Ron Elving appears in the following:
6 Years On, Is The Tea Party Here To Stay?
Wednesday, February 25, 2015
Why Congress Doesn't Really Worry About What Most Americans Think
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
With each week, we have come to expect another jarring outrage from the self-proclaimed Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, the new breed of terrorists that is redefining terror.
News of the group's murder of nearly two dozen Egyptian Christians captured in ...
Honoring Presidents Day Reminds Us 2016 Isn't That Far Away
Monday, February 16, 2015
Why Convention Sites Don't Make Very Good Swing State Strategy
Friday, February 13, 2015
Put it in the category of things we know for sure that just ain't so.
No sooner did the Democratic National Committee announce it had chosen Philadelphia, Pa., as its 2016 convention site than a lot of us political analyst types popped out the conventional wisdom about "appealing to a ...
In White House Memory, A-U-M-F Translates To B-U-S-H
Tuesday, February 10, 2015
This week, President Obama will propose legislative language, pre-negotiated with Congress, granting him specific permission to make war on the group calling itself the Islamic State.
If approved by the House and Senate, that language will formalize the struggle against the Sunni extremists who are also known as ISIS or ...
Ukraine Is Just 1 Foreign Policy Challenge On Obama's Agenda
Monday, February 09, 2015
Life In The 'New' Washington: In Your Face! No, In YOUR Face!
Tuesday, February 03, 2015
President Obama entertained a group of Americans Tuesday in the intimate Roosevelt Room in the White House, thanking them for their written testimonials to the benefits of his Affordable Care Act. Four hours later, the House of Representatives was to vote to repeal the ACA in its entirety.
Nothing will ...
Abortion Vote Shows How Much Democrats' World Has Changed
Monday, January 26, 2015
This week, Congress returns with House leaders vowing to revisit the anti-abortion bill they pulled off the floor last week. The ban on abortions after 20 weeks was withdrawn when it appeared there weren't enough Republican votes to pass it.
Why did it need quite so many Republican votes? Because ...
Senate Says Climate Change Real, But Not Really Our Fault
Friday, January 23, 2015
Breathtakingly broad as its jurisdiction may be, the U.S. Senate does not usually vote on the validity of scientific theories.
This week, it did. And science won. The Senate voted that climate change is real, and not a hoax. The vote was 98-1.
The vote was about an amendment to ...
Obama State Of The Union Seeks To 'Turn The Page' To A Brighter Chapter
Wednesday, January 21, 2015
In the first minute of his hourlong State of the Union address, President Barack Obama summed up his theme in single sentence: "Tonight, we turn the page."
The president then detailed a page of history filled with the financial crisis of 2008, the recession and unemployment and deficits that followed ...
Obama Joins Ike, The Gipper, Bill And George II In A Club No One Wants To Be In
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
President Obama begins his seventh year in office Tuesday facing a Congress where both the House and Senate are in the hands of the opposition party. He shares this in common with every other president fortunate enough to even have a seventh year in office since the 1950s.
Dwight Eisenhower ...
Iowa's Sen. Ernst Grabs Spotlight That's Often Proven Too Hot
Friday, January 16, 2015
On the one hand, having the just-elected senator from Iowa, Joni Ernst, deliver the Republican response to President Obama's State of the Union address next week makes perfect sense.
On the other hand, you have to wonder why anyone would want the job. As often as not, the opportunity to ...
What If Mitt And Jeb Really Do Go At It, Hammer And Tongs?
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
Pity the poor guys who are trying to run for president while still serving as governors.
All the media attention this week went to former Govs. Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush, because Romney suddenly decided to call in his chits and get back in the presidential conversation for 2016. Virtually ...
Still Just A Bill: Why Being Senate Bill 1 Doesn't Guarantee Success
Friday, January 09, 2015
On his first day in his new job, freshly minted Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., designated the Keystone XL pipeline bill as Senate Bill 1 --the first legislation introduced under his leadership.
That signaled more than just McConnell's own support for the bill. The prestige of being S-1 also ...
5 Signs We're Not In Post-Partisan Paradise Yet
Wednesday, January 07, 2015
If you follow the latest fashions in Washington politics, you've surely noticed the new look for 2015. It's all about "showing we can govern" and putting the flamboyant partisan stylings of past years behind us.
Unfortunately, this week the new political season opened in Washington, and that latest theme took ...
6 Reasons Size Matters To The New GOP Majorities In Congress
Monday, January 05, 2015
Was Cuomo Destined To Be President Or Just Political Poet Laureate?
Friday, January 02, 2015
When he died of heart failure on New Year's Day, Mario Cuomo had been out of office exactly 20 years. But his impact endured, in part because he articulated his political philosophy so powerfully while at his peak and in part because he never fulfilled the destiny many envisioned for ...
6 Reasons Steve Scalise Will Survive His Speech Scandal
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
Barring new and jarring developments, House Majority Whip Steve Scalise is going to survive the story that he addressed a conference of white supremacists in 2002.
Unless further evidence emerges of liaisons with the European-American Unity and Rights Organization, or EURO, Scalise will take his oath next week for the ...
Obama Finds Reset Button With 2 Years To Go: Is It Too Late?
Monday, December 29, 2014
As he looks toward his seventh year in the White House, President Obama still believes there is time to make his presidency a transformational moment in history.
In an interview recorded shortly before he left for Christmas vacation in Hawaii, the president told NPR's Steve Inskeep that 2014 had ...
Is Ted Cruz Running For President...In 2008?
Monday, December 15, 2014
Yes, we know the 2008 presidential election is years in the past and will not come around again. The question is, does Sen. Ted Cruz know this?
The question arises because the junior senator from Texas, in hot pursuit of the presidency, has chosen a trail blazed by Barack Obama ...