Hello everyone. David and I have been in meetings all day but we made time to check in on the comment thread announcing the move to the Daily Beast and Newsweek. The support in the comments has been remarkable. However, there seems to be some misunderstanging going around so we wanted to clear up a   more

-FrumForum Goes Live
FrumForum launched itself almost exactly three years ago, on Inauguration Day 2009. Over the subsequent interval, our hundreds of contributors have reached more than 5 million individual readers. I like to think that together we have helped to move the national debate. When we launched, Sarah Palin was a leading candidate for president   more

Far from yielding an ambiguous electoral outcome, the Iowa caucuses solidly confirmed the Balkanization of the Republican Party, a fact that will lead to potential electoral failure in 2012 unless neutralized soon. These internal divisions hurt the party’s leadership in Congress in 2011; they have already improved Democratic chances to retain the Senate, gain substantial   more

Rep. Steve King (R-IA) has introduced a bill to repeal “birthright citizenship.” It’s probably the most significant immigration reform bill introduced in Congress since 1965 when nation quotas on immigration were repealed. That revision in the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”) significantly changed the racial and ethnic composition of the country and the number of   more

Someone should listen to John McCain. Asked by First Read whether he thought Arizona was in play this election cycle, McCain reportedly responded “I think that if not this election cycle, the demographics are that Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, even Texas will all be in play.” The Senator then added, “We have to fix our   more

Constitutional abuse begets constitutional abuse.
President Obama has engaged in a dubious maneuver to force a recess appointment through a Senate that denies it has recessed.
(Brad Plumer has a good run-down of the legal issues, here.)
The president’s action has ignited a fireworks show of Republican outrage. And yes, Obama has here pushed presidential power beyond past   more

Via an interesting post by Chris Conover, I came across this recently released National Health Expenditure report, which has data on health-care spending up through 2009.  This data includes a state-by-state breakdown of personal health-care spending (a number that includes direct expenditures on health-care but does not include administrative costs).  more

I have always been weary of the whine regarding the purported “liberal media”; having won 60% of presidential elections over the last 40 years, near-complete dominance of the radio airwaves, and a cable news behemoth with ratings greater than the aggregate of both its nearest competitors, conservatives are hardly the most suppressed segment of our society.   more

In my column for The Week I discuss the problems with Rick Santorum economic plan:
Santorum’s concern for the American middle class has been one of the most attractive features of his candidacy for the Republican nomination. Alone among the Republican candidates, he took note of the freezing of upward mobility and the stagnation of middle-class   more

So it looks like the indications are that Rick Perry, former front-runner, last place finisher in the 2011 Republican Debate Tournament, is not hanging up his brush jacket yet. Despite his very melancholy nigh-concession last night, the Texas governor seems to be headed to South Carolina instead of back home to Austin.
The question is: Why?  more

David Frum argues that a “A Romney-Santorum contest is not much of a contest at all.” He’s probably right about this. Romney beats Santorum hands down in resources, organization, discipline, and support from GOP elites. But there’s one wild-card that could make things interesting: Santorum may somehow learn to master the art of   more

Odd experience on CNN this morning.
I was on a panel that had a chance to interview Ron Paul. I asked this question:
“I attended a precinct caucus last night where the person who spoke on your behalf praised you as a strong social conservative: pro-life, anti-gay marriage. He also described you as pro-defense, he said you   more

In the wake of the Iowa caucuses, what matters now is not the exact order of Romney, Santorum, and Paul; the numbers are very close. What does matter is the range between the candidates. Iowa gives us basically a tie between Romney and Santorum, with both at around 25%. Ron Paul comes out a strong   more

We have just received yet another confirmation of the virtual uselessness of the Ames Straw Poll. The proud winner of the straw poll, Michelle Bachmann came in sixth in the Iowa caucuses (and in fact finished dead last among all serious contestants–Jon Huntsman just ignored Iowa). Furthermore, she only managed to win just slightly more votes in the   more

Byron York has a tough read on the meaning of the Iowa result for Romney.
In the end, Romney escaped humiliation, and he did it at far less cost than in 2007-2008, when he gave Iowa everything he had in his first run for the GOP nomination. “If you look back four years ago, we had   more

Based on the tiny unrepresentative sample at the precinct caucus I attended: his core group are true believers, who have absorbed his message on Austrian economics and foreign policy non-interventionism.
But when they communicate to the broader Iowa Republican rank-and-file, they repackage Paul as a much more conventional conservative: pro-life, pro-military, small government, and supportive of   more

Well, however tonight turns out it appears Rick Santorum is being given his chance. I particularly liked the analogy that makes the boyish Santorum Luke Skywalker, but whether the X-Wing takes down the well-coiffed Death Star Santorum’s doggedness and convictions appear to be paying off. And for those of you who comment at FrumForum even David Brooks is now on board! Only   more

Result 1:
Romney wins, Santorum second, Paul third, Gingrich fourth, Perry fifth.
This is the result indicated by last day’s polling. If it eventuates, this will be a very short nominating contest. Romney will proceed to win in New Hampshire. Perry and Gingrich will try to make a last stand in South Carolina. Unless one or the   more

The violence in Mexico related to drug trafficking has continued over the past year, even though it hasn’t been in the headlines in the US in recent months. While in some cases there has been a lull in the violence, such as in Ciudad Mier, a small border town that was largely abandoned because of   more

Andrew Sullivan complained yesterday that I had engaged in a “McCarthyite” attack on Ron Paul by writing the following:
A politician isn’t answerable for the antics of every one of his supporters. But there’s surely a reason, isn’t there, that racists, anti-Semites, 9/11 Truthers, and Holocaust deniers are so strongly attracted to the Paul campaign. They hear   more