The Washington Times

Conservatives (myself included) were slow on the uptake with regard to Elian Gonzalez. For the first several months after his arrival in the United States, his case was for most conservatives more a curiosity than a cause celebre. It’s worth spending a little time on why that was so.

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The Washington Times

My Cold War, it seems, is not over. Such is the somewhat dispiriting conclusion to draw from the two sets of demonstrations of the week, one in Washington and one in Little Havana, Miami.

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The Washington Times

Foreign policy is not much on the American voter’s mind these days, according to all the polls ranking the importance people attach to various issues. Up to a point – but only up to a point – this is not an altogether bad thing: No one would like to return to Cold War-era levels of American anxiety, nor to the days of frustration at seeming U.S. impotence when faced with Iranian fanatics, communist revolutionaries in Central America, etc.

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The Washington Times

A scant six months ago, things were looking pretty gloomy to Republicans on Capitol Hill worried about the prospect of retaining their narrow House majority. Now, however, their prospects are brighter. There are two main reasons for this, and though it’s a bit of an oversimplification, they are John McCain and John McCain.

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The Washington Times

Is Al Gore miscast as a champion of campaign-finance reform? He of “no controlling legal authority” notoriety on the subject of the propriety of fund-raising calls he made from his office, he of the visit to a fund-raiser at a Buddhist temple, etc.?

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The Washington Times

What next for John McCain? Let’s start with an assumption – that he still wants to be president of the United States, and a given – that he currently has a problem with a number of Republicans, a hangover from the campaign he waged. His attack on Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell obviously hurts his long-term prospects with Christian conservatives. But it also constitutes a serious problem among certain elements of the party establishment, who wonder where a new majority coalition will come from.

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The Washington Times

First, it looked like the Democratic presidential nomination was all sewn up, the GOP field wide open. Al Gore was heir apparent, the Republicans uncertain where to go after their 1996 loss. Then it looked like the GOP nomination was all sewn up, thanks to the canny front-porch campaign of Texas Gov. George W. Bush, while the Democratic nomination was up for grabs. Then it looked like both the front-runners might be in trouble -thanks to Bill Bradley’s appeal among Democrats looking for a vessel into which to pour their various grievances over the Clinton-Gore years, and thanks to Mr. Bush’s singularly weak debut on the campaign trail, which instantly elevated the stature of his principal rival, John McCain.

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The Washington Times

It is a truism of presidential politics that a successful convention is one from which the party emerges united – fired up for the dozen or so weeks prior to the election. There was a time when the convention’s first order of business was to select a nominee. That is something generally long settled nowadays, and in fact most commentators -myself included, though you’d think we’d have given up predicting by now in this surprising year – expect today to be the day when the possibility of dethroning the establishment candidates in each party ceases to exist.

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The Washington Times

Now seems to be the point in the epic duel for the GOP presidential nomination at which those who make it their business to analyze and interpret elections are throwing up their hands in confusion, and throwing themselves on the mercy of an electorate whose behavior has regularly confounded them. Although I have more than a few bruises from erroneous predictions this year, the course of events has been anything but chaotic. Let us review.

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The Washington Times

In most presidential primary contests, a Democratic consultant once observed to me, there is a moment at which the front-runner stumbles and is vulnerable to being taken down – provided his opponent has the vision to see the moment and how to act when it arrives, as well as the resources to do the job. That challengers take down front-runners only once in a blue moon is testimony to how rare this combination is.

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