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“We have a situation where this country has been driven by the Tea Party for the last number of years,” Reid said...

The “Tebowmania” days in Denver are only 15 months old, but it seems like 15 years. And yet, when Americans are asked which pro athletes they believe carry the most influence with the public, Tebow’s name tops the list. A unique set of QB strengths and weaknesses and an affinity for wearing his Christian faith on his sleeve combine to make Tebow a compelling public figure, even as an NFL backup. Whether or not he’s able to remain deeply ingrained in the public consciousness without eventually getting more time on the field remains to be seen. But for now, Tebow,...

President Barack Obama’s influence is disappearing to the point that he is just a “minor actor on Capitol Hill” and even Democrats believe he is doing little but get in the way, Karl Rove has charged. “No president is ever irrelevant, but less than 10 weeks into his second term Mr. Obama’s power is waning,” Rove writes in Thursday’s Wall Street Journal. “Even members of his own party view him as an obstacle to getting things done.” …

The New York Times stats whiz says he'll stop blogging if his poll analysis sways future contestsNate Silver was vilified by some Republicans and political journalists during the 2012 election, and embraced by Democrats looking for a fix of reassuring political news during rocky periods of President Obama's re-election bid. This week, the seemingly prophetic New York Times–employed political polling aggregator told an audience of students at Washington University in St. Louis that "the polls can certainly affect elections at times." They're not supposed to, Silver added, but some voters may "take the forecasts too seriously." Then, says Michael Tabb...

In the wake of the 2012 re-election of Barack Obama, I began to wonder how influential conservative talk radio is. Serendipitously, I received a copy of Fred V. Lucas’ new book, “The Right Frequency: The Story of Talk Radio Giants Who Shook Up the Political and Media Establishment” ($18.95, History Publishing Company). Throughout the 1980s and 90s I was a guest on television and a lot on talk radio thanks to a popular media spoof, The Boring Institute, that offered lists of The Most Boring Celebrities of the Year, the Most Boring Films, et cetera. After 9/11 I put the...

MSNBC host Ezra Klein, The Last Word More than 16 minutes long discussion by Ezra Klein, Dave Weigel, Molly Ball on the GOP intra party fight

The gun control debate is clearly one of the most contentious and controversial issues in America today. And the battle over gun control is now being waged through intensive media campaigns from both sides of the political spectrum to influence public opinion and to assert pressure on policy makers. So who’s winning? To find out, we turned to objective data provided exclusively to Forbes Insights by Appinions, the influence marketing platform. Keep in mind Forbes Insights has no agenda other than to shed research light on the process of measuring influence and what we can learn from it. The facts...

Talk radio was paramount in building the conservative movement's role in presidential elections. This can be found with Barry Goldwater, the 1964 Republican presidential nominee and one of the intellectual leaders of the conservative movement. Political minds are wondering if it can help push Romney into the White House. for Romney. The Right Frequency by Fred V. Lucas chronicles talk radio's impact on presidential elections and politics from the days of Walter Winchell to modern day hosts such as Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. The book is published by History Publishing Company. The author is available for interviews. It was...

There are those who say that the tea party is fading in influence, but nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, the movement is on the cusp of achieving what once seemed nearly impossible: keeping the Senate Democratic. A year ago, famed political handicapper Charlie Cook gave Republicans a 60 percent to 70 percent likelihood of capturing control of the Senate; now, he tells me the likelihood of it remaining Democratic is 60 percent. The switch in fortunes can be attributed to many causes — a slate of lackluster Republican candidates high among them — but one thing...

Catholicism is on the decline in the United States. But the numbers would likely be even worse if it weren't for Latino immigrants, according to a recent Pew Research Center study. The study indicates that Catholicism has experienced the "greatest net losses" of any religion as a result of religious converts. While nearly one-in-three Americans (31 percent) were raised as Catholics, fewer than one in four adults call themselves Catholics, the survey found. But the attrittion has been slowed by immigration and the growth of the Hispanic population. One in three Catholics is Hispanic, and 62 percent of all Hispanics...

(The following is the second of three excerpts from The Right Frequency: The Story of the Talk Radio Giants Who Shook Up the Political and Media Establishment, by Fred Lucas; History Publishing Company. The adapted excerpts look at the impact of talk radio on election results.) Before what would turn out to be an historic election, a New York Times article said, “If Larry King’s CNN program functioned as a nominating process for Ross Perot; Rush Limbaugh may be a kind of national precinct captain for the Republican insurgency of 1994.” An election night poll by Fabrizio-McLaughlin of 1,000...

