"... [T]hese last few years have been harder than they needed to be. It's all the little things -- that price at the pump you just can't believe, the grocery bills that just get bigger; all those things that used to be free, like school sports, are now one more bill to pay. It's all the little things that pile up to become big things. And the big things -- the good jobs, the chance at college, that home you want to buy, just get harder. Everything has become harder. 

"We're too smart to know there aren't easy answers. But we're not dumb enough to accept that there aren't better answers."

"[T]he real objection to requiring voter ID isn’t based in civil rights, but in civil wrongs. With elections often decided by narrow margins, the ability to produce a few thousand more ballots can often swing the results. (In Minnesota’s 2008 disputed US Senate election, won by Al Franken — who proceeded to cast the deciding vote in favor of ObamaCare — the margin of victory was 312, but it turned out that 1,099 votes were cast by felons who were ineligible to vote. Many of them have gone to jail, but Franken has remained in the Senate).  ... 

"Many of America’s largest and worst-governed cities suffer from entrenched and corrupt political machines that maintain their position in no small part via voter fraud. Corrupt machines (like that of Detroit’s disgraced ex-Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick) siphon off money that should go to essential services and instead divert it to political fatcats and their supporters. Efforts at reform are often defeated with fraudulent votes."

"WASHINGTON -- Republicans and Democrats don't agree on much, but they do agree on this: the middle class. At their conventions, the two parties will compete fiercely for its support. Republicans will accuse Barack Obama of destroying the middle class through policies perpetuating high joblessness and feeble economic growth. Democrats will portray Mitt Romney as a tool of the rich who doesn't understand the middle class. To the victor may go the election, because 'saving the middle class' has arguably become the campaign's defining issue. 

"This is mostly political symbolism. The idea that anyone can 'save' the middle class assumes that it's in danger of disappearing, which it isn't, and that presidents possess sufficient powers to resurrect it, which they don't. Still, the symbolism is potent because most Americans equate the middle class with the kind of society we are and ought to be. It is a society where hard work and personal responsibility are rewarded -- where 'getting ahead' is expected; where economic security and social stability are enjoyed; and where privilege is minimized. 

"The appeal of these beliefs -- across many economic, regional, religious and ethnic boundaries -- is a great unifying force."

"[T]he big broadcast networks plan to give the Republicans (and the Democrats) only one hour a night of TV coverage. 

"They used to give all night, long as it took, and treat the proceedings with respect. What they give now, to the people of a great democracy fighting for its economic life in an uncertain world, is . . . an hour a night? For a national political convention? 

This is a scandal. Mock them for it. This isn't Edward R. Murrow in charge of the news, it's Gordon Gekko in charge of programming."

"Obama talks about the auto bailout frequently, since it's one of the few things in his record that gets positive responses in the polls. But he's probably wise to avoid probing questions, since the GM bailout is not at all the success he claims. ...

'GM is going from bad to worse,' reads the headline on Automotive News Editor in Chief Keith Crain's analysis. That's certainly true of its stock price.

"The government still owns 500 million shares of GM, 26 percent of the total. It needs to sell them for $53 a share to recover its $49.5 billion bailout. But the stock price is around $20 a share, and the Treasury now estimates that the government will lose more than $25 billion if and when it sells. ...

"The UAW got their political payoff. And GM, according to Forbes writer Louis Woodhill, is headed to bankruptcy again.
 
"Is this really what Obama wants to do for all manufacturing across America? Let's hope not."

"On Tuesday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit struck down another misguided EPA rule. 

"Enacted in August 2011, the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule was supposed to reduce air pollution emitted in one state and carried downwind to another. Under the Clean Air Act, if pollution from the upwind state is causing the downwind neighbor to fail federal air quality tests, then the EPA can order the upwind state to reduce the emissions causing the problem.   

"But even such expansive authority from Congress is never enough for the Obama EPA. So the agency decided to use the rule-making as a pretext to force down emissions even further -- illegally, as it turns out. ... 

"According to a scoreboard by the American Action Forum, Tuesday's rebuke from the D.C. Circuit marks the 15th time that a federal court has struck down an Obama regulation, and the sixth smack-down for the Obama EPA. This tally counts legally flawed rules as well as misguided EPA disapprovals of actions by particular states."

"There are some very serious issues at stake in this year's election -- so many that some people may not be able to see the forest for the trees. Individual issues are the trees, but the forest is the future of America as we have known it. 

"The America that has flourished for more than two centuries is being quietly but steadily dismantled by the Obama administration, during the process of dealing with particular issues. 

"For example, the merits or demerits of President Obama's recent executive order, suspending legal liability for young people who are here illegally, presumably as a result of being brought here as children by their parents, can be debated pro and con. But such a debate overlooks the much more fundamental undermining of the whole American system of Constitutional government. ...

"If laws passed by the elected representatives of the people can be simply over-ruled unilaterally by whoever is in the White House, then we are no longer a free people, choosing what laws we want to live under."

"Lawyers for the Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee marched into federal court last week to argue that it is unconstitutional for Ohio to allow military voters to cast in-person early ballots on the Saturday through Monday before Election Day, given that early voting for all other voters stops on the Friday before Election Day. Apparently, Team Obama has decided to take a break from howling about the alleged injustice of voter-ID laws to argue that military voters don’t deserve an occasional accommodation. ... 

"The National Guard Association of the United States, AMVETS (American Veterans), the Association of the U.S. Army, and twelve other military organizations have asked that the Obama lawsuit be dismissed. With all of this negative publicity, you’d think that Team Obama lawyers would retreat. But they are not retreating. Instead, they are marching into a fight they are ultimately doomed to lose. Apparently, as with their opposition to voter-ID laws, they have concluded that all they have to do is throw enough legal bombs: Some of them will detonate, hamstringing election laws they think will hurt the president’s chances for a second term."

"While Ryan’s effect on 2012 is as yet undetermined — it depends on the success or failure of Mediscare — there is less doubt about the meaning of Ryan’s selection for beyond 2012. He could well become the face of Republicanism for a generation. 

"There’s a history here. By choosing George H. W. Bush in 1980, Ronald Reagan gave birth to a father-son dynasty that dominated the presidential scene for three decades. The Bush name was on six of seven consecutive national tickets. 

"When Dwight Eisenhower picked Richard Nixon in 1952, he turned a relatively obscure senator into a dominant national figure for a quarter-century; Nixon appeared on the presidential ticket in five of six consecutive elections. ... 

"[W]hile Romney is the present, Ryan is the future. Romney’s fate will be determined on November 6. Ryan’s presence, assuming he acquits himself well in the campaign, will extend for decades. ... 

If Ryan does it well, win or lose in 2012, he becomes a dominant national force. Mild and moderate Mitt Romney will have shaped the conservative future for years to come."

"Vice President Joe Biden played the race card this week when he drawled Southern-style to a racially mixed audience that if Mitt Romney takes the White House, he'll 'unchain Wall Street. They're going to put y'all back in chains.' ...   

"The president's henchmen are running a dirty campaign. The worst part of it: These nasty antics are the best Obamaland has to offer.
 
"Don't take my word for it. Heed the message delivered by Obama himself when he accepted the Democratic nomination for president in Denver in 2008: 'If you don't have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare voters. If you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from. You make a big election about small things.'"