Health care has become one of the starkest contrasts between President Obama and Republican rival Mitt Romney in the 2012 campaign. And that's surprising, given that once upon a time they both came up with similar plans to fix the system.
This week, Ken Rudin and Ron Elving discuss Newark, N.J., Mayor Cory Booker criticizing the president's tactics on Bain Capital, the Tea Party's goals in next week's Texas Senate primary, and general dysfunction in D.C. In other words, it's the Booker "Tea" Washington edition of the podcast.
Politicians routinely use Twitter, but harder to find are those whose tweets actually, really, identifiably come from them. The ones who tweet interesting facts, interact with constituents, and even — gasp — crack jokes on occasion. Let me recommend a few who walk the walk and tweet the tweet.
President Obama campaigned Thursday in Iowa, where he delivered his sharpest criticisms yet of Republican rival Mitt Romney. Iowa is one of several states likely to determine the outcome of the November presidential election.
Voters in Southern Arizona's 8th Congressional District will decide next month who will replace former Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot in the head by a gunman during a district event. The race is between Gifford's former district director and the Republican who narrowly lost to Giffords two years ago.
President Obama won North Carolina by his narrowest margin in 2008, and state Democrats are fervently hoping to keep it "blue" for him in November. But defeat and controversy have many just feeling blue lately, three months before hosting their party's national convention.
Each work day for the past five weeks, after taking off my shoes and watch and passing through a metal detector, I've entered a small — often cramped — windowless federal courtroom in Greensboro, N.C. It's the trial of 2008 Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards. And it could be a while yet.
Mitt Romney has introduced his plan for overhauling education. At a speech to a Hispanic small business group Wednesday, the Republican presidential candidate outlined a blueprint that expands school choice for disabled and disadvantaged students, requires schools to provide regular reports on student progress and returns student loans to the private sector.
Long before Obama gave a commencement speech to Air Force cadets Wednesday, his campaign was focusing attention on his record with military families and veterans — a key voting group that could make the difference in swing states like Virginia, North Carolina and Florida.
Republicans have pounced on a comment by Newark, New Jersey mayor and Obama re-election surrogate Cory Booker. He called the Obama campaign's attacks on Mitt Romney's time at Bain Capital "nauseating." Host Michel Martin discusses the art of messaging with former presidential speechwriter Mary Kate Cary, and journalism professor Cynthia Tucker.
Insurgent candidates won contested congressional GOP primaries in two states on Tuesday. In a Kentucky district, the favorite for the fall prevailed thanks to some assistance from a wealthy 21-year-old benefactor.
Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. can't agree on what's behind the eurozone's troubles. Now it looks like the Europeans may try the approach President Obama has advocated: a commitment to long-term fiscal discipline while pursuing growth in the short term.
With the latest campaign dollar totals officially on the Federal Election Commission books, at least one thing is certain: President Obama will not have the huge spending advantage this November that he did four years ago. What is less certain: whether some big political donors can remain anonymous.
It increasingly looks like GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul and his passionate loyalists are consolidating clout in state party organizations and laying the groundwork for a presidential run in 2016 by the congressman's son, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. Even if Mitt Romney is the incumbent president.
In 2004, then-candidate Barack Obama campaigned on a message of hope and gained overwhelming support from young voters. In an op-ed in the Los Angles Times, Neal Gabler writes that many of those young voters are disappointed with his tenure, and they've turned to "DIY politics" instead.
President Obama and his expected Republican challenger are tied on the all-important question of who best to deal with the ailing economy, according to a poll released Tuesday.
President Obama is back in Washington after a long weekend of international diplomacy. First there was the G-8 summit at Camp David and then the NATO summit in Chicago. The Windy City is also home to the president's re-election headquarters, and yesterday he was forced to defend his campaign attacks on Republican rival Mitt Romney.
The Obama campaign continues its attack on Mitt Romney's time at the private-equity firm Bain Capital. Over the weekend, Newark, New Jersey, Mayor Cory Booker seemed to veer off the campaign's message. Later, Booker tempered his remarks in a YouTube video. But it didn't take long for the Romney campaign to seize on Booker's comments.
After their first meeting in 1989, legendary law professor Laurence Tribe was so impressed with the skinny first-year law student in jeans, a sweatshirt and an afro, that he made a special notation on his calendar. The student, Barack Obama, went on to become the first black president of the Harvard Law Review.
It's a classic campaign chain of events: a rising star (in this case Newark, N.J., Mayor Cory Booker) seems to cross his party's leader, and then says he was misunderstood. Meanwhile, the opposition uses his words to its advantage.
In recent years, critics have questioned the need for a U.S.-European alliance, originally formed to confront the Soviet Union. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright argues the president and NATO leaders must reaffirm the importance of their union to U.S. security.
The G8 Summit was dominated by talks on how to handle the latest financial setback in Europe. President Obama stood at the center of those talks, knowing that what Europe decides could have a lasting impact on the U.S. economy and his own political future. Host Michel Martin speaks with The Wall Street Journal's Sudeep Reddy.
The sophistication of congressional speech-making is on the decline, according to the open government group the Sunlight Foundation. Since 2005, the average grade level at which members of Congress speak has fallen by almost a full grade.
Those hoping to sway the presidential election with anonymous donations to non-profit political groups, could find their names made public this fall after a pair of court rulings. There are, however, some work around to remain unidentified.
