Philip Klein is senior editorial writer for The Washington Examiner. Prior to joining the Examiner, he served as Washington correspondent for The American Spectator, and before that, worked for over three years as a financial reporter at Reuters in New York.
You can read his columns and blog posts in your RSS Reader or Follow Him @Philipaklein
DES MOINES, Iowa - Mitt Romney may have good reason to believe that his narrow victory in this year's Iowa caucuses will help propel him to the Republican nomination. But the deeper results should worry Republicans hoping to beat President Obama in November.
Romney boosters have always argued that should he become the nominee, the desire to defeat Obama will be the only motivation the GOP base needs to become active, whatever its lingering doubts about Romney's conservatism.
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DES MOINES, Iowa - Four years ago, eighth-grade civics teacher Alex Hammer went to caucus for liberal Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio and voted for President Obama in the general election. But tonight, he walked into the cafeteria of the Oak Park Elementary School here and changed his party registration on site to vote for Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas.
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Critics have accused the Republican electorate in recent years of putting a higher premium on ideological purity than on policy knowledge.But the success of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in the current presidential primary fight tells a much different story. It’s a story of an electorate that is placing a high premium on candidates’ ability to appear knowledgeable and articulate on the issues, giving these factors an even higher level of importance than ideological consistency.
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Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s Medicare reform proposal has been widely praised in the conservative media and it has even won the approval of House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., the GOP’s leading policy wonk.On Tuesday, a National Review editorial praised the plan as “bold and specific.” But in reality, the plan is another example of the Republican presidential frontrunner trying hard to have it both ways.
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Texas Gov. Rick Perry had intended to revive his floundering presidential campaign with release Tuesday of a sweeping economic plan, but he undercut his message with comments indulging those who question whether President Barack Obama was born in the United States.On the same day, Perry’s rival Mitt Romney traveled to an Ohio phone bank to rally Republican activists making calls to support Gov. John Kasich’s reforms curbing the power of government unions. But the calculating Romney refused to take a position on whether he actually supported the measure.
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During last year’s midterm elections, tea party activists swamped Republican primaries and helped send dozens of lawmakers to Washington who were committed to fighting big government. But the once-feared constituency is looking more like a paper tiger in the Republican presidential race.
The tea party movement was fueled by opposition to the Wall Street bailouts and out-of-control spending in Washington. Yet the current favorite to win the Republican nomination has rejected the tea party line on all of these issues.
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A peripheral skirmish between Texas Gov. Rick Perry and former Sen. Rick Santorum over allowing states to legalize same-sex marriage and medical marijuana could mark an important turning point in a long-running philosophical debate within the conservative movement.
To be sure, there’s nothing new about conflict between social-conservative and libertarian Republicans when it comes to the role of government in moral issues.
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Earlier this month, Solyndra, the solar panel company that received $535 million in federal loan guarantees and was touted as the symbol of President Barack Obama’s “green jobs” initiative, declared bankruptcy and had its offices raided by the FBI. The failure of a company Obama described as “a true engine of economic growth” has raised obvious questions about the advisability of risking taxpayer money on such endeavors. But presidential surrogates have countered by arguing that failure is merely a natural byproduct of progress.
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If Republicans want to win the war over the future of the nation’s health care system, they need to do more than simply call for the repeal of Obamacare. Even if the law were repealed or struck down by the Supreme Court, the United States wouldn’t be out of the woods.
Health care costs still would eat up roughly one in every five dollars generated by the economy within a decade.
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Three years ago this month, when then-Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama accepted his party’s nomination before 80,000 adoring fans at Denver’s Invesco Field, he observed: “If you don’t have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from.”
Obama meant it as a criticism of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., for allegedly launching a cynical campaign instead of one built around hope.
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There are many, many ways to order a Domino’s Pizza, so, thanks to President Barack Obama’s national health care law, the chain’s franchisees may have to spend more than $5 million attempting to squeeze calorie data next to every one of their menus.Not that the company is trying to hide anything. The Domino’s website already provides nutritional information to the 90 percent of customers who order online or by phone.
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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., announced that the chamber would be in "pro forma" sessions throughout August, effectively blocking President Obama from making any recess appointments.
Among other possibilities, the move will prevent Obama from appointing a new head of the controversial Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as well as a new member of the National Labor Relations Board, which has a vacancy opening up later this month.
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With the debt limit deal now official, all eyes are turning to the so-called “super committee,” chartered with finding at least $1.2 trillion in additional deficit reduction. If the committee fails, it will trigger automatic, across-the-board cuts to Medicare and defense. The committee will be made up of 12 lawmakers, with 3 Republicans and 3 Democrats in each chamber appointed by the respective party leaders in the House and Senate.
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Overcoming defections from liberals and conservatives, the $2.4 trillion debt limit deal sailed through the U.S. Senate by an overwhelming 74 to 26 margin moments ago, and will now head to the White House for President Obama's signature.
In the vote, 45 Democrats, plus, Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., voted yes and five Democrats, plus Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., voted no. On the Republican side, 28 voted yes, and 19 voted no.
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Shortly after the vote to raise the debt ceiling, I caught up with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., briefly to ask him about an issue I’ve raised in this space: will the negotiated deal force Republicans to choose between raising taxes and cutting defense.
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