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For liberal Democrats disappointed in Barack Obama’s presidency, the Green New Deal that is the heart of Dr. Jill Stein’s newly minted Green Party presidential campaign must feel like a dream come true.  It’s all the things that they had hoped for from Obama but failed to get, despite Democratic control of the House and Senate in his first two years of office. But for Democrats who remember Bush v. Gore v. Nader in 2000, the Stein candidacy could seem more like a nightmare. It could seriously u

What’s wrong with Mitt Romney?  The former Republican governor of Massachusetts has been winning his party’s debates hands down in the eyes of most critics, and he leads many of the polls.  He also leads President Obama in polls of Independents, and seems the most likely Republican candidate to wrest the White House from the Democrats. Yet, we keep hearing about the nagging doubts as to his legitimacy from a conservative point of view.  Most frequently, these doubts come down to Romneycare – th

Congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul may have handily won this weekend's Values Voter Summit straw poll over businessman Herman Cain in Washington DC, but that didn't stop the head of the Family Research Council (FRC) from dismissing the victory as not representing the sentiments of social conservatives. "I don't think Ron Paul is truly reflective of where values voters stand," said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, on CNN's "American Morning on Monday." Withou

As the California GOP's fall convention is set to take place this weekend in Los Angeles, a Field Poll study finds big differences in the state's Republican voter preferences for President based on how much these voters identify with the Tea Party. California Republican voters who identify a lot with the movement prefer Texas Governor Rick Perry over former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney by 33% to 23%. Romney, on the other hand, leads Perry by ten points among Republicans who identify only

In a little-noticed move in late August, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation that would award all of California's electoral votes in presidential elections to whichever candidate wins the national popular vote, a solution that proponents say would make presidential elections more rational and fair. The bill is possible because the U.S. Constitution leaves the power of selecting electors for presidential elections to the individual states. Article II, Section 1 says: "The executive P

Four contenders for the GOP's presidential nomination are polling competitively with President Obama among registered voters, according to a new poll.  How do potential Independent or third party presidential hopefuls match up against the candidates of the major parties?  We don't know, because the pollsters never ask. The new survey, published on Monday, asked just over 1000 registered voters how they would cast their ballots if the 2012 presidential election were held today, matching up the P

Governor Jerry Brown is expected to provide a huge boost to the progressive anti-Electoral College movement with his signature on AB 459, the National Popular Vote law. The highly controversial bill, passed by both the Assembly and the state Senate last Thursday would enroll California in an interstate agreement that obliges member states in presidential elections to give their electoral votes to the candidate with the most votes nationwide, regardless of the true tally of each state's electoral

Despite a slight bump from 2010, a Gallup poll released Monday revealed that confidence in newspapers and television news remains low among Independent voters.  In 2011, a mere 23% of Independents were confident in newspapers. That's only up slightly from 2010, in whcih 20% of Independents were confident in newspapers. And in 2011, only 23% of Independents had confidence in television news, a modest jump from a more dismal 18% in 2010. Gallup found that confidence among Republicans toward both

The Mercatus Center at George Mason University has published an update and a revision of a 2007 study entitled “Freedom in the 50 States: An Index of Personal and Economic Freedom”. The report analyzed three primary “freedom variables” for each state, determining the overall burden that local and state policies place on individual residents. So how did California stack up? Frankly, not so good. In fact, California was only underperformed by New Jersey and New York. The authors, William Ruger a

Despite leading in nationwide polls of Republican primary voters, 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney is facing strong opposition from the Republican Party's most energized faction-- the Tea Party movement. It may well be impossible to win the GOP's presidential nomination this election cycle without making some inroads into the Tea Party, but with Mitt Romney's record, it doesn't look like that's going to happen for him. Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips wrote a scathing attack on R