckabee as the former Arkansas governor has proven a non-factor this time out. 

Democrats have a chance to make major inroads in Florida come November but one of their legislative leaders is giving them a road map leading nowhere. 

One prominent theme out of Tallahassee in the first week of the 2016 legislative session was an insistence that things would be different from last year. 

Ten of the Republican presidential candidates clashed in Fox Business TV debates Thursday night in South Carolina, which holds its primary after Iowa and New Hampshire.

Barack Obama's final State of the Union speech Tuesday night might go down in history as his worst.

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.

For Florida Republicans, Rome is burning. Up and down the state, GOP committee men and women, even some legislators, see what many of their leaders in Tallahassee don't -- a party on the verge of losing its grip on the power and majority it's enjoyed since 1996.

Last year Hillary Clinton made several stops across the Sunshine State in order to explain her goal of obtaining the Democratic presidential nomination. One thing was very clear during her political events in Florida and across the nation: she was avoiding several topics, scandals, and questions surrounding her campaign.

  WASHINGTON -- Reports of Jeb Bush's political death may be greatly exaggerated. Not only is Bush essentially locked in a statistical tie for second place in New Hampshire, depending on which poll you prefer, but he's enjoying the benefits of being largely ignored by the media.

Here's a surprise -- or maybe not so much: MoveOn, one of the nation’s largest and most influential grassroots groups -- the Democratic action committee most responsible for mobilizing Barack Obama's hugely successful Internet fundraising campaign through its MoveOn.org website in 2008 -- will back Bernie Sanders in 2016, not Hillary Clinton.  

In recent years, a small but growing number of people have advocated a convention of states to propose amendments to the Constitution of the United States. The reaction to the proposal has been hostile, out of all proportion to either the originality or the danger of such a convention.

Brute force is one way things get done in politics. If a party has an overwhelming majority in the legislative and executive branches, it can simply ram everything through.

President Obama will deliver his final State of the Union Address tonight. As he and his administration begin to cobble together a legacy worthy of the history books, he will attempt to sell the American people on a star-spangled list of Washington's accomplishments over the past seven years.

Whatever other problems conservatives have with Chris Christie, they have to like his style on teachers unions.