This issue: November 5, 2012 (Vol. 18, No. 08)

Marvellous Mitt

BY WILLIAM KRISTOL

Six months ago, in an editorial titled “President Romney,” I speculated that Mitt Romney​—​then behind in the polls​—​could prevail this fall: “If Romney can speak to Americans’ sense that it’s a big moment, with big challenges, and if he can make this a big election rather than a petty one, then he can win​—​perhaps big.” I continued: “Romney needs, over the next six months, to convince some number of swing voters he can and should be the next president. The easiest way to do this is by .  .  . behaving like a president. If you want to seem presidential, be presidential. .  .  . Let Obama lower himself by acting as campaigner in chief rather than commander in chief. Let Obama be shrill. Let his campaign be petty. Meanwhile, Romney can lay out his governing agenda to restore our solvency, put us on a path to prosperity, attend to our security, and safeguard our ...

The Campaign Dog that Didn’t Bark

Farewell, Mediscare.

BY MARK HEMINGWAY

When GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney announced on August 11 that he had selected Paul Ryan as his running mate, the consensus was that he had made a daring choice with a huge risk: being demagogued on Medicare cuts.

Ryan’s reputation rested on his bold proposals as the House Budget Committee chairman to offer seniors “premium support” payments to purchase their own Medicare coverage. Even though the program is facing an astronomical $38 trillion in unfunded liabilities and is the single-largest driver of America’s mounting debt, Medicare reform has historically been a big electoral loser for Republicans. As recently as May 2011, Democrat Kathy Hochul came from behind to win a ...

The Day After

Four scenarios for the next four years

BY JAMES W. CEASER

For the small school of political analysis that draws its inspiration from the great French 17th-century philosopher René Descartes, the cardinal methodological rule is to begin from what one can know “so clearly and distinctly as to exclude all ground of doubt.” The only important fact about the election contest today that meets this stringent threshold is that someone named either Barack Obama or Mitt Romney will be declared president, most likely on November 7.

Beginning from this point of certainty, Cartesians are already at work surveying the possible alternative post-November 7 political landscapes. “I prognosticate. Therefore I am.”

War Without Victory

A bicentennial reflection on the War of 1812.

BY JAMES M. BANNER JR.

The War of 1812 between Great Britain and the United States—“the American War” to Britons—was part of the closing phase of the Napoleonic Wars. Those wars composed the final of three world conflicts—60 years of them—reaching back at least to the Seven Years’ War (our French and Indian War) of the mid-18th century, and including the American War of Independence. Some historians even see the Napoleonic Wars as the last gasp of what they call the Second Hundred Years’ War—extending longer than a century, in fact—commencing as far back as the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-14) for dominance in Europe and overseas.  

George Herbert Walker Obama

Andrew Ferguson, campaign veteran

BY ANDREW FERGUSON

The news readers from NPR were mum-mum-mumbling in the background the other morning as I was putt-putt-puttering around the house when .  .  . all of a sudden .  .  . running counter to every fiber of my being .  .  . pulling against my every natural inclination .  .  . I began to pay attention! President Obama, one of the news readers said, was giving a speech in the Midwest to road-test a new theme for the campaign’s final weeks: “trust.”

“There’s no more serious issue in a presidential campaign than trust,” the president said. “Trust matters!” The Midwesterners cheered.

The Incredible Shrinking Obama

With our embassies around the world besieged, and some 47 million Americans on food stamps, the pettiness of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign has been something to behold. The leader of the free world has spent the last few weeks before Election Day talking about Big Bird and “binders full of women.” His latest gambit—accusing his challenger of having “stage three Romnesia”—manages the adolescent twofer of simultaneously mocking his opponent’s name and making light of cancer. 

We were convinced the Obama campaign had hit bottom, but if the president has one thing going for him it’s his ability to surprise. And so last week the Obama campaign unveiled a new campaign ad ...