It was a week of risk-taking in the 2012 presidential race.

Here are a couple of things to keep in mind about Newt Gingrich, as he leads in polls for the Republican presidential nomination nationally and in Iowa and South Carolina, and may be threatening Mitt Romney's lead in New Hampshire.

One question I sometimes have been asked in this presidential campaign goes something like this: Why does Mitt Romney sound so corny?

What should be done about income inequality? That basic question underlies the arguments hashed out in the supercommittee and promises to be a central issue in the presidential campaign.

The election of Barack Obama, we were told, would bring new respect and friendship for America in the world.

It irritates members of both groups when I note the similarities of the tea party movement that swept the nation in the 2010 election and the peace movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Some of my friends in the conservative blogosphere have been ridiculing a New Yorker named Joe Therrien. I want to put in a good word for him.

Herman Cain, beleaguered by charges of sexual harassment, was all over Washington last week -- an odd choice of venue, considering that the Iowa precinct caucuses are now just 58 days away and the New Hampshire primary 65.

Washington was all a-Twitter (literally) Monday over Politico's story about the sexual harassment charges against Herman Cain -- and about Cain's serial self-contradictions.

The argument is being made in some quarters that, however unsuccessful Barack Obama's domestic policies have been, his record in foreign policy has been successful. But when you examine the claims of success, they seem a bit peculiar.