Free Republic

Forget Hardball. Dodgeball's more amusing . . . As we'll detail below, David Shuster literally laughed in the face of a senior Republican today, and earlier on MSNBC Andrea Mitchell blithely dismissed the McCain energy plan as unrealistic. But there was one point of light, you might say, on the network's afternoon coverage. When Shuster briefly held a Dem congresswoman's feet to the fire on the question of Obama's vote for the 2005 Bush energy bill, what ensued was one of the more hapless—and ergo entertaining—dodges of the political season. Shuster's guest was Allyson Schwartz, a Dem congresswoman from Pennsylvania....

WASHINGTON - Republican John McCain's game plan for beating Democrat Barack Obama rests on one huge assumption: Despite an unpopular war, an uncertain economy and the GOP's beleaguered status, the country still leans more to the right than to the left. "There are going to be stark choices between a liberal Democrat and a conservative Republican," McCain says at nearly every turn as he seeks to portray Obama as out of step with the nation. The more the GOP nominee-in-waiting can frame the debate along those lines, and capture a larger chunk of the electorate's center, the better his chance...

...This week, as the Democratic contest winds down, CBS News' Brian Goldsmith talked with Republican National Committee Deputy Chairman Frank Donatelli about his party’s prospects for November’s elections. (snip) CBSNews.com: Getting back to the environment, the highest wrong track number ever recorded in opinion polls, the highest disapproval rating ever recorded for a sitting president. How big is the magnitude of the problem? Frank Donatelli: Well, the political environment represents the starting point is what I would say. And it's fair to say that, in 2008, we start off, just on a generic basis, behind by five or ten points....

For reasons of financial necessity, personal preference and plain politics, John McCain is gearing up to run one of the least traditional presidential campaigns in recent history. The problem is that even prominent strategists within McCain’s own party wonder if his unorthodox strategy will work. Facing the prospect of competing against a Democrat who is on track to shatter every fundraising record — and confronted by his own inability to rake in large bundles of cash — McCain and his key advisers have largely been forced into devising a three-pronged strategy that they hope can turn their general election weaknesses...

Republican National Committee officials confirmed today that former Hewlett-Packard boss Carly Fiorina is moving in to take over as chair of Victory 2008, the group that raises money and handles the get-out-the-vote operation, including the 72-hour campaign leading up to Election Day. She will be joined by longtime GOP activist Lewis Eisenberg, John McCain's national finance cochair, who will serve as finance chairman, and Frank Donatelli, a former Reagan political director, as RNC deputy chairman. There also remains talk that McCain strategist Charles Black will join the RNC as well. The addition of McCain supporters to the RNC is typical...

I think we now know Tucker Carlson's strategy for winning 'Dancing With the Stars': multiple partners. That's perhaps the only way to explain Carlson's odd defense of Warren Steed Jeffs, the polygamist leader arrested today. On his MSNBC show of this afternoon, Tucker was outraged that Jeffs had been placed on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list: "His crime was wanting to enter into life-long arrangements with women, or facilitating that between a man and . . . was this guy trying to undermine America, destroy our way of life or murder our citizens? No! What the hell was he...

Presidents who accomplish great things are not afraid of risk. On the contrary, they welcome it. They realize that presidential popularity is not to be hoarded like poker chips during a game. Rather, popularity is to be expended in pursuit of accomplishments that make America more prosperous and secure in the long term. By that measure, Ronald Reagan was a risk taker and a President for the ages. Reagan took office when the country faced its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. He chose a bold course of action, a "riverboat gamble," in the words of then-Senate Majority Leader...