ArcaMax

As on so many matters, former Republican Senate leader Bob Dole put it best when he said that almost all members of Congress love to make tough speeches; they just don't like to make tough votes. Rep. Walter B. Jones Jr., the North Carolina Republican who died on his 76th birthday, was an admirable exception. Elected to his 12th term in ...Read more

Politics is not brain surgery; it's not that complicated. Politics is about addition, not subtraction. Show me a political party that is openly seeking and welcoming "converts" to its side and is finding common ground and I'll show you a growing, healthy and, yes, winning political party. By contrast, a political party that is dedicated to ...Read more

During long, gray, bleak winters -- before the women's and men's college basketball tournaments and before baseball's opening days -- I confess to an embarrassing secret: I thoroughly enjoy watching TV- and movie-related awards shows on TV, not just the Oscars but also the Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild Awards and others.

Why? To catch ...Read more

In 1960, when John F. Kennedy was running for the White House against Richard Nixon, winning Democratic presidential tickets still depended on the backing of segregationist party colleagues in the Southern states.

In October of that year, when Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested and sent to jail on a trumped-up traffic charge in Georgia, his ...Read more

How do we determine which governor or senator, celebrity or capitalist has what it takes to become a serious presidential candidate? Not that long ago, legendary New York Times columnist Russell Baker wrote that there was somewhere (almost certainly in the press section) a mysterious authority -- whom Baker called the "Great Mentioner" -- who ...Read more

Shortly after the cooling of the earth, I was privileged to be given a firsthand look at a Louisiana statewide campaign. It was then that I learned about former Louisiana Gov. Earl Long, who was portrayed by Paul Newman in the movie "Blaze," which allegedly told the story of the married governor's public relationship with the then-famous ...Read more

Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts became the first 2020 Democratic White House challenger to announce her "exploratory committee," a legal device that allows candidates to receive donations and to hire staff in preparation for a full-fledged presidential candidacy. Make no mistake; presidential exploratory committees are always composed ...Read more

In these Washington hours of genuine bipartisan panic after the principled resignation of the nation's thoroughly respected secretary of defense, James Mattis, American voters are forced to confront the real-life consequences of what it means to have elected an amateur-outsider -- with no governmental or military experience -- to be president of...Read more

Most American political leaders would agree with the poet e.e. cummings, who wisely wrote: "The most wasted of all days is one without laughter." For example, then-presidential nominee George W. Bush garbled in La Crosse, Wisconsin, on Oct. 18, 2000, "Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream." Once elected, Bush 43 was ...Read more

Yes, it's true that their party just won the House majority and more House seats, 40, than in any election since 1974 (and with the increasing likelihood of a new election in North Carolina's 9th Congressional District after confirmed reports of Republican election fraud there, maybe 41) and Democrats have had reason to celebrate -- especially ...Read more

In spite of continued attempts, either misguided or malevolent -- or both -- by national leaders to undermine public trust and confidence in the American free press and free elections, the United States' model of political and individual freedom has inspired billions around the planet. Barely 75 years ago, we had only 11, count 'em, ...Read more

For loyal Democrats, it must be painful to realize that so much of the criticism of your party turns out to be true. No better Democrat ever drew a breath than the late congressman from Arizona and presidential candidate Mo Udall, who candidly observed, "When Democrats organize a firing squad, they form a circle."

Think about it. The Democratic...Read more