Former Vice President Joe Biden speaks during the second night of the first Democratic presidential candidates debate in Miami, Fla., June 27, 2019. (Mike Segar/Reuters) Leftward, ho! If Joe Biden were smart . . . I’ll just pause here till the laughs die down. Biden had a lane all to himself in the debate Thursday

Beto O’Rourke speaks at the first Democratic presidential debate in Miami, Fla., June 26, 2019. (Mike Segar/Reuters) While it’s political common sense that candidates are not generally assured of or eliminated from anything after one measly debate, it is certainly true that voter assessments can be quickly re-aligned. The last two nights of Democratic debates

Mayor Pete Buttigieg speaks at the SC Democratic Convention in Columbia, S.C., June 22, 2019. (Randall Hill/Reuters) Buttigieg would seem perfect on paper to reach out beyond the woke white element of the party. This isn’t how he’s running, though. It would tax even the prodigious powers of the late novelist Tom Wolfe to create

Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska accepts the vice-presidential nomination of the Republican party at the GOP’s convention in St. Paul, Minn., on September 3, 2008. (John Gress/Reuters) Last week, there was a headline, reading, “Buttigieg Leaves Campaign Trail After Fatal Shooting. Reality Rears Its Head.” The article began, While his 2020 rivals mingled with large

Julian Castro speaks to members of the media the morning after participating in the first Democratic debate in Miami, Fla., June 27, 2019. (Mike Segar/Reuters) In the first installment of NBC’s Democratic presidential debate yesterday evening, ten candidates spent a combined four minutes talking about abortion — or “reproductive justice,” as they prefer to call

Miami — It was supposed to be Elizabeth Warren’s night to shine, but it didn’t quite work out that way. Now in third place behind Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders in the national polls, Warren was the only candidate on stage Wednesday night polling in the double digits (with her Democratic rivals registering somewhere between 0.4

Eli Broad has written a column for the New York Times that manages to be wrong at almost every opportunity it has to be wrong — economically, politically, grammatically, etc. It’s really quite something. Broad writes: “I’ve come to realize that no amount of philanthropic commitment will compensate for … Read More

Democratic 2020 presidential candidate and senator Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) speaks during an event in Columbus, Ohio, May 10, 2019. (Maddie McGarvey/Reuters) Elizabeth Warren enters the first Democratic debate tonight hoping to capitalize on some recent good headlines. She’s gained in polls, from an average of 6 percent in March to 12 percent today. Nate

I live in Queens, so I was paying close attention to last night’s Democratic primary (the only election that matters) for that borough’s district-attorney election, which leftist candidate Tiffany Cabán won by a razor-thin margin at about 10 percent turnout. The result continues the hot streak for left-wing outsiders in New York elections, and the

New citizens stand during a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) naturalization ceremony at the New York Public Library, July 3, 2018. (Shannon Stapleton/Reuters) Making the click-through worthwhile: How the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates want to make being an American citizen simply a matter of location and desire, instead of law; another allegation of hideous

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders in Columbia, S.C., June 22, 2019. (Randall Hill/Reuters) Senator Bernie Sanders, one of the top-tier candidates for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, plans to unveil a proposal Monday to cancel all U.S. student loan debt. The College for All Act would cover $1.6 trillion in student debt and would affect

Joe Biden speaks at an event at Iowa Wesleyan University in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, June 11, 2019. (Jordan Gale/Reuters) What Biden’s latest gaffe, and the reaction to it, can tell us. Joe Biden has stepped in it, good and deep. Biden, if he has any hope of ever being elected president, will be dependent on

Pete Buttigieg speaks to the media after addressing the 2019 National Action Network National Convention in New York City, April 4, 2019. (Lucas Jackson/Reuters) We know why black Democrats who object to Buttigieg’s gay marriage aren’t called bigots. It would be political suicide. When Vice President Mike Pence was the governor of Indiana, he got

Joe Biden (Yuri Gripas/Reuters) Moderate voters are in the market for a politics of de-escalation, but conflict can’t be postponed forever if enmity runs deep enough. Maybe it is bad strategy for Joe Biden to recount the times he was a young senator and sat at the table with segregationists to get things done. At

Sen. Elizabeth Warren speaks at the Manchester Democratic City Committee Flag Day Dinner in Manchester, N.H., June 14, 2019. (Brian Snyder/Reuters) From taxing the wealthy tax to fining hospitals for black maternal deaths, her ideas don’t make sense. Elizabeth Warren is being lauded as the serious candidate in the race. Her motto, “I have a

