"In 1972, a young aide named Patrick Buchanan suggested that Richard Nixon frame the presidential campaign as 'square America' vs. 'radical America.' The square won 49 states. 

"Pundits tend to describe Mitt Romney's vanilla disposition as a liability. The Washington Post recently asked, 'Why does Mitt Romney seem so stiff?' But there's a more practical question: How much does it matter? 

"Stiffs can become president, even in this television age. During the 1988 campaign, George H.W. Bush asked reporters, 'What’s wrong with being a boring kind of guy?' The answer came on Election Day. Americans backed the boring guy. ... 

"The GOP presumptive nominee, therefore, need not match Obama’s aplomb -- let alone Reagan’s stage presence. Many presidents could not. He does not need to talk about his iPod playlist or sink three-pointers to win. He may be the underdog. But six in 10 Americans say the nation is on the wrong track. Americans’ distrust of politicians is at historic levels. This public is crying for competence more than compassion."

"A new report finds that the number of Mexican immigrants in the United States has declined for the first time since the Great Depression. As the Supreme Court hears oral arguments today in Eric Holder’s lawsuit against Arizona, it’s worth considering what these findings might mean for immigration policy. ...

"Contrary to those who would declare victory on immigration and push it onto the back burner, the current respite is an opportunity to complete our immigration infrastructure. For example, although E-Verify is now widely used, it’s still not standard for all hiring. Legislation to require it for all hires is held up in Congress, and were it to pass it would face a legal jihad from the ACLU and its fellow-travelers that would last for years. Likewise, we still do not have a proper check-out system for foreign visitors, something that’s especially important because close to half the illegal population (especially non-Mexicans) entered legally and then never left. And, despite the howls from the Left (and from some on the right), any real immigration infrastructure requires systematic and routine cooperation among local, state, and federal governments, so that every illegal immigrant who encounters the authorities is identified and removed."

"Watching the slow-motion collapse of the EU, the American people should learn a vital lesson: You can't spend your way to prosperity, and the lavish promises of the never-ending welfare state can't be kept.  
 
"As in the EU, U.S. voters have a choice between more spending, bigger government and higher debt — the European socialist model — or growth, smaller government and fiscal restraint. 
 
"Let's hope they can tell the difference."

"The phrase 'stunning development' is used far too often in our politics, but here is an item that can be described in no other way: Nancy Pelosi and congressional Democrats, frustrated by the fact that the Bill of Rights interferes with their desire to muzzle their political opponents, have proposed to repeal the First Amendment. 

"That is precisely what the so-called People’s Rights Amendment would do. If this amendment were to be enacted, the cardinal rights protected by the First Amendment — free speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom to petition the government for redress of grievances — would be redefined and reduced to the point of unrecognizability. The amendment would hold that the rights protected by the Constitution are enjoyed only by individuals acting individually; individuals acting in collaboration with others would be stripped of those rights. ...

"One of the great dangers of such efforts to regulate political speech is that it puts incumbents in charge of setting the rules of the game under which their power and their position may be challenged. That is a recipe for abuse and corruption, and for smothering those critics who would draw attention to abuse and corruption."

"While much of the political world obsesses over Twitter fights and Seamus the dog, Barack Obama has set himself up for a high-profile defeat on one of the most important issues of the campaign. 

"The president has put his feet in cement in opposition to the Keystone oil pipeline. But on Capitol Hill, more and more Democrats are joining Republicans to force approval of the pipeline, whether Obama wants it or not. 

"The latest action happened Wednesday, when the House passed a measure to move the pipeline forward. Before the vote, Obama issued a veto threat. The House approved the pipeline anyway -- by a veto-proof majority, 293 to 127. Sixty-nine Democrats abandoned the president to vote with Republicans. That's a lot of defections."

"War is not a ladies auxiliary tea party, and it's all too easy for people comfortable in Los Angeles or New York or the White House to condemn the troops without context. Those troops should be given company level letters of reprimand and moved on.

"... I'm furious, not at the troops who did something dumb, but I'm furious at the moral cowardice of military leaders who never stick up for our troops but protect their own careers. Do I sound angry? As a 22-year-old former Army enlisted man and officer, I'm angry as can be because Gen. Allen needs to get it through his head that a leader is responsible for everything his troops do or fail to do. That's the military code. Don't blame the troops out doing the tough work. Blame the generals whose strategy has failed, the cowardly, cowardly White House just trying to kick the can down the road to November, and blame the establishment media that really loves, loves to trash our soldiers and Marines."

"It has become an article of faith among some policy makers and advocates, including Michelle Obama, that poor urban neighborhoods are food deserts, bereft of fresh fruits and vegetables.

"But two new studies have found something unexpected. Such neighborhoods not only have more fast food restaurants and convenience stores than more affluent ones, but more grocery stores, supermarkets and full-service restaurants, too. And there is no relationship between the type of food being sold in a neighborhood and obesity among its children and adolescents.

"Within a couple of miles of almost any urban neighborhood, 'you can get basically any type of food,' said Roland Sturm of the RAND Corporation, lead author of one of the studies. 'Maybe we should call it a food swamp rather than a desert,' he said."

"During the 2011 debate on combining tax hikes and spending to reduce the deficit by $2.5 trillion, Scott Rasmussen's polling found that 75% of Americans were convinced that any deal in Congress would actually increase taxes on the middle class. 

"Even with the president promising to tax only the rich, why did 75% of Americans believe they were the ultimate targets of any threatened tax hike? The history of trickle-down taxation over the last 100 years and the last two Democratic administrations suggests an answer.

"The Alternative Minimum Tax was imposed in 1969 because 115 households investing in municipal bonds reportedly paid little or no federal income tax. This tax on the rich who were paying what the president and others call a 'fair share' now affects four million households. On Jan. 1, 2013, it is set to hit 27 million more -- raising an estimated $120 billion, according to the Obama 2013 budget. In 40 years, a tax on 115 households will have grown to threaten 31 million."

"How much will ObamaCare -- call it the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act if you like -- cost over the next 10 years? 

"More than you've been led to believe, reports Charles Blahous of George Mason University's Mercatus Center. To be specific, he projects it will add $1,160 billion to net federal spending over the next 10 years and at least $340 billion to federal budget deficits in that time. 

"Blahous was appointed by Barack Obama as one of two public trustees of the Social Security and Medicare programs. He worked on these issues in George W. Bush's administration and submitted his Mercatus paper for anonymous peer review."

"The authenticity of conservative women has always been under attack by radical orthodox feminists, but perhaps not as brazenly as by someone with such direct and frequent access to the corridors of the White House message machine as Hilary B. Rosen.
 
"The D.C. career lobbyist and Democratic media strategist took to CNN's airwaves this week to craft a left-wing 'War on Women' attack on the real moms of the GOP. Ostensibly aiming at Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney for his 'old-fashioned' views of women, Rosen's mouth instead shot off in the direction of wife, stay-at-home mother of five, grandmother of 16, and cancer and multiple sclerosis survivor Ann Romney. Mrs. Romney, sneered Rosen, 'never worked a day in her life' outside of the home and should have no voice on women's issues.
 
"President Obama never met a payroll in his life, but that hasn't stopped him from dictating what business owners across the country should and shouldn't be doing. But I digress."