Where is the presidential race now? Probably where it has been for some time. Barack Obama is slightly ahead of Mitt Romney, but the prize is still up for grabs — perhaps why all these polls are driving so many people nuts.
After a mob stormed the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, Mitt Romney quickly put out a news release highlighting the misplaced emphasis on Muslim feelings, but it was badly worded and he would have been better advised to wait. He had a valid point to make, but in his haste he unwittingly triggered a media bonfire.
And so the once-dreamlike story entered its nightmare phase. In the beginning, nothing could go wrong for Barack Obama. Now, it seems nothing can go right. The man who promised to transform our politics has turned out to be an ordinary player, at times as divisive and partisan as any common ward-heeler.
If Claire McCaskill is re-elected, the GOP primary voters of Missouri will have joined those of Delaware, Nevada and Colorado, states where Republicans blew a chance for Senate control in 2010 by nominating candidates who were amateurs or too far-out for the general election — categories that both apply to Todd Akin.
Historically, politicians proposing entitlement reform lose in the face of hysterical attacks from the programs’ defenders. Two things are different this year. The Obama administration, not Mitt Romney, approved cuts in Medicare’s growth for today’s seniors. And a long-running movie has been playing in Europe, showing what happens when countries refuse to get their fiscal houses in order.
The market itself may break up the big banks. They’ve become ungainly blobs with chronically low shareholder returns. Expect hedge funds and vulture capitalists to move in, buy up blocks of shares and start pushing for breakups.
The Obama administration could be putting welfare reform's record of success at risk. It is claiming authority to waive the law’s work requirement for able-bodied recipients — the core element of reform. Did Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius exceed her authority in issuing such a claim?
An arts campus in the Crossroads District would dramatically accelerate investment in the central core and, over time, change the face of the city.
The Supreme Court’s ruling to uphold the Affordable Care Act was a big victory for President Barack Obama, and it highlights one of Republican Mitt Romney’s most glaring vulnerabilities as the GOP nominee. It is a reminder that as governor of Massachusetts, he pushed through a precursor of Obamacare that included a personal mandate.
So I went out to the Overland Park Arboretum to see what the uproar was about. I had seen pictures, but viewing Yu Chang’s “Accept or Reject” on site was a bit of a letdown. This was the sculpture that provoked a petition drive to convene a grand jury and investigate an obscenity charge? In my humble opinion, it’s art of a mediocre sort.
Like a change of momentum in a big game, the last two weeks have brought an almost palpable shift — and for President Barack Obama, a long-running nightmare of bad news.
There’s little argument that the $800 billion-plus stimulus bill that was President Barack Obama’s first “accomplishment” soon became one of his biggest political liabilities. The recovery that began in mid-2009 has been the weakest since World War II in terms of GDP growth and nearly the weakest in terms of job growth.