If there is one thing you learn about at Oberlin College, the notoriously progressive liberal-arts college, it is surely privilege: white privilege, hetero privilege, gender privilege, you name it.  Now, an Ohio jury has identified an entirely new variety, woke privilege, and resolved to hold people who … Read More

President Donald Trump attends a campaign kick-off rally at the Amway Center in Orlando, Fla., June 18, 2019. (Carlo Allegri/Reuters) The heart of the Trump movement — a reservoir of disaffection and righteous anger — was on full display at the president’s official reelection campaign launch. ‘What a turnout!” The president began his 2020 campaign

Joe Biden speaks at an event at the Mississippi Valley Fairgrounds in Davenport, Iowa, June 11, 2019. (Jordan Gale/Reuters) A number of former vice president Joe Biden’s rivals for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination chastised him Wednesday after he lauded the civility and pragmatism of the southern segregationist senators he worked with early in his

Biden is also coming under fire for these remarks: By the way, you know, remember I got in trouble with some of the people on my team, on the Democratic side, because I said, ‘You know what I’ve found is rich people are just as patriotic as poor people.’ Not a joke. I mean, we

Joe Biden speaks to members of the press at Iowa Wesleyan University in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, June 11, 2019. (Jordan Gale/Reuters) His rivals, beginning with Cory Booker and Bill de Blasio, have already started to pounce. By any standard, Joe Biden is the Democratic presidential front-runner. The poll averages at RealClearPolitics, for example, show Biden

President Trump addresses a re-election campaign rally in Montoursville, Pa. May 20, 2019. (Carlos Barria/Reuters) Making the click-through worthwhile: President Trump kicked off his reelection campaign with a raucous rally last night in Florida, the Me Too movement hits Hollywood yet again, and a Medicare for All poll reminds us how unreliable public-opinion surveys often

An American flag flies at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., January 20, 2019. (Al Drago/Reuters) A group of 23 Democratic state attorneys general demanded Tuesday that Congress take steps to strengthen election security ahead of 2020’s elections. In an urgent letter to the Senate Appropriations Committee and the Senate Rules Committee, the group outlined proposals it wants

Joe Biden speaks at an event at the Mississippi Valley Fairgrounds in Davenport, Iowa, June 11, 2019. (Jordan Gale/Reuters) Joe Biden, polling first among Democratic presidential candidates, said Monday that he thinks he will beat incumbent President Trump in 2020 in several deep red Southern states, including Texas and South Carolina. “I plan on campaigning

Supporters of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at a campaign event in Harrisburg, Pa., in 2016. (Carlos Barria/Reuters) Democrats must make amends with the 402 other counties that voted for Trump after voting for Obama at least once. Washington — “It is a great advantage to a president,” said the 30th of them, “and a major

Bill Maher recently did the country a service by illustrating, in a way few other pundits have, the simple horror of abortion — what it does, and what becomes of its victims. Years from now, when abortion is outlawed and our culture has stopped glorifying the killing of the unborn, Maher may be seen as

I really, really don’t want to be on the “Nicolas Kristof Wrote Something Dumb” beat, but, Jiminy Cricket! Kristof has taken a trip to Guatemala, with a young woman from Arizona State University in tow. “My annual win-a-trip journey,” he writes. Reporting from Guatemala, he discovers that many … Read More

President Trump addresses a re-election campaign rally in Montoursville, Pa. May 20, 2019. (Carlos Barria/Reuters) And Donald Trump holds the high ground The 2020 campaign begins in earnest next week in Florida, when Donald Trump officially launches his reelection bid. On June 26, 20 Democratic candidates and five moderators hold the first of two nights

After decades of supporting the bipartisan Hyde Amendment, which is intended to prohibit direct public funding for abortion, Joe Biden has reversed his position and now advocates taxpayer-funded abortion on demand. Biden has long claimed to be “personally pro-life,” even though as a senator from Delaware he rarely voted like the abortion moderate he claimed

I agree with what David French has to say about Senator Kamala Harris’s promise to act unilaterally on immigration if she’s elected president. I think his opening comment, though, is wrong. He writes, “The odds are heavily stacked against Democrats’ retaking the Senate. . .” Heavily? At the moment I’d say that the three seats

Elizabeth Warren and Hillary Clinton at a campaign rally in Manchester, N.H., October 24, 2016. (Carlos Barria/Reuters) I’ll be out next week. Remember that if you’re in the Hilton Head area, you can hear me ramble about the book, answer some questions about politics and the presidential race, and get some free food Monday night. It’s