Preaching magazine editor Michael Duduit takes on the challenging task of naming the most important preachers from the recent past. When Preaching magazine was launched in 1985, a look at our list of contributing editors gave you a sense of who would be listed among the most influential preachers in America. That original group included Stuart Briscoe, Maxie Dunnam, Jim Henry, David Allan Hubbard, John Huffman, D.E. King, James Earl Massey, Calvin Miller, Lloyd John Ogilvie, Stephen F. Olford, Haddon Robinson, J. Alfred Smith, John Wesley White and William Willimon, along with several more.Thankfully, many of those preachers are still...

To borrow from President Obama’s Black Nationalist mentor, Jeremiah Wright, the Southern Poverty Law Center’s hate-baiting chickens “have come home to roost.” The hard-left group has become everything it presumes to expose. On Wednesday, homosexual activist Floyd Corkins entered the Washington-based Family Research Council (FRC) armed with a gun and a backpack full of ammunition. He also had 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches (FRC recently defended the food chain’s COO Dan Cathy for pro-natural marriage statements). The only thing standing between Corkins and mass murder was FRC facilities manager and security specialist Leo Johnson. As Corkins shouted disapproval for FRC’s “politics,” he...

The Tea Party movement morphed from protest signs to campaign signs. That's how a Texas Tea Party activist succinctly put it when I asked him what's become of the movement. He said, "We put down our protest signs, and picked up campaign signs." He said that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's victory lap after passing Obamacare was a "wake-up call." It signaled that mass demonstrations would not bring significant changes. Change would only come through the ballot box. Hearing the call, the Tea Party vacated the town squares and hit the streets where it began organizing for the long-term. It...

Rush Limbaugh celebrated 24 years on his national radio talk show Wednesday, and that date is as good as any to benchmark when the country began its journey into a deeply polarized political climate. Limbaugh -- universally called Rush by friends and critics alike -- almost single-handedly started a narrative that recast Americans into conservative heroes or liberal villains, patriotic saviors or mainstream media dupes. He was helped by the 1987 demise of the Fairness Doctrine, the longstanding regulation that required broadcasters to present both sides of a issue in roughly equal measure. He was perfectly poised to take advantage....

Link only due to copyright issues: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ron-galloway/the-chickfila-effect-on-t_b_1731161.html

If it's now coming out that the Colorado Killer, James Holmes, was obsessed with being a character in the Batman movie, shouldn't we be having a national discussion on how much Hollywood is responsible for this murderous rampage. And while we're at it, a lot of the other social ills like the sexualization of teens, out-of-wedlock births and gang violence, all depicted in living color on the silver screen? On Tuesday, Matt Drudge linked to a blistering attack on Hollywood by Charles Hurt of the Washington Times in response to the massacre at the midnight Friday showing of the new...

President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama visited the home of actors Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick for a joint fundraising appearance on Thursday night, during which the president offered the gathered stars a rather frightening piece of flattery. The intimate dinner banked about $2 million, with 50 people paying $40,000 each. "Speaking in a dimly lighted, art-filled room, Obama told supporters they would play a critical role in an election that would determine a vision for the nation's future."You're the tie-breaker," he said. "You're the ultimate arbiter of which direction this country goes."Among the celebrities on hand to...

It’s official: The situation in Sunland Park has gotten crazier than the last two seasons of “Lost.” On Friday, Daniel Salinas was arrested again, this time charged with 18 new felony charges, including receiving and soliciting illegal kickbacks, fraud and ethics violations. Salinas is the man who: *as the border town’s mayor pro tem got drunk with then-mayor Martin Resendiz during a meeting at a restaurant with officials from a California firm during which Resendiz said he got so inebriated he signed city contracts [4]while not realizing their import *has been accused of trying to blackmail rival mayoral candidate Gerardo...

MADISON — While some see a wave of legislation aimed at weakening organized labor following Indiana’s new right-to-work law, Wisconsin is not expected to join it anytime soon. “No,” Cullen Werwie, spokesman for Gov. Scott Walker, told Wisconsin Reporter on Monday when asked if Walker thought the Republican-controlled Legislature would pursue legislation prohibiting labor organizations from requiring workers to join unions. Republicans on the record said they've heard of no proposals. Off the record, some in the GOP said no one is interested in waging another big battle over labor matters in this season of recalls. "Boy, I don't think...