It appears that predictions of a new and long lasting Republican governing majority may have been premature and, in fact, if they don’t start acting like a majority party pretty soon on a range of issues, they won’t be one for very long! Of course, in any evaluation of policy priorities, there are big issues […]

You might want to mark March 17, 2005 as the end of an era, the day that the spirit of the Contract With America finally died. On that day, the Senate balked at the lightest touching of entitlements by rejecting President Bush’s modest cuts in the runaway growth of Medicaid increases over the next five […]

The title of this essay is from a book by that name by Thomas Frank. I haven’t read it, but reviews indicate that it essentially makes a point that illustrates perfectly the quandary in which the left finds itself—the inability for liberal elites to understand why any rational voter would cast a ballot for a […]

In the approximately forty years of my political consciousness, two events stand out as watersheds—the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 and the election of the Newt Gringrich-led Republican Congressional majority in 1994. The first represented the culmination of the maturity of the conservative movement, beginning in the mid-1950’s, from a fringe, reactionary backwater, to […]

Surprise, surprise! Character and moral values count. One of these days I will learn to have more confidence in the judgment of the American voter. On the eve of the election, I was very concerned that the electorate was about to set aside its natural conservatism and basic value judgments and be fooled again by […]

As we enter the election home stretch, the central issue remains war and peace, and it’s still Bush’s to lose. And if Karl Rove and the Bush brain trust allow Kerry and the Democrats to get away with the demagoguery of the Democratic convention message on war leadership, shame on the Republican Party.Charles Kesler makes […]

Of all the heat and light sparked by the campaign of the Swift Boat Veterans to discredit John Kerry, I have been struck most by two perceptive essays written one day apart by David Broder of The Washington Post and Daniel Henninger of The Wall Street Journal. Essentially, both of these pieces cut through the […]

From The American Enterprise we have the following items of interest: *A survey by Rasmussen Reports found that 62% of American voters believe the world would be a better place if other countries were more like the U. S. The number was 81% among Bush voters, but fell to 48% among Kerry voters. *The children’s […]

It is still early and there are too many uncontrollable variables to be confident of any settled trend lines, but here is my take on the defining issue in the Bush/Kerry race, and it came to me as I attempted to collate several op/ed pieces that recently appeared during the same week: David Brooks confessed […]

As an investment advisor, I am frequently asked about the immediate direction of the securities markets, and my answer has been, and will no doubt continue to be, that no markets are safe in a Presidential election year, much less one that is being conducted while in a state of war. Markets abhor uncertainties, so […]