Elections & Political Parties

Maybe that Saturday Night Live skit wasn't so funny after all. Four days after Fred Armisen announced that Barack Obama's signature accomplishments were "jack" and "squat," our do-nothing president did something that Democratic presidents have been trying to do for most of the last century: He celebrated a universal health care bill's passage through Senate Committee. For good measure, the Dow topped 10,000 for the first time since last fall's meltdown. Obama's polling has even ticked up: According to Gallup,… more

Every Wednesday (on WashingtonPost.com), Reihan Salam examines the ideological struggle for the future of American conservatism and how to revitalize the Republican party. ...

If you've spent time in progressive circles these last nine months, you've certainly heard the "make me do it" story. The details bounce around, even the name of the president who allegedly said it (sometimes it's Johnson, most often it's Roosevelt), but the basic tale is this: the president is meeting in the Oval Office with an activist, a union president or a civil rights leader pushing a progressive cause. At the end of the meeting the president says, "OK, you've convinced me. Now go out and… more

A book conversation, with Reihan Salam and Sam Tanenhaus, on The Death of Conservatism ...

Echoing scholar Michael Lind, Tanenhaus assails the party of Lincoln as tragically metamorphosing into a “Republiconfederacy,'' with only the Deep South and ...

The first rule of Jerry Brown's campaign for governor is that he doesn't talk about his campaign for governor.

Barack Obama had no choice but to disagree with Jimmy Carter. Carter called some of Obama's most hysterical critics racist. But our first nonwhite president once again tried hard not to be sucked into a racial uproar. As much as he and his liberal allies like to declare that Americans need to hash out racial issues publicly, the subject of race can only damage his presidency.

This past week, the straight-talking John McCain the media knows and loves made a conspicuous comeback. On Face the Nation, McCain struck a decidedly post-partisan note, praising the late Senator Kennedy before sharply contradicting fellow Republican Dick Cheney on torture. After a punishing defeat at the hands of Barack Obama, McCain seems to have regained his stature and his reputation for independence. He's had more media exposure than any other leading Republican, certainly far more than John Kerry in 2005… more

Think back to the spring of 1968. The U.S. is mired in Vietnam. The country is in turmoil. The sitting Democratic president abruptly pulls out of his campaign for reelection, and the leading conservative columnist of the day neither gloats nor does a victory dance.

It's nearly impossible to imagine this happening today.