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    Jon Ward - HuffPost

    Jon Ward - HuffPost

    Senior Political Correspondent, Yahoo!

  • Beaten-Down Wisconsin Liberals Suddenly See Hope Of Defeating Scott Walker

    “Walker won’t be gooovernor, Walker won’t be gooovernor, Walker won’t be governor some daaaay,” they sang. “It’s hard to fathom,” said Joe Kiriaki, the executive director at the Kenosha Education Association, the third-largest teachers union in the state and the biggest to have its certification stripped in the wake of Act 10.

  • Scott Walker Suggests Wisconsin GOP Should Stop Attacking Democrat's Wealth

    With a notable lack of public unity, fellow Republicans are now criticizing Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's attacks on his Democratic challenger -- in particular, those aimed at her wealth and the business practices of her family's company. The Wisconsin state GOP has called Mary Burke "Millionaire Mary" for months and even posted photos online of her "swanky second home valued at nearly $600,000." In mid-July, Walker's campaign upped the ante with ads accusing the Wisconsin-based company founded by Burke's father, Trek Bicycle Corporation, of outsourcing jobs to China.

  • What Makes The Difference Between A Chris Christie Visit And A 'Lost Cause'

    Last week, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie dismissed Rob Astorino, the GOP's gubernatorial candidate in New York, with brutal candor. Astorino is trailing incumbent New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo by an average of more than 30 points, and is down by as much as 40 points in some polls. It will be Christie's second trip to New Hampshire in two months on behalf of Havenstein, even though he trails Hassan by roughly 20 points in the polls.

  • The Right's Strange New Hero: Gavin Newsom

    Former San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is known to most of the nation as a pioneering advocate for marriage equality, having supported same-sex unions back in 2004. SAUSALITO, Calif. -- You may remember that straight San Francisco mayor with the perfect hair and square jaw who stood athwart history yelling, “Yes!” to gay marriage. Newsom dropped out and campaigned instead for lieutenant governor, a post he won easily.

  • Conservatives Clash: Battle The Wicked Or Fight For The Needy?

    The placement of a Barack Obama figurine in a urinal at a conference for Christian conservatives Friday captured why these gatherings have become so damaging for the Republican Party. The Faith & Freedom Coalition's conference, like the Conservative Political Action Conference and the Values Voter Summit, has attracted thoughtful conservatives but also politically tone-deaf, fringe right-wingers, and put the latter on display. The media broadcast their behavior to the country, and they come to represent all conservatives everywhere.

  • This Is What's At Stake For Rick Perry If He Runs In 2016

    Texas Gov. Rick Perry held his hand out straight, tilted his hand fingers downward at a 45 degree angle, and then raised them level again. "This, versus this," he said, explaining why he no longer wears cowboy boots.

  • Eric Cantor Was The Next Speaker, But Now It's A Free-For-All

    In Congress, the humming beehive of 435 representatives has operated for some time on the assumption that one particular man would ascend to power when House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) retired. Eric Cantor, the Virginia Republican and House majority leader, spent years oiling the gears of power: doling out favors, raising money for other members and securing promises of support for when his day would come. "Not a day went by in the last several years where I did not have a conversation that started with, 'When Cantor is speaker,'" said a longtime aide to a member of the House Republican leadership.

  • The Real Leadership Race House Republicans Are Contesting

    One week after Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) lost his Republican primary election, setting off a mad dash for his job as House Majority Leader, one thing has become clear: The real challenge for GOP lawmakers won't be replacing Cantor, but agreeing on who gets another top job opening up in the party's leadership. House Republicans appear all but certain to elect House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) as their next majority leader in their elections on Thursday. Already the third most powerful GOP leader in the House, McCarthy moved quickly to lock in support for his bid and effectively shut everyone else out.

  • Raul Labrador To Run for House Majority Leader

    A two-term Republican congressman from Idaho with a track record of challenging the House Republican leadership said Friday he would run for the No. 2 job in the chamber. Raul Labrador, a 46-year-old Mormon father of five, tea party congressman and Puerto Rican-born only child of a single mother, will challenge House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) for the position of House majority leader. McCarthy, 49, began gathering commitments from other House Republicans on Wednesday, the day after then-Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) suffered a stunning loss in the primary for his seat.

  • 'Richmond Hubris' Drove Eric Cantor's War With Grassroots, Led To His Demise

    In