Michele Bachmann was the muse for a new romance novel called Fires of Siberia, to be published June 1, about a fiery presidential candidate who tries to bone up on her foreign policy credentials only to get stuck in the wilderness with a sexy stranger.
Two conservative nonprofits, one started by GOP strategist Karl Rove and the other backed by billionaire Koch brothers, have poured almost $60 million into TV ads to influence the presidential race so far, outgunning all super PACs put together.
Because Mitt Romney running mate Paul Ryan is such a budget hawk, you can expect the attacks on him and by him to be some of the wonkiest in a presidential election in recent memory, with Ryan's economic skills taking the spotlight.
In the Republican presidential nominee, Democrats have the embodiment of the rich guy who pays lower taxes than you, and in the Republican vice-presidential nominee, they have the face of the plan to let the rich guy pay even lower taxes than he is already.
Paul Ryan dominated the conversation on Sunday. McCain called him a 'a bold choice,' and compared him to Palin; David Axelrod called him 'bright,' but 'wrong;' and Tim Pawlenty tried to convince us he's 'not disappointed,' with getting passed over, again.
CBS announced Sunday morning that the Romney-Ryan tag team will do their first television appearance together on Sunday's episode of 60 Minutes. The interview will be hosted by recent Romney antagonist/interviewer Bob Schieffer.
Mitt Romney's Vice President choice, and the battle to break the news first, was the most anticipated political news of the summer. Reporters were able to beat Romney's app announcement, but only by a few hours. How did they keep Ryan a secret for so long? Spy tricks, that's how.
After what felt like years of relentless speculation, we finally know that Mitt picked Paul Ryan to be his vice president. Amazingly, both the Republicans and the Democrats seem to be happy with his choice.
It's only been a matter of hours since the much anticipated announcement from the Romney campaign that Paul Ryan is his running mate in November, and it's already paid off in a big way. Romney press sectary Andrea Saul says they've already raised $1.2 million. Update: they've hit the $3.5 million mark.
NBC News won the war last night. They were the first to report that Paul Ryan is Mitt Romney's choice for Vice President.
American Crossroads released a video Friday calling on President Obama to repudiate a Priorities USA ad that links Mitt Romney to a woman's death from cancer, and in it, they show a lot of skepticism that the Obama campaign operates independently from the Priorities Super PAC.
“If I were picking, I’d pick Pawlenty,” David Axelrod told National Journal. “You shouldn’t write that, because everybody will think I’m trying to bait [Romney] into picking Pawlenty.”
Jon Stewart checked in with campaign attacks last night on The Daily Show, and his take: Come on, guys. Try harder.
One of Harry Reid's top aides let slip some information on Reid's source to his 'Romney hasn't paid taxes in a decade' charge, but it was only a matter of time before he backtracked on all the juicy information he gave up.
Lots of people, mostly dudes, were puzzled by the rhythmic gymnastics qualifications that aired on NBC Thursday. But allow your gymnastics experts at The Atlantic Wire to explain see through the sparkle and understand why this is all a lot harder than it looks.
Conservatives want Obamacare to be cited as Exhibit A of Obama as a malevolent force in America. But Romney can't do that, because he established Romneycare in Massachusetts. But conservatives are not yet ready to accept that their candidate is not a torch-bearer for their principles.
In Rasmussen's daily Tracking Poll, Romney is up by four points. In Wisconsin, Obama is up by five. Here's our guide to today's polls and why they matter.
It might seem weird that Newt Gingrich admitted on CNN that there's "no proof" that President Obama gutted welfare reform (as a Romney ad claimed) especially since it was Gingrich himself who suggested to Romney's advisers that the candidate attack Obama on welfare. Talk about being an underminer.
Whether or not there is prostitution in the Macau casinos owned by big-time GOP donor and casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson isn't the point of his lawsuit against a Jewish organization he accuses of libel.
A new poll shows the "stubborn" trends in three swing states, another has Romney "underwater" in favorability, while still another puts Obama in the lead nationally. Here's our guide to today's polls and why they matter.
Mitt Romney was perfectly set up to spike a ball of righteous outrage at Democrats, but the campaign screwed it up in conservatives' eyes.
It is indeed the doldrums of August, a time when political campaigns become dull and repetitive and our pool reporters start to get a little slaphappy, as evidenced by the hilariously detail-laden Romney pool report.
The cast of Jersey Shore put out a PSA with MTV and Funny or Die to get the young'uns to the ballot box in this election, and we'll admit it, we're charmed by the Jersey Shore cast-is-super-informed schtick.
On Tuesday when Stephen Colbert exhorted his Colbert Nation to edit the Wikipedia pages of Romney's potential vice presidential choices, Wikipedia locked those pages to all but veteran editors, making the trick of counting the edits to see who's the favorite a lot more accurate.
Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill made the unusual decision to run attack ads against all three primary candidates running to be her Republican opponent, but one of those attack ads was not like the others.
Campaigns are using more and more sophisticated tactics to target voters. Case in point: One Pandora user got a pop-up asking if she would share her email with the Romney campaign.
In an era of crunched budgets and with Republicans in particular broadcasting a message of economic gloom, party planning and the all-important schmoozing it facilitates have gotten trickier for the droves of Washington organizations that want a presence at the end-of-summer conventions in Tampa and Charlotte.
