election

Polls have closed in Georgia, the small Caucasus Republic that took center stage in the 2008 presidential campaign when Russian troops poured over the border there and threatened to topple the country's pro-American government. With both sides claiming victory, the country of 4.5 million people may once again feature prominently in an American presidential campaign.

Elm Grove, Wisc. & Washington, D.C.
THE WEEKLY STANDARD has learned that the Romney campaign has begun to prepare a vigorous effort in support of Paul Ryan if he is selected as Mitt Romney’s vice presidential pick—something now likely to happen soon. For example, GOP officials tell THE WEEKLY STANDARD that Wisconsin governor Scott Walker is among a group of Republicans who has been asked to be ready, in terms of his schedule and other practical preparations, to make the case publicly for a Romney-Ryan ticket as early as Saturday.

While attentions have been focused on outsourcing, tax hiking, and other political news, Iran has declined either to go away or to behave itself. Tensions have not eased and the Pentagon is taking precautions:

Assuming the polls are correct, Mexico’s notorious Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) will cruise to victory in Sunday’s presidential election and also win at least one chamber of the national legislature. Will this mean a return to the bad old days of authoritarian politics and corrupt deals with drug cartels, as many PRI critics fear? Or will it affirm the strength of Mexico’s young democracy and create a golden opportunity for economic reform?

LEXINGTON, KY (AP): Fifty-two-year-old Harrodsburg businessman Arnold J. Uncommitted, who had never before run for public office, stood before a delirious crowd of supporters at his makeshift headquarters here last night, basking in his near-upset of President Obama's reelection campaign in Kentucky.

The latest Purple Strategies poll finds that, in Florida, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is running slightly ahead of President Barack Obama, 47 percent to 45 percent. Seven percent of the poll's respondents are undecided.

"If I don’t have this done in three years, then there’s going to be a one-term proposition," President Obama said shortly after taking office on February 2, 2009. He was then referring to the economic recovery but, over three years later, the president's words seem prescient.

Matt Continetti, writing at the Washington Free Beacon:

It's over: CNN estimates that Barack Obama has won enough delegates to clinch the Democratic nomination for president in 2012.

Oh—the Republicans? OK, I'll concede that contest is getting close to over as well.

President Obama's explanation today of his private request yesterday, captured on an open microphone, of Russian president Dmitry Medvedev for some "space" and "flexibility" until after November's election, simply compounds the problem.

As Mike Warren noted earlier today, an aide to Mitt Romney compared the general election campaign to an Etch-a-Sketch. "Well, I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign," Eric Fehrnstrom said on CNN this morning. "Everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch-a-Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart all over again."

At a posh fundraiser in Atlanta, where 40 guests each paid $35,800 to attend, President Obama talked about . . . the weather. As today's White House pool reporter notes: 

Potus talked about how he had been in Chicago and Atlanta and how the weather was so warm. “It gets you a little nervous about what is happening to global temperatures. When it is 75 degrees in Chicago in the beginning of March, you start thinking. On  the other hand, I really have enjoyed nice weather.”