National Party News

"This is the only way I can win. I can't win any other way."

Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.) told former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum (R) that is why he is switching parties, according to Santorum, as told to Fox News's Greta Van Susteren last night.

So, unless Democrats want to go so far as calling Santorum a liar, this is pretty much an open-and-shut case. And Specter's problems may just be beginning. No matter how much praise Obama and others on the left heap on Specter for this grand move toward political self-preservation, the truth is clear. Read more...

If there were a legislator’s bible, one proverb in it would be, “Blessed are the majority-makers, for they give us the keys to the kingdom.”

The majority-makers are those legislators in the House and Senate who come from swing districts. They don’t always vote with the majority of the majority, because they can’t if they want to stay elected.

The majority that treats that majority-makers with great respect, tends to their needs with care and feeding and tries to find compromises with them at crucial points in the legislative process will last long. Read more...

Remember the old saying, "You have no one to blame but yourself" — well, in light of Sen. Arlen Specter's (Pa.) defection to the Democratic Party, that appears to best describe what the Republican Party is going through. But if the Republicans want to find one person to start blaming, they many want to give special attention to Karl Rove.

Years ago, while “The Architect” dreamed of a permanent majority for the Republican Party, he helped engineer a crazy hard tack to the right for the Republican Party that began the alienation of moderates and independents that the Republican Party faces today. Read more...

Just when I think the Republican Party has turned a corner in the arena of big ideas and a bold vision for the future of this country, despondency creeps back in.

The latest case of despair/rage comes in the form of the Republican vocabulary playbook. A story last week by John Harwood of The New York Times depicts the latest pursuits by the party to position its members to strike a chord among the American electorate — what words work and what do not. Harwood goes on to quote Saul Anuzis, the former Michigan state party chairman who lost to Michael Steele in a bid to become the head of the national party. Read more...

The economy is in deep recession, with massive layoffs announced every week; we're faced with war in Afghanistan and Iraq and now must battle a swine flu that threatens to turn into a pandemic, which puts public health at risk and has already caused the European Union to issue a travel warning on visiting the United States and Mexico. And yet what are we talking about? Whether or not Dick Cheney is the leader of the Republican Party. Read more...

Last week was quite a week, teabags and all. We could chew over Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) urging ATM withdrawals as a response to the economic crisis, impeached former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) being offered $80,000 per week to do a reality television show, Sen. Roland Burris (D-Ill.) raising less than $1,000 since taking office, French President Nicolas Sarkozy seeing fit to bash the president of the United States, or Gov. Rick Perry (R) musing on whether Texas may soon need to secede from the union. Read more...

Pat Toomey is trying to get Arlen Specter booted from the U.S. Senate, and is entertaining the fantasy that he can be his replacement. As much I have disagreed with many of the Pennsylvania senator’s votes over the past two decades that I have been in Washington, I do appreciate his ability to win in the Keystone State.

Sen. John Cornyn (Texas), the Republican in charge of getting Republicans to take back the Senate, put it bluntly when he wrote: Read more...

Keep your eye on Meghan McCain, John's daughter and one of the savviest young Republicans in the nation.

Meghan is the future of the Republican Party, a true maverick who believes in a Republicanism of Teddy Roosevelt and not the Republicanism of Bush, Cheney, McConnell, Boehner, Cantor and the fringe-right that dominates Republicanism today. Read more...

For all of the talk of a Palin, Huckabee, Jindal or Romney as the GOP presidential nominee in 2012, the one to watch at this point in time is former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (Ga.).

With the possible exception of former Massachusetts governor and presidential candidate Mitt Romney, Gingrich stands alone in terms of putting forth ideas that address the biggest issues the nation faces. Far from playing it safe, he has been boldly forthright in his approach to problems and with his targeted criticism of President Obama. Read more...

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) is warning of a coming revolt should Republicans fail to collect themselves and gain the trust of voters. Gingrich has plenty of criticism for Democrats and President Obama as well but adds that the current spending binge began under President Bush. He believes GOP voters will peel off to form a third party if they don't see Republicans becoming a viable, governing force again soon. Read more...