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"Barack Obama won because he recognized a new America." Or maybe an America more fluid, more insubstantial than post-election wisdom is ready to grant. You can't always tell about "new" -- a truth the human race rarely acknowledges. We'll see whether James Carville's and Stan Greenberg's words from a Democracy Corps survey stand up better than the consensus of November 1965, following the Lyndon Johnson-led slaughter of almost every Republican downwind from Barry Goldwater. Johnson, father of the Great Society, was all but run out of Washington on a rail after mucking up the Vietnam War. Meanwhile, as everyone these...

Our large cruise ship sailed within view of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as a gathering of conservatives sponsored by National Review magazine considered the wreckage of the 2012 election. Most of the writers and commentators on board agreed with Ralph Reed of the Faith and Freedom Coalition that the last thing conservatives need to do now is to form a "circular firing squad." But lessons must be learned. Was Mitt Romney, as some suggested, "our best foot forward" -- a highly intelligent, photogenic, generous, public-spirited, articulate man of great integrity whose loss can only be chalked up to the poor judgment...

Any change requires pain. Whatever we are doing now is easy (we think) compared to change, whatever it may be. Changing is hard. It requires us to think anew, to change our habits, our processes, our language. It's venturing out into the unknown. Without a compelling reason, people will stay the same and not change. People begin to change only when the pain of what they are doing becomes more painful than the pain of change. Republicans -- it is time for change. The election last week was painful -- at least for me, a lifetime conservative. It was an...

Fellow citizens, As voters, you are the jury of this election. You must render a verdict on the president’s stewardship of this nation for the past four years. Yours is a solemn duty, one enshrined in the Constitution and held sacred by over two hundred years of law and tradition. Based on the evidence before you, I believe the verdict is clear. At the Republican convention, Paul Ryan and I asked for your vote, and we explained why we, not President Obama, deserve it. We promised not to lower the seas or heal the planet, but simply to enact commonsense...

I'll be voting early again this year - at 7:00 am on Election Day. Don't trust the "early" voting process because it makes voting often more of a possibility. And IMO ballots are very perishable, the closer you vote to the counting, the fresher and more effective they'll be. How about any of you?

Two recent ads illustrate the great cultural divide in this nation and which parties and presidential candidates represent these competing worldviews. In the handling of the economy and national security, President Obama has shown he's not capable of being the adult in the room. After four years of perpetual campaigning and cheerleading for his pet projects, he still isn't prepared to deal soberly with the consequences of his ideological indulgences. His community organizing fantasy has been to remake America in his more socialistic image, and in the process, he's taken the nation dangerously close to financial ruin. Yet like the...

IF YOU'VE HEARD IT ONCE, you've heard it a thousand times: It's your civic duty to vote. Between now and Election Day – unless you're planning an extended session in a sensory-deprivation tank – you'll no doubt hear it again. And again. Don't believe it. It's not your duty to vote. Not that I'm against voting. I was 9 when I first saw the inside of a voting booth. It was Election Day, 1968. My father took me with him early in the morning when he went to vote and let me pull the lever for his candidate -- Hubert...

It is widely perceived that the national television news industry skews left and in some cases actively supports liberal political candidates. While that is debatable on a case-by-case basis, the evidence is overwhelming that the folks who deliver the news to the nation are sympathetic to liberal causes, and that obviously favors President Obama during this election cycle. Let's run it down: --"NBC Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams interned for the Carter administration early in his career. He has no registered political affiliation, and I can find no political donations he has made. However, he has denigrated conservatives on late-night...

President Obama is so wrapped up in being Obama, he can’t see that not having a plan for the next for years is a problem when you’re running for re-election. During the final debate on foreign policy, Obama oozed with revisionist history of his record and added a theatrical element to his delivery, glaring at hole through Romney. Meant to be intimidating I’m sure, Romney responded to Obama’s stares and interruptions with calm and confidence, leaving Romney looking like the only adult in the room, as someone commented to me. Romney described the debate and Obama’s re-election campaign well: “Attacking...

20) I can tell you that if you were to elect President Obama, you know what you’re going to get. You’re going to get a repeat of the last four years. We just can’t afford four more years like the last four years. -- Mitt Romney 19) We don’t have to settle for what we’re going through. We don’t have to settle for gasoline at four bucks. We don’t have to settle for unemployment at a chronically high level. We don’t have to settle for 47 million people on food stamps. We don’t have to settle for 50 percent of...

