You get insights into presidential campaign news coverage from the darndest places — a pharmacy, for example. I picked up three prescriptions, all packaged for me in one bag. When I opened the bag at home, I noticed one prescription was different from what I had ordered — they gave me something called doxycycline instead [...]

U.S. presidential elections come in two parts, the preliminary or nominating phase in the form of state caucuses and primaries, followed by the general election. The latter is considered the main event. This year, though, it’s the preliminaries that may prove to be decisive. In them, the GOP candidates are staking out such uniformly far-right [...]

My local paper informed me Feb. 8 that Rick Santorum was the top vote-getter in Minnesota, capturing 45 per cent of the votes cast in the state’s Republican presidential caucuses. But 45 percent of what? Finding out basic information about the contest was a day-long task. A Google search yielded nothing about the number of [...]

“Awww, shucky ducky!” as Herman Cain would say. I was so hoping that Donald Trump would have used his Las Vegas platform to endorse Newt Gingrich. He had hinted at it, but no. The “Celebrity Apprentice” maestro (and don’t you know it will be premiering soon) endorsed Mitt Romney instead. With Romney’s easy Nevada victory, [...]

How much longer will Republican presidential candidates pretend that George W. Bush doesn’t exist? Mitt Romney’s victory speech in Florida is a case in point. Romney tore Barack Obama limb from limb on joblessness and other issues, but never once acknowledged that what preceded Obama’s election might have had a bearing on his record. Leaving [...]

In the wake of the Florida primary, it may be timely to return to Iowa to provide context for the rancor and discord still besetting the Republican Party. In assaying the wreckage of the 2012 Iowa GOP caucus, you can conclude the obvious — that it was a fiasco. You also might wonder if that [...]

Sheldon Adelson and his Israeli-born wife are unabashedly Jewish and are unabashedly trying to buy with their riches Florida’s presidential primary for Newt Gingrich. That’s a potentially toxic combination in a country where some still harbor negative stereotypes about “Jewish influence.” Give the Adelsons credit for being up front about their faith and their pro-Israel [...]

By all accounts Newt Gingrich’s debating performance had a lot to do with his big win in South Carolina‘s presidential primary. That’s unfortunate because debating has nothing to do with governing. When was the last time an incumbent president engaged in an actual non-electoral debate with anyone? But now that debates have taken on added [...]

The winner of the Republican presidential nominating battle is unknown at this writing. It’s not too soon, though, to declare the loser: the English language. When, in politician-speak “moderate” becomes an epithet or President Obama morphs into a “socialist,” language has lost its moorings and meaning. At one time “moderate” had entirely favorable connotations. It [...]

I got an email from my nephew Daniel Sussman the screenwriter. He has been living in Greece for a while and thus has a calm, detached perspective on what’s going on in American politics. He wrote: Okay, maybe this is naive, but… Just about every sane person is (or a significant number of people are) [...]