Columns

A presidential campaign exposes candidates' strengths and weaknesses. The strengths they're eager to tell you about. So let's look at the weaknesses.

WASHINGTON -- Liberals have a rendezvous with regret. Their largest achievement is today's redistributionist government. But such government is inherently regressive: It tends to distribute power and money to the strong, including itself.

It is time to have an honest discussion about Internet sales tax and separate fact from fiction.

While Mitt Romney has enjoyed relatively soft treatment from the mainstream media, a recent front-page article in the Washington Post telegraphed the cheap shots Republicans can expect in the general election.

WASHINGTON -- After every other conservative alternative to Mitt Romney crashed and burned (libertarian Ron Paul is in a category of his own), from the rubble emerges Rick Santorum. But he isn't just the last man standing.

Six years, $100 million. Thats what Democrats are saying Mitt Romney has spent in the race so far for the presidency, as if somehow it's a bad thing.

Elections are contests held during a moment in time between candidates who have records stretching back, often far back, into the past. So there is always a tension between the man (or woman) who is running and the moment.

It is one of the most contentious but least understood issues now before Congress -- one that does not align neatly along party lines and has split the business community.

WASHINGTON -- The great thing about Iowa is that no matter who the voters select in their neighborhood huddles, it doesn't really matter.

President Barack Obama's deputy press secretary, Josh Earnest, said over the weekend the following when referencing Congress in 2012: The president is no longer tied to Washington.

Election year has finally arrived, well after the beginning of a turbulent and unpredictable election season, and voting begins on Tuesday in the Iowa Republicans caucuses.

"Events are in the saddle and ride mankind." In describing 2011, few cliches seem more appropriate. For in this past year, we Americans seemed to lose control of our destiny, as events seemed to be in the saddle.