Campaigns & Elections

When a lone attendee at a Mitt Romney rally said President Obama should be tried for treason, Romney ignored and later disagreed with the statement. CNN correspondent Jim Acosta played up the incident big time on Tuesday's The Situation Room, using it as an example of the Romney campaign being "straight off script." Of course, CNN is helping the Romney campaign to be "off script" by…

Ron Reagan, the son of late President Ronald Reagan, came down strongly on Tuesday against Barack Obama's unwillingness to definitively support same-sex marriage. Appearing on Hardball, the MSNBC political analyst said, "He’s taking more time evolving on this issue than humans took evolving from apes" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

President Obama formally kicked off his re-election campaign in Richmond, Va., and Columbus, Ohio, Saturday, and his theme was certainly not, shall we say, "it's morning again in America" — President Ronald Reagan's optimistic re-election slogan in 1984. Obama's central message was more like: "Hey, I realize things look bad, and I'm not going to pretend you want four more years of this. But…

Last week, I showed how the Republican Party likely would lose the presidential election in November if it were to use conventional campaign tactics. However, I also explained an unconventional strategy that could usher in victory for the GOP and our republic — a tactic used by President Abraham Lincoln. This week, I want to elaborate more on Lincoln's concept of a team of rivals — and who…

Bill Plante forwarded the Obama administration's spin on Tuesday's CBS This Morning concerning Vice President Joe Biden's support for same-sex "marriage." Plante omitted any clips for conservatives or even moderate Democrats during his report, and mentioned social conservatives' opposition only in passing. While Obama officials expressed support for same-sex "marriage" in the piece, no leftist…

After Vice President Joe Biden voiced his support of same-sex marriage over the weekend, CNN jumped all over the news on Monday and expectantly wondered if President Obama would follow suit. In fact, prime-time host Piers Morgan went so far as to admire the "brave Catholic" Biden for dissenting from Church teaching on the issue. During every hour save one from 5 a.m. all the way through 10 p…

ABC News correspondent Jake Tapper on Monday grilled the White House press secretary over Barack Obama's position on gay marriage and whether he will change his stance after the 2012 election. Tapper dismissed the President's 17 month "evolution" on the topic as "cynical." Yet, the ABC network skipped any coverage of his questions. After suggesting that Obama's "likely future" would be…

Wisconsin Republican Scott Walker has been the target of government union bosses since he began talking about a series of small reforms designed to preserve state employee pensions without breaking the budget. Despite the crony millions being spent, however, Walker seems likely to be able to stave off the union attempt to depose him in a recall election. That likelihood is perhaps what…

Last August, Politico revealed that the Obama campaign intended to make Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney "a sort of political Gordon Gekko" if he won the nomination. Right out of that playbook, MSNBC's Chris Matthews on Monday compared Romney to the financial villain of the '80s movie classic "Wall Street" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Providing a forum to actor and Obama supporter Robert De Niro on Sunday's NBC Meet the Press, host David Gregory teed up the celebrity to praise the President: "...you talked about your inspiration and your support for President Obama. Are you as inspired? Are you as hopeful? Are you as satisfied with what he's done as president as he stands for re-election?" [Listen to the audio or watch the…

Perhaps inspired by comments made by Vice President Joe Biden on Meet the Press a day earlier, Andrea Mitchell continued MSNBC's drumbeat of activism on gay marriage on her May 7 program. Mitchell seized on Biden's categorical support for same-sex marriage as an opportunity to litigate the issue with Republican National Committee (RNC) chairman Reince Priebus. During her interview with the…

CNN's Soledad O'Brien once again jumped to the defense of the Obama campaign, as she tried to argue on Monday that the economy is "trending" in the President's favor. She countered Romney aide Andrea Saul who hit Obama's record of net job loss while in office. "When you say 'hasn't created net jobs,' of course you are talking about there was so much job loss that even started to happen…

Talking to Meet the Press host David Gregory on Monday's NBC Today, co-host Ann Curry pushed for Mitt Romney to move away from conservatives: "...does he have to work really hard now to backtrack off of some of his positions in the past, as he was trying to win the primary...?" [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump] In a stunning double standard, in her very next question,…

Perhaps previewing the winking and nodding that will follow in the general election campaign, ABC's John Berman on Monday uncritically parroted the White House line on gay marriage: "What the President seems to want is space." The Good Morning America correspondent added that the President is looking for "space to say that perhaps in a second term he might change the policy. But for it not…