If it's in the News, it's in our Polls. Public opinion polling since 2003.

Political Commentary

Most Recent Releases

White letter R on blue background
August 28, 2014

The Smallness of Being in Economy Class by Froma Harrop

Americans are in the dumps about their future. What does that have to do with legroom in economy class? Everything.

The middle class sees its stature shrinking in the global pecking order and in a culture that favors money over well-being. There can be no better example for this than the indignities of flying economy.

Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at [email protected]. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2014 CREATORS.COM

White letter R on blue background
August 28, 2014

Off to the Races By Larry J. Sabato, Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley

The overall picture is this: A Republican Senate gain of four-to-eight seats, with a GOP Senate pickup of six-to-seven seats the likeliest outcome; a GOP gain of somewhere around a half-dozen seats in the House; and little net party change in the gubernatorial lineup even as a few incumbents lose. So what could shift these projections in a significant way, beyond candidate implosions that move individual races on and off the board?

White letter R on blue background
August 27, 2014

Green Monster By John Stossel

Thanks, Environmental Protection Agency! You've required sewage treatment plants, catalytic converters on cars and other things that made the world cleaner than the world in which I grew up. Good work.  

Today, America's waterways are so much cleaner that I swim in New York City's once-filthy Hudson River -- right beside skyscrapers in which millions of people, uh, flush. The air we breathe is also cleaner than it's been for 60 years.    

White letter R on blue background
August 26, 2014

A Decent Lawyer Should Tell Liberals They're Damned Fools and Ought to Stop By Michael Barone

"About half the practice of a decent lawyer consists in telling would-be clients that they are damned fools and should stop." So supposedly said Elihu Root, New York lawyer and secretary of war and of state, and U.S. senator from 1909 to 1915.

Today it seems that many liberal "would-be clients" are in desperate need of what Root called "a decent lawyer."

White letter R on blue background
August 26, 2014

What About That VA Hospital Scandal? by Froma Harrop

The unofficial end of summer, Labor Day, may serve as a bookend to a scandal that exploded around the unofficial start, Memorial Day. We speak of the very long wait times to see primary care providers at veterans hospitals and, more seriously, the doctoring of records by some hospital administrators to hide that reality.

Back in May, this writer erred in underestimating the wrongdoing at hospitals run by the Department of Veterans Affairs. She'd been swayed by friends who had nothing but praise for their VA hospital experiences -- and independent studies by the likes of RAND showing higher patient satisfaction in VA hospitals than in privately run ones.

Also, the blast of outrage bore all the signs of another right-wing attack against "evil" government and, with it, a call to privatize another of its services.

Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at [email protected]. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2014 CREATORS.COM

White letter R on blue background
August 22, 2014

Not Nearly as Daunting as the 1960s Riots by Michael Barone

Continued violence in Ferguson, Missouri, brings back memories of the urban riots of the 1960s.

As it happens, I had a front-row seat back then, as an intern in the office of Detroit Mayor Jerome Cavanagh during the six-day riot in July 1967. At one point I was alone in the so-called command center with Cavanagh and Michigan Gov. George Romney.

Michael Barone, senior political analyst at the Washington Examiner, (www.washingtonexaminer.com), where this article first appeared, is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a Fox News Channel contributor and a co-author of The Almanac of American Politics. To find out more about Michael Barone, and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2014 THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM

White letter R on blue background
August 21, 2014

Is Ferguson a Social Media Victim? By Froma Harrop

Soon the cameras, protesters, gawkers and tweeters will depart Ferguson, Missouri, leaving the question: What will be left of this embattled city when the smoke clears?   

White letter R on blue background
August 20, 2014

Policing a Riot By John Stossel

Libertarians warned for years that government is force, that government always grows and that America's police have become too much like an occupying army.

We get accused of being paranoid, but we look less paranoid after heavily armed police in Ferguson, Missouri, tear gassed peaceful protesters, arrested journalists and stopped some journalists from entering the town.

White letter R on blue background
August 20, 2014

Missouri Burning: Why Ferguson's Inferno Is No Surprise By Joe Conason

The past week's unfolding tragedy in Ferguson, Missouri, with its militarized and overwhelmingly white police force confronting angry and hopeless African-Americans, is not a story unique to that place or this moment. Many cities and towns in this country confront the same problems of poverty, alienation and inequality as metropolitan St. Louis -- or even worse.

But beneath the familiar narrative, there is a deeper history that reflects the unfinished agenda of race relations -- and the persistence of poisonous prejudice that has never been fully cleansed from the American mainstream.

White letter R on blue background
August 19, 2014

Racing Through Nature by Froma Harrop

The story of a young man's speed-hiking the 2,663-mile Pacific Crest Trail has raised some environmentalist eyebrows, albeit only slightly. He was racing from California's border with Mexico to Washington state's with Canada.

The cause was a good one -- to raise money for the families of cancer patients. And it wasn't like he was making noise and pollution.

Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at [email protected]. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2014 CREATORS.COM

White letter R on blue background
August 19, 2014

Hillary Clinton Not Campaigning Much for her Party in 2014, Unlike Richard Nixon in 1966 By Michael Barone

Just about everyone noticed Hillary Clinton's scathing comments on President Obama's foreign policy in her interview with The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg.

But almost no one has noticed where Clinton hasn't been seen. That's on the campaign trail or at fundraisers for Democrats running for the Senate.

White letter R on blue background
August 15, 2014

Fidelity to Principle Can Make Needed Flexibility Impossible By Michael Barone

Politicians have ranges of positions of varying widths that they find acceptable. Hillary Clinton, like her husband, has a very wide range of stands she finds acceptable, depending on timing and circumstances. President Obama's range of acceptable positions has been far narrower

This is reflected in their attitudes about military action in Iraq. Clinton was for it in 2002 and was against it by 2007. Obama was always against what he called a "dumb war."

White letter R on blue background
August 15, 2014

Ranting About Robin Williams, Limbaugh Exposes a Hole in His Own Soul By Joe Conason

Having infuriated millions of Robin Williams fans with insensitive remarks on the late actor's suicide, Rush Limbaugh now blames the "liberal media" and "despicable leftists" for distorting his innocent message.

This is an old dodge for Limbaugh. Yet however he parses his language, there can be no doubt that he sought to exploit a tragic event for what he likes to call "political education." His attempt to brand Williams' suicide with "the leftist worldview" was perfectly plain. And as usual, his alibi is plainly false.

White letter R on blue background
August 14, 2014

Neil deGrasse Tyson Is a Nice Man By Froma Harrop

When I first encountered Neil deGrasse Tyson, I thought, "What a nice man." He was on the TV screens at New York's Hayden Planetarium, where he's director, urging us to behold the wonder of -- to use the biblical term -- the heavens.   

White letter R on blue background
August 14, 2014

2014: More Than a Backlash From 2008 By Sean Trende

The 2014 Senate elections are not shaping up to be particularly favorable for the Democrats. While there are still scenarios where they could walk away breaking even, or even gaining a seat or two, those scenarios are pretty far-fetched. Current predictions vary somewhat, but seem to center around Republicans picking up somewhere between five and seven seats, with the overall range of possibilities a bit wider.

White letter R on blue background
August 13, 2014

Mindless Drones By John Stossel

Drones -- unmanned flying machines -- will soon fill our skies. They conjure up fears, especially among some of my fellow libertarians, of spying and death from above.

These fears aren't groundless. President Bush approved the use of armed drones against suspected terrorists overseas, and President Obama vastly increased their use. Drones have killed thousands of people in places such as Pakistan and Yemen, countries against which we have not declared war.

White letter R on blue background
August 12, 2014

Three Hundred Years Later, Americans Owe a Debt to King George I By Michael Barone

Three hundred years ago, on Aug. 1, 1714, by the Julian calendar (Aug. 12 by the Gregorian calendar we use now), Queen Anne died. She was just 49 years old, but was weakened by obesity, gout and the effects of 17 pregnancies, from which only one child lived beyond infancy -- William, Duke of Gloucester, who died of smallpox at age 11 in 1700.   

White letter R on blue background
August 12, 2014

Who Cares What Ideology Drives the High-Speed Train? by Froma Harrop

In Texas, a private company wants to build a bullet train joining Dallas and Houston. In California, the state is raising its own billions to create a very fast ride between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Two very different ways to fund high-speed rail, but they have one thing in common. They bypass the thousand-car pileup that is Washington politics.

Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at [email protected]. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2014 CREATORS.COM

White letter R on blue background
August 11, 2014

Ebola's Message: Foreign Aid and Science Funding in a Time of Global Peril By Joe Conason

Most Americans have long believed, in embarrassing ignorance, that the share of the U.S. federal budget spent on foreign aid is an order of magnitude higher than what we actually spend abroad. Years ago, this mistaken view was amplified from the far right by the John Birch Society. Today, it is the tea party movement complaining that joblessness and poverty in the United States result directly from the lamentable fact that "President Obama keeps sending our money overseas."

White letter R on blue background
August 8, 2014

Primaries Show Republican Voters Wary of Tea party Candidates, Skeptical of Party Establishment by Michael Barone

The standard thing to say about the various Republican primaries this year is that the tea party movement has lost one race after another. That's a defensible conclusion but also an oversimplification.

I see more turbulence and undercurrents among Republican primary voters than usual. The evidence is that incumbents -- both those the mainstream media call tea partyers and those they call the party establishment -- have been prevailing by tenuous margins in primaries that in the pre-tea party years would almost certainly not have been seriously contested.

Michael Barone, senior political analyst at the Washington Examiner, (www.washingtonexaminer.com), where this article first appeared, is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a Fox News Channel contributor and a co-author of The Almanac of American Politics. To find out more about Michael Barone, and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at

www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2014 THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM

Daily Presidential
Tracking Poll

President Biden's approval numbers posted every weekday

Top Stories

  1. Daily Presidential Tracking Poll
  2. Biden Approval Declines Again in June
  3. Happy Independence Day!
  4. ABC News: 'Answer Our Questions -- Or Else!'