Fundraising efforts from the Romney campaign are obviously vigorous if they made over $100 million two months in a row, but you'd think they would know better than to ask CNN contributor and Democratic National Committee member Robert Zimmerman to make a huge donation.
Harry Reid's just like those birthers who hounded Barack Obama into proving he was an American citizen. At least that’s what commentators as diverse as Jon Stewart, Ann Coulter and Frank Bruni all told us, after Reid said that an unnamed Bain investor informed him that Mitt Romney hadn't paid his taxes for ten years. But this is arguable.
If a puzzling political story shows up on the Drudge Report, you might be inclined to believe that Matt Drudge is looking to help Mitt Romney. But for conservatives pondering his report of David Petraeus being on the V.P. shortlist, this was some chicanery that goes all the way back to Obama.
Polls show conflicting results in Colorado, but another gives Obama a lead in North Carolina. More 2008 Obama voters are voting Republican than McCain voters are voting Democrat. Here's our guide to today's polls and why they matter.
Arizona Rep. Ben Quayle has gone public with a complaint that an opponent's campaign mailer saying he "goes both ways" is trying to suggest he's bisexual: Mr. Quayle, meet the Streisand Effect.
When Sandra Fluke became a household name after Rush Limbaugh called her a "slut" for testifying in favor of requiring insurance to cover contraception, right-wing conspiracy theorists howled that she was a Democratic operative. Now she kind of is.
Today in Ad Watch: Usually Democrats are the ones reminiscing about the 1990s, but now it's Mitt Romney getting nostalgic for the Clinton years. Meanwhile, a pro-President Obama Super PAC beats up Romney with a sad story about a woman's cancer.
A summary of the best reads found behind the paywall of The New York Times.
Washington men experience a second puberty when they work for a presidential campaign. No longer are they the sickly nerds with shriveled T-Rex arms. They blossom into icons of masculinity, Ernest Hemingways on the campaign bus.
After Mitt Romney's second month raising more than $100 million, President Barack Obama's total again trailed his opponent, his campaign said on Monday, revealing the president and the Democrats picked up about $75 million in July.
The Republican National Committee announced the headlining speakers for the party's convention in Tampa Monday, and the list does not reflect what's happened in the Republican Party over the last two years.
For the second month in a row, Mitt Romney and the Republican National Committee raised more than $100 million, as they announced July's total at $101.3 million on Monday, before the Obama campaign and Democrats released theirs.
Reince Priebus steals the headline for calling Harry Reid a "dirty liar," but everyone else on the Sunday talk shows couldn't stop talking about Reid, Romney, and the debate over the Republican needing to release more of his tax returns.
We're three months away from election day and the President is taking the weekend off from the campaign trail. It is for a pretty good reason, though. He's turning 51. Happy Birthday, Mr. President.
For a while, it seemed like Mitt Romney couldn't get anyone in Hollywood to give him some love. But he scored a big win at a fundraiser in Idaho on Friday night when he got an endorsement from the "man with no name," Clint Eastwood.
One way to get Mitt Romney to talk to the press more is yell, "WHAT ABOUT YOUR GAFFES?" as he walks to his car. Another way is to write about what a sweetie-pie his press secretary Rick Gorka is.
Americans are divided as to who will best handle foreign issues, and Romney leads North Carolina. Here's our guide to today's polls and why they matter.
The Tennessee Democrats have asked that people write-in a candidate of their choice rather than vote for the party's nominee to face Sen. Bob Corker, reports The Tennessean, and that's because the guy who won the Democratic primary, Mark Clayton, sounds ... let's just say not that mainstream.
Rob Delaney won't stop picking on Mitt Romney, and it's making his career. The comedian's tweets about the Republican nominee are so popular they're routinely in the top three mentions of Romney on the social network.
Grab your popcorn, get comfortable and tune in during primetime: Harry Reid and Mitt Romney are in the middle of a war of words and it's not going to end any time soon. Taxerism is officially a thing.
A Pew national poll shows Obama with a 10-point lead, the suburbs are tricky for the candidates, and New Jersey and Connecticut lean Obama. Here's our guide to today's polls and why they matter.
Obama has leads in Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, all crucial swing states. The president's approval rating was up for the first half of the year in 13 states and D.C. Here's our guide to today's polls and why they matter.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says he heard from a Bain investor who heard that Mitt Romney paid exactly zero taxes for 10 years, Reid tells The Huffington Post's Sam Stein and Ryan Grim.
Obama has the narrowest of leads over Romney in Florida, Missouri looks like Romney country, and 48 percent of Americans support gay marriage. Here's our guide to today's polls and why they matter.
Have a story we missed? A link we have to click? A sharp opinion about the news? Instead of waiting for us to post it, tell us on the Open Wire.
Submit your news and ideas | See all reader postsThe Atlantic Wire is your authoritative guide to the news and ideas that matter most right now. Our team tracks newsmakers and opinions across the entire media spectrum: newspapers, web sites, television, radio and magazines.
But we do more than just collect information. By synthesizing, analyzing and summarizing what’s out there, and adding new information when we can, we are a news engine that gives you a quick and valuable account of the issues of the day.
Have a hot tip? A story we missed? Tell us on the Open Wire
How to send us editorial or technical feedback
Get Five Best Columns in your inbox each morning (preview)
