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The Talk Shows October 13th, 2013 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Bob Corker, R-Tenn.; Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Rob Portman, R-Ohio; Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund.FACE THE NATION (CBS): Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H.; and John McCain, R-Ariz.; Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kan. THIS WEEK (ABC): Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Reps. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho, and Keith Ellison, D-Minn.STATE OF THE UNION (CNN): Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Susan Collins,...

Dueling pitchers Rick Perry and Mitt Romney will face off tonight for the third time in three weeks in Republican presidential debates. Perry won the first game by throwing plenty of heat and Romney prevailed the second time with finesse pitches and lots of help on offense from other players. Now, it’s time for the rubber game? As they head into the FOX News/Google debate ahead of the Republican Party of Florida’s straw poll, the stakes for Romney and Perry are huge. Romney has seen his own support solidify following Perry’s blazing entrance to the race last month. But the...

The first Republican debate with former frontrunner Mitt Romney as a hungry challenger took place last night, and in many ways it unfolded largely as I predicted. Romney mainly stuck to his above-the-fray strategy except for a couple of notable exchanges in the beginning with the new frontrunner, Rick Perry. Perry avoided looking or sounding scary despite the best attempts of the moderators to make him stumble. Michele Bachmann may in fact have been the only real loser of the debate despite giving a credible performance. Let’s start with Perry, who was the focus of the attention for his first...

Romney, Bachmann, Cain Lead The Pack Among GOP Primary Voters Thursday, June 16, 2011 Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney continues to lead the race for the Republican nomination, but Michele Bachmann has surged into second place following her Monday night entry into the campaign. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely GOP Primary Voters, taken following the candidates’ Monday night debate, shows Romney earning 33% support, with Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann a surprise second at 19%. Georgia businessman Herman Cain is in third place with 10% of the vote. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich picks up nine percent...

Unless you have been involved in an airplane crash in the mountains and have had no food for days –– and some would argue even then –– cannibalism is a bad option. So why has it become such a popular pastime for the Republican Party? The candidates who are admitting they might run against President Barack Obama in 2012 have almost no chance at competing with him –– much less making him a one-term president. If the Republicans are serious about beating Obama, they need a conservative who can exist closer to the middle of the political spectrum. Ron Paul...

Future historians tracing the crackup of the Republican Party may well look to May 8, 2010, as an inflection point. That was the day, as is now well known, that Sen. Robert Bennett, who took the conservative position 84 percent of the time over his career, was deemed not conservative enough by fellow Utah Republicans and booted out of the primary. Less well known, but equally ominous, is what happened that same day, 2,500 miles east in Maine. There, the state Republican Party chucked its platform -- a sensible New England mix of free-market economics and conservation -- and adopted...

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Former Vice President Dick Cheney said he hasn't made up his mind who he will support in the 2012 presidential election. When asked if he thought Sarah Palin was qualified, he punted. --- Is Sarah Palin qualified to be president? Former Vice President Dick Cheney answered that question with an artful dodge this morning when he appeared on ABC's This Week.(see video below) "I haven't made a decision yet on whom I'm going to support for president next time around," he said to host Jonathan Karl. "Whoever it is is going to have to prove themselves capable of being President...

No one is calling California insurance commissioner Steve Poizner a "Fiscal Conservative in Name Only" -- not yet. But after U.S. Senate candidate Carly Fiorina of California made mutton meat out of GOP rival Tom Campbell in a much talked about "demon sheep" television ad, Steve Poizner is clearly worried. Both Campbell and Poizner are guys taking on tough, entrepreneurial ladies in GOP primaries: Former Hewlett-Packard chief exec Fiorina is running for the GOP's Senate nomination against Campbell, while eBay founder Meg Whitman is battling Steve Poizner for the GOP's gubernatorial slot. At the moment Poizner is taking a beating,...

GOP strategists fret that RNC Chairman Michael Steele's unorthodox management style will mean missed opportunities in November. Every time Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele gets into trouble, a burst of good news for the GOP bails him out. But Republican strategists fret that his unorthodox approach to his job could leave the party short of cash -- and short of the electoral gains that it might otherwise achieve. Republicans, even those who have never been fans of the outspoken Steele, have concluded that trying to oust him would cause the party more pain than it's worth. Still, the RNC's...

Scott Brown says he's a different kind of Republican, a centrist willing to work with Senate Democrats to fix health care and the ailing economy. But his independent bent is likely to be sorely tested in a bitterly divided Senate where party loyalty is often at a premium. "If he wants to have a future in Massachusetts politics, Brown has to live up to being a New England Republican - fiscally conservative, socially moderate, independent-minded," said Dante Scala, a University of New Hampshire political science professor. "Is Obama going to try to craft some room for himself in the center?"...

The feeble pulse of moderation in the Republican Party is in danger of flat-lining in the Nov. 3 Congressional election in upstate New York. Luminaries like Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich have taken opposing sides over whether the party dare tolerate the official Republican candidate in the 23rd district — Dede Scozzafava, a six-term assemblywoman whose record includes refreshing tinges of centrism. Ms. Scozzafava was nominated by local party leaders as eminently electable despite — or because of — her defense of women’s abortion rights and her tolerant views on same-sex marriage. She is already shunned by many more ideologically...