Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee is switching parties to become a Democrat. Why? Because President Obama is enjoying decent approval ratings, and Rhode Island is a Democratic state. We plotted the timing of politicians' party switching along the president's Gallup polls — and found that White House approval is a pretty good guide for when these guys will jump ship.
Voters see Obama as the most ideologically extreme 2012 candidate -- only Michele Bachmann thought of as almost as far away from Americans' own ideology as Obama. Here's our guide to today's polls and why they matter.
Newt Gingrich's campaign theme song should be the Lady Sovereign song that goes "love me or hate me, it's still an obsession." He is both the sixth-most admired man in America and the most polarizing Republican presidential candidate. Here's our guide to today's polls and why they matter.
President Obama's job approval rating is inching upwards -- and while he loses to a generic Republican, voters are still skeptical of the current Republican lineup. Here's our guide to today's polls and why they matter.
Ben Nelson announced his retirement in a YouTube video on Tuesday afternoon, not "a press conference back home in Nebraska," as Politico had reported earlier in the day.
House Republicans managed to turn President Obama into a tax cutter in an election year while getting blamed for opposing something they'll probably pass anyway, The Wall Street Journal complains in an editorial.
The payroll tax debate in Congress is violating Reagan's famous Eleventh Commandment: Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.
Pulitzer-winning factchecking operation Politifact shattered its rapport with the liberal media Tuesday after it crowned left-wing attacks on Paul Ryan's Medicare plan the "Lie of the Year" for 2011.
The White House is making House Republicans feel its wrath the best way it knows how: Aggressive Photoshopping.
House Speaker John Boehner says House Republicans are united against a Senate bill to extend the payroll tax holiday but that may be the only way the majority in Congress's lower chamber is unified.
It seems like a hundred polls are released every day now that the Iowa caucuses are less than a month away. Here's our guide to which ones matter and why.
With 27 hours to go, Congressional leaders signed off on a $1 trillion spending bill late Thursday night to avoid a government shutdown.
It was a key Democratic demand but party leaders abandoned a surtax on millionaires to finance a payroll tax holiday Wednesday night in return for, well, nothing, as of yet.
It seems like a hundred polls are released every day now that the Iowa caucuses are less than a month away. Here's our guide to which ones matter and why.
The federal government has begun preparing again for a government shutdown as stalled negotiations over a payroll tax holiday prevent a spending bill from advancing in Congress.
President Obama's reelection campaign manager presented five different ways for Obama to get 270 votes in the electoral college to show he's not facing such steep odds after all.
It seems like a hundred polls are released every day now that the Iowa caucuses are less than a month away. Here's our guide to which ones matter and why.
A risky decision by President Obama to connect the fate of a payroll tax break and an omnibus spending bill will be tested today as the Republican-controlled House votes on the payroll tax proposal.
What candidate is witty and smart and experienced enough to expose as a lie the narrative that President Obama is an eloquent orator?
On television, lawmakers in both parties are projecting confidence that a deal to extend a payroll tax break will be reached by year's end but a number of significant disputes remain unresolved.
With one week left until Congress is scheduled to adjourn for holiday recess, Senate Democrats are considering dropping a millionaire surtax designed to pay for a payroll tax break to 160 million Americans.
Defying President Obama's threat to veto a payroll tax extension tied to approval of the Keystone XL pipeline project, House Speaker Boehner told colleagues today that the GOP would include the provision anyway.
As the clock winds down to holiday recess, portions of the GOP are in revolt over plans to extend a payroll tax cut to millions of Americans—a dispute reaching the highest rungs of the party.
Putting pressure on Congress to approve a payroll tax holiday by year's end, the White House unveiled a countdown clock on Monday ticking off the seconds to Dec. 31, but another deadline looms even larger: Holiday recess.
The 2012 Republican primary probably won't be much like the 2008 Democratic primary, but Mitt Romney's campaign is organizing just in case the nomination fight against Newt Gingrich lasts all the way into the spring.
Democrats and Republicans both want to extend payroll tax breaks for workers earning less than $1 million, but neither wants to vote for the other's plan to do so late on Thursday both plans failed in the Senate.
Hardly anyone is paying attention to Mitt Romney but the Democratic National Committee.
With Massachusetts' Barney Frank announcing he won't run for reelection to Congress next year, America will soon lose one of its few elected officials both willing and able to say rude (and often funny) things on camera.
John F. Kennedy was shot to death 48 years ago, and enough time has pass that people aren't quite sure how to mark the anniversary anymore.
Now that there's nothing left to be secretive about, Super Committee Democrats and Republicans are sharing details about the deficit-reduction panel's fabulous collapse with members of the press.
Cartoonist Tony Auth on Republicans in the Super Committee.
President Obama should declare he won't run for reelection so that the entire country -- left, right, and center -- can rally around the best 2012 Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, two Democratic pollsters argue in the latest op-ed to push the meme that conservatives are ready embrace Clinton.
The Super Committee's failure to reach a deficit-reduction deal leaves a host of problems in its wake, including the expiration of tax breaks and unemployment benefits and tremors of uncertainty in the stock market.
The professional left and the professional right are delusional in their own special way, according to two essays in this week's New York magazine, which can be summed up as "Why can't you people be happy?" vs. "Why are you people happy with this?"
Super Committee Democrats blasted a smaller $643 billion deficit-reduction plan offered by Republicans Friday, a rejection that leaves nothing on the table ahead of Monday's deadline.
The day for making excuses is upon us, as members of Congress begin alerting the Washington press that the 12-member Super Committee will miss its Nov. 23 deadline.
The likelihood of a Super Committee deficit-reduction deal by Nov. 23 depends on a slew of moving parts. But that hasn't prevented banks, politicians and reporters from venturing a guess at the odds of an 11th hour agreement.
We expected a number of uncomfortable questions to be raised during Energy Secretary Stephen Chu's first testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee today and House Republicans did not disappoint.
Despite vociferous claims from leaders in both parties that the Super Committee must not fail, a narrow coalition of actors inside and outside of government are rooting for the deficit-reduction panel to gridlock and fail in its final days of negotiations.
Cartoonist Tony Auth's bleak outlook for the nation's Super Committee
They can't strike a deal so they want to pull a fast one. With only one week left, members of the bipartisan Super Committee are resorting to accounting gimmicks and legislative sleights of hand to magically produce $1.2 trillion in deficit savings without significant tax increases or spending cuts.
For Republicans, there is no shame in an AOL e-mail address.
The legislators knew it was coming and they came out guns blazing.
While Herman Cain ducks reporters' questions about sexual harassment and Rick Perry promises he wasn't wasted when he gavea giddy speech, Mitt Romney and President Obama have moved on.
The last best hope to salvage a $1.2 trillion deficit-reduction deal in the Super Committee rests on the shoulders of three Republicans: Michigan Congressman Dave Camp, Ohio Senator Rob Portman and Michigan Congressman Fred Upton.
With time running out for the Super Committee to agree on a deficit-reduction plan, Capitol Hill dailies are fat with ad pages meant to influence lawmakers.
The purpose of the Super Committee was to force Congress to make a deal to trim the deficit, but with lawmakers still immune to compromise, they're looking for loopholes instead.
With only weeks to find a compromise, there's a trillion dollar gap between the deficit-reduction plans proposed by Democrats and Republicans on the Super Committee
Earlier today, Democrats leaked a $3 trillion deficit-reduction package to the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Dow Jones and Reuters but in each case, one major government expense was not mentioned: defense spending.
House Democrats are blocking their Republican colleagues from using Obamacare in letters mailed on the taxpayer's dime to voters, but who made up the term in the first place?
Super Committee Democrats tasked with finding $1.2 trillion in budget savings have news of for Republicans: How 'bout $3 trillion in savings?
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