Elections & Political Parties

This is the premier episode of The Sidebar, the weekly podcast from the New America Foundation that looks at what's in and what's underlying the news. This week, host Pamela Chan talks with Tamar Jacoby, Katherine Zoepf and Dan Meredith about Syria, privacy and immigration.

Yes. Making Mitt Romney pay more in capital gains taxes would both help slow the alarming growth of inequality in the U.S. and, if offset by a decrease in the corporate tax rate, help keep capital and investment within our borders.

The half-educated man is dangerous because, as the adage goes: "Knowing a few things, he thinks he knows everything." There is bizarrely something of the half-educated man in the Republican presidential candidate and front-runner Newt Gingrich. A PhD "historian", Mr Gingrich certainly "knows" a few things. In fact, he has impressed audiences in debates with sweeping historical references and a seemingly assured command of policy details. This has partly contributed to the Gingrich surge, catapulting him into first place in many Republican polls.

In an era of presidential tweeting and daily briefing, the unique role of the State of the Union is easy to miss. From a speech that was originally meant to "recommend to Congress¹s consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient," the event has now become an opportunity for the president to make the case on the national stage that his vision for the country has been and will continue to be the best response to the issues of our time.

Newt Gingrich thinks that because CNN’s John King asked about his personal life last week, the “elite, liberal media” is out to get Republican presidential candidates. Nonsense. If journalists really wanted to make Gingrich and his fellow GOP frontrunners squirm, they’d ask why they supported the war in Iraq.

If you want to understand why the GOP is so ill prepared to compete in an increasingly nonwhite America, just look at the exchange between Fox News questioner Juan Williams and Newt Gingrich halfway through last night’s Republican presidential debate.

It being Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Williams asked Gingrich whether some poor and minority voters might not be insulted at his claim that poor kids lack a work ethic and that black people should be instructed to demand jobs, not food stamps. Gingrich, as is his wont, haughtily dismissed Williams’s question, to wild applause.

In a presidential primary season distinguished so far by the absence of substantive debates, the controversy over whether Mitt Romney and his partners at Bain Capital should be considered job creators or job destroyers raises a profoundly important issue.

Beyond the concerns about the loss of American jobs to off-shoring or automation and the food-fight tactics of Romney's rivals is a legitimate question about what kind of capitalism 21st century Americans should want.

Mitt Romney used his New Hampshire victory speech to preview the line of attack he’ll pursue against President Obama this fall. Boy, was it dull.

Romney’s basic claim is that Obama doesn’t believe in American greatness, and he does. If that sounds familiar, that’s because it’s been the basic Republican template since Ronald Reagan ran against Jimmy Carter. Democrats apologize for America, belittle America, Europeanize America while Republicans believe that as long as Americans remember their greatness and retain their optimism, everything will turn out fine.

When watching election-night media commentary, always remember: pundits have a bias. They want an exciting race.

Mitt Romney sailing merrily toward a Republican nomination that many considered foreordained is not exciting. So all over cable television talking heads are claiming that Romney's inability to win more than a quarter of the vote in Iowa constitutes a loss.