This election is not turning out the way President Barack Obama had expected. Perhaps that is why he has looked so uncomfortable in his three debates with the suddenly debonair Governor Mitt Romney. Possibly President Obama had expected something more from the former governor of Massachusetts, the former CEO of the 2002 Winter Olympics, the former head of Bain Capital -- and, incidentally, is not Bain Capital assuming the same demonic role in this contest between Obama and Romney as Halliburton industries once played in the campaigns of Bush-Cheney? It is, I suppose, an asset that in all their years...

Debates are high-pressure, high-risk events, and they often offer low rewards. A candidate's first goal is not to win the debate, but rather not to lose -- to do no harm to the campaign. A simple misstep can change the course of an election. The first debate was a clear win for former Gov. Romney, who appeared more interested and engaged than President Obama, who appeared aloof, disinterested and arrogant. The difference in their performances -- each standing at a lectern -- enabled Romney to gain momentum in the polls. In their second meeting, they prowled around stage, often circling...

Back in 2009, Brian Williams literally bowed to Barack Obama. Today, he's telling like it is from the Obama campaign trail: the size of the crowds is way down from last time around, and the candidate is not the same man he was in '08. This is a stunning admission from a man seen as deeply in the Obama tank. Williams made his admission to Chuck Todd on today's Daily Rundown. Takeaway line: "palpably obvious to you: this is not '08. These are not the crowds, this is not the candidate." View the shocking video here.

WASHINGTON -- The third and final presidential debate Monday raised deeply troubling questions about President Obama's handling of foreign policy in the last four years -- especially on the question of keeping Americans safe in the midst of growing terrorism throughout the world, and resurgent jihadist attacks across the Middle East. Former governor Mitt Romney entered the last debate with a preplanned strategy of calmly addressing the big, overriding issues that threaten our safety and those of our allies. He deliberately toned down both his delivery and his demeanor, as if to demonstrate his confidence that he had already beaten...

President Obama was on the ropes in the polls after the first presidential debate. After the second presidential debate, he hit the mat in the polls. And after the third presidential debate, he looks to be down for the count. The question, of course, is why. Looking at the debates alone doesn't tell the full story. Romney surely won the first debate -- in fact, he cleaned President Obama's clock -- but in the second debate, he fought President Obama to a draw. And in the third and final debate, which centered on foreign policy, Romney pulled his punches. So...

Have you noticed how the Obama campaign has stepped up its class warfare rhetoric as we draw closer to Election Day? President Barack Obama constantly resorts to this tactic because he's simply unable to defend his own record in office, as 23 million Americans are out of work or underemployed and the economy remains in distress. Class warfare is all he has left. But voters aren't buying Obama's polarizing rhetoric. In a Gallup survey about the 12 most important priorities this election year, the issue of "increasing taxes on wealthy Americans" came in dead last among voters. Understandably, Americans are...

YOU'RE A PASSIONATE and committed liberal. Four years ago, enthralled by Barack Obama's biography and inspired by his oratory, you voted for him with pride. You embraced his promise of hope and change. You were deeply moved by the racial progress he symbolized. But above all you voted for him because he expressed such enlightened views. You didn't just want a Democrat back in the White House, you wanted one who would bring progressive clarity to US national policy. For eight years, you'd fumed at George W. Bush's offenses against the Constitution; now at last, you believed, you were supporting...

Editor's Note: This column was coauthored by Bob Morrison. After nearly a month of cringing and getting lost in their own contradictions, the Obama administration is finally clinging to an elliptical mention by the president of “acts of terror” that he claims won’t deter us from doing whatever we are supposed to do in the Mideast. What was it we were supposed to be doing over there? Oh, supporting democracy, of course. But democracy in a country where “freedom fighters” roar into town shooting their rifles in the air is going to be hard to achieve. All those celebratory bullets...

Progressives are not having a good week. After a debate “victory” for President Obama, which amounted to simply being caffeinated because the bar was set so low after the first debate, his Libya lies are still haunting him. Yes, moderator Candy Crowley saved his bacon in the moment, but she ended up costing him by forcing a reluctant media to continue to cover the story. He may have won the night, but he lost the week because of it. Had the president simply taken responsibility for his administration’s security failures, apologized, said it would haunt him and shape his actions...

Liberal celebrities want all of the adoration that social media engagement has to offer -- but none of the accountability that actual engagement requires. For the Hollywood elite, it's "do as they say, not as they tweet." But actress and outspoken Obama campaign co-chair Eva Longoria learned a hard lesson this week on Twitter: Conservatives online are mad as hell and aren't taking it anymore. On Tuesday night after the second presidential debate, Longoria shared a "retweet" from one of her 4.4-plus million followers on the micro-blogging network. "I have no idea why any woman/minority can vote for Romney," the...