Columns

NEW YORK -- How worried are Democrats? V-E-R-Y.

When people learn that you are an economist, they often want you to predict which way the economy is going. There seem to be more than the usual number of calls for such predictions lately. But an economist should be more aware than others are of how hazardous such predictions can be.

Members of Congress and their staffs will slowly be making their way back to D.C. this coming week, in an effort to get prepared for a quick, short, fall session of the 111th Congress before the November elections.

Voters looking at supporting moderates in the GOP and the Democratic Party this upcoming election cycle might want to ask themselves: Do they want to be "Stupaked"?

WASHINGTON -- The collapsing crusade for legislation to combat climate change raises a question: Has ever a political movement made so little of so many advantages? Its implosion has continued since "the Cluster of Copenhagen, when world leaders assembled for the single most unproductive and chaotic global gathering ever held." So says Walter Russell Mead, who has an explanation: Bambi became Godzilla.

Mainstream media were taken aback when television and radio talk-show host Glenn Beck recently hosted a rally on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The throng of people assembled to celebrate and hear more about religious and civic values than about partisan politics.

DENVER -- Put away the pitchfork metaphors that are prevalent in this season of populist ferment: Colorado's Senate contest is a duel of distinguished diplomas. Tea partiers toiled mightily to nominate Ken Buck as the Republican candidate to run against Sen. Michael Bennet, who is a direct descendant of a Mayflower passenger, grandson of an economic adviser to Franklin Roosevelt and son of an official in the Carter and Clinton administrations. He attended tony St. Alban's school in Washington, D.C., and Yale Law School. Buck is a Princetonian.

NEW YORK -- Despite all the words spilled in evaluating Glenn Beck's tent-less revival last weekend, the real meaning may have been hiding in plain sight.

Bud Chiles is taking a hike from the Florida governor's race, but that doesn't mean the field is cleared for Democrat Alex Sink.