Writing
Trump Is The Third Party Candidate
After Donald Trump decisively won the Indiana primary, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, along with others, started referring to the victor as the presumptive GOP presidential nominee. Some joined in the call to rally behind Trump. His last two standing rivals — Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich — suspended theirRead moreIn 2016, conventional wisdom is running in last place
Be careful what you ask for: both presidential nominating races are as muddled as the media have long fantasized they might be. Two states completely unreflective of the country at large -— Iowa and New Hampshire — took their swings at the presidential nominating process. It is still a delightful mess. The next two statesRead moreThe presidential playoffs have begun
Pre-vote debates are over. Countdown to presidential clarity/semi-historic confusion begins with the rapidly approaching Iowa caucus carnival, followed by a trio of contests as different as the last four NFL teams that vied for the 2016 Super Bowl. We know the goal line: the White House. Thus the four quarters to be played: the RepublicanRead moreAn ‘Immaculate Perception’ at the start of 2016
The lights from the party boats on the Mon twinkled merrily off the water as the clocks ticked closer to the new year. It was merely cool at Point Park in Pittsburgh, far from the bone chilling of an 8:30 p.m. game at Heinz Field. In the other direction, in a luminary concert, were theRead moreFrame the questions, make the candidates really debate
A few years after my arrival as a Washington reporter, it finally happened: the president of the United States called on me at a White House press conference in the East Room. Live on national television, the Great Communicator himself, Ronald Reagan, pointed at me and bade me to proceed. So I did. I askedRead moreA look back at Trump’s first run
It was a fascinating campaign swing. There was “The Tonight Show” and Michael Bolton. There was a reception in a swank hotel where those attending stuffed food in their pockets and where two guys hired escorts to be their dates in order to appear classy. The next day, there was a museum event and aRead moreA bumpy road to bipartisanship
The road doesn’t care if you are young or old, male or female, rich or poor. The road is there for you, to calm you and excite you, to take you back home and to familiar places to lead to new paths of adventure, discovery and joy. To let the explorer in you explore. WhenRead moreIn campaign for 2016, bridesmaids revisited
As the plethora of presidential candidates continues to swell, sending debate planners into conniptions and launching heavy breathing over meaningless polls, the lineups of both parties feature what has become a political certainty: one-time presidential nomination hopefuls taking another shot to win it all. Or, as they are sometimes dubbed: bridesmaids. So let’s clear upRead moreMr. Hughes comes to Washington
It was a clear morning when a 61-year-old Florida mail carrier named Doug Hughes decided to make public his protest regarding the heinous grip that money has on politics. So as he has professed to a few in advance, on Tax Day, Hughes flew his gyrocopter from Gettysburg, Pa., to Washington, D.C., and landed onRead moreBeware the Ides of March, indeed
This is the time to worry about the world of Capitol Hill and its various political feeder networks. We had a snowstorm, a Friday the 13th, a historic “Pi” day, St. Patrick’s Day and of course the Ides of March. Beware indeed. Lots of planetary and humanistic epicenter tilts to trigger uncertain behavior under andRead moreBipartisanship and the quixotic quest for an olive branch
At the end of January, the lost remains of Miguel de Cervantes, best known to many as the author of Don Quixote, were found. In that great novel, Quixote is the self-imagined knight who sets out to restore chivalry to a modern world. The novel inspired the phrases “tilting at windmills” and “quixotic” for the knight’sRead moreWhat Congress needs is a good cigar
I had just found a much better word for the transition in another op-ed and was already leapfrogging to write a “wow” finish when I heard from outside my window “oh-oo-oor, oh-oo-oor, oh-oo-oor.” There on the ledge — as if it were summer — was Coco and some friends, my pigeon buddies. Their feathers buffetedRead more