Us politics

Steven F. Hayward’s audit of the state of American conservatism, which David Brooks judges to be one of the best magazine articles of the year, argues that the Reaganite ‘starve the beast strategy’ has failed to halt the growth of government. Hayward writes: ‘Thirty years after the arrival of the Reagan Revolution, government is bigger than ever. The Reagan years appear to have been little more than a mild speed bump in the progress of ever-larger government. The regulatory state advances relentlessly on every front. The soaring national debt threatens economic oblivion sooner or later. In short, the Reagan era, for all that was accomplished, was not an analogue to

He may be trailing Newt Gingrich in the national polls, but there’s one metric by which Mitt Romney is dominating the 2012 Republican field: endorsements. He’s already bagged the two biggest ones announced so far: Chris Christie and Tim Pawlenty. He also has the backing of several key Republicans in New Hampshire, including current Senator Kelly Ayotte and two former Governors. And yesterday he added another big name from another early state to his list: South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley. Haley’s support for Romney is not wholly unexpected: she backed him in 2008 and he endorsed her early in her campaign for Governor last year. It is significant, though: a

video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player This was, by some margin, the most talked about moment of Saturday night’s Republican debate. Accused by Rick Perry of changing a passage in his book advocating an individual health care mandate, Mitt Romney stretched out his hand to the Texas Governor and said ‘I’ll tell you what, ten thousand bucks? Ten thousand dollar bet?’ For Romney’s opponents, the bizarre challenge provided the perfect clip with which to attack him. It combines Romney’s biggest negatives into one neat sound bite: his record on healthcare, his flip-flopping, and the idea that he’s an out-of-touch Wall Street millionaire. And, just as when Perry got a rise out

It’s been 25 years since the Iran-Contra affair – the scandal about the US government selling arms to Iran and using the proceeds to fund the Nicaraguan rebels. It saw Ronald Reagan’s approval rating drop from 67 per cent to 46 per cent, and fourteen memebers of his staff were indicted. In a piece that appeared in The Spectator exactly a quarter of a century ago, Christopher Hitchens explains how the Reagan administration was unable to contain the story. The end of the line, Christopher Hitchens, 29 November 1986 If you wish to understand the fire that has broken out in the Washington zoo, and penetrate beyond the mere lowing

Yesterday saw three national polls and three different leaders in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. Politico’s Battleground poll (conducted early last week) shows Herman Cain leading Mitt Romney by two points. CNN’s latest (conducted over the weekend) has Romney narrowly leading Newt Gingrich, with Cain down in third. Most eye-catching of all is the PPP poll (also conducted over the weekend), which has Gingrich in first place, followed by Cain and then Romney in third. These polls do have one thing in common: they’re good news for Newt Gingrich. Whether he’s actually in the lead or not, he’s certainly well ahead of where he was last month. He’s

Things haven’t been looking particularly good for the Obama 2012 campaign of late. Half the country disapproves of his performance so far, the economy’s very weak and Mitt Romney’s grip on the Republican nomination is tightening. And the last two sets of November elections have seen the electorate move towards the Republicans. In 2009, they took over the governorships Virgnia and New Jersey. Last year, they won control of House of Representatives and increased their numbers of Senators and Governors. But this year, the story’s different: Democrats scored some important wins yesterday, making their prospects for 2012 that bit brighter. Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear won re-election by a 20-point margin;

I’ve spent the last couple of days in the United States, far away from the brouhaha in Europe. What has struck me most during meetings with US officials is how low down their list of priorities Europe — and indeed Britain — comes. This is an Asian Century, and the US means to focus inwards and eastwards but not elsewhere. As an official put it to me, “we see Britain moving away from Europe and being distant to us.” There is even talk of closing down US European Command. This new focus will have a number of consequences. Take Libya, for instance. The UK and France could have fought the