"One of the claims made by each of the Republicans seeking their party's nomination is that they are the best equipped to defeat President Obama. Certainly, they are being judged by voters and GOP officials in terms of that very quality. When asked which candidate quality was most important, one-third of Iowa caucus voters said the ability to beat Obama. Yet history demonstrates that it is a dauntingly difficult job to unseat an incumbent president who is seeking a second term. Indeed, the number of presidents who have won a second term is almost twice the number of those who have failed to gain the favor of voters a second time. ...

"History may weigh heavily on the side of challengers with the good timing to run against an incumbent president during a time of economic hardship. The fate of such presidents from Martin Van Buren in 1840 to Jimmy Carter in 1980 and George H.W. Bush in 1992 has convinced many hopeful Republicans that President Obama's hopes for re-election are doomed, but the cases are few enough to cast some doubt on economic determinism as the sole key to victory. ...

"To be sure, a desperate electorate may decide on a roll of the dice, but there is another game with table stakes in which the president holds a pretty powerful hand."

"The Iowa caucuses may not have much predictive value, but they did a wonderful job of simultaneously unmasking elitist wingers on the Left and incompetent whiners on the Right. ...

"When I was a kid, we took something called the Iowa Test of Basic Skills — a nationally standardized test of minimum competence in core subjects. The Iowa caucuses serve a similar purpose. When campaigns fail to meet the most elementary requirements of organizational politics, don’t blame the messengers. Blame the test-takers."

"If Democrats saw Obama’s 2008 victory as a chance to build a progressive majority, they have so far failed to capitalize. Gallup recently asked Americans to rate their ideology on a liberal-to-conservative scale of 1 to 5. The average result was a right-of-center 3.3. 

"More alarming for Obama, voters scored him at 2.3, to the left of center — and put Mitt Romney at 3.5. Every other GOP contender was to the right of the mean, except Jon Huntsman, who hit the ideological bull’s-eye. But even Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann came closer to the middle than Obama did. 

"The president’s campaign plans to launch a populist attack on income inequality. But the numbers imply that that is not a promising message; indeed, Gallup has recently found that the public favors pro-growth policies over pro-equality policies, 52 to 40."

"President Obama may best be known as the president who took kicking the can down the road to new, unimagined levels. Obama has demonstrated an unusual ability to delay decision-making, to obfuscate issues, to divert attention from matters of critical importance, and his preference to take half measures when pushed to the brink is now well known. Obama is the Grand Master of Kicking the Can Down the Road.

"But in 2012 that seems likely to change -- the can is going to kick back."

"Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions.   Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual."

"Christmas gift suggestions: To your enemy, forgiveness. To an opponent, tolerance. To a friend, your heart. To a customer, service. To all, charity.  To every child, a good example. To yourself, respect."

"GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell famously said a year ago that his main task in the 112th Congress was to make sure that President Obama would not be re-elected. Given how he and House Speaker John Boehner have handled the payroll tax debate, we wonder if they might end up re-electing the President before the 2012 campaign even begins in earnest. 

"The GOP leaders have somehow managed the remarkable feat of being blamed for opposing a one-year extension of a tax holiday that they are surely going to pass. This is no easy double play.  

"Republicans have also achieved the small miracle of letting Mr. Obama position himself as an election-year tax cutter, although he's spent most of his Presidency promoting tax increases and he would hit the economy with one of the largest tax increases ever in 2013. This should be impossible."

"Democrats finally find a tax cut they can abide, and so both sides agree to extend it. But just as they are about to partake in the bipartisan peace pipe a few days before Christmas, Congress promptly grinds to a squabbling halt threatening a $1,000-tax increase for workers and the evaporation of unemployment benefits for those out of work. 

"Merry freaking Christmas, American people! 

"And then when it comes to explaining themselves, Democrats walk out with straight faces and blame - who else? - the tea party."

"BAGHDAD — A day after the United States withdrew its last combat troops, Iraq faced a dangerous political crisis Monday as the Shiite-dominated government ordered the arrest of the Sunni vice president, accusing him of running a death squad that assassinated police officers and government officials. 

"The sensational charges drew a worried response from Washington and brought Iraq’s tenuous partnership government to the edge of collapse. A major Sunni-backed political coalition said its ministers would walk off their jobs, leaving adrift agencies that handle Iraq’s finances, schools and agriculture. 

"The accusations against Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi also underlined fears that Iraq’s leaders may now be using the very institutions America has spent millions of dollars trying to strengthen — the police, the courts, the media — as a cudgel to batter their political enemies and consolidate power."

"Congressman Paul Ryan recently coined a smart phrase to describe the core concept of economic freedom: 'The right to rise.' 

"Think about it. We talk about the right to free speech, the right to bear arms, the right to assembly. The right to rise doesn't seem like something we should have to protect. 

"But we do. We have to make it easier for people to do the things that allow them to rise. We have to let them compete. We need to let people fight for business. We need to let people take risks. We need to let people fail. We need to let people suffer the consequences of bad decisions. And we need to let people enjoy the fruits of good decisions, even good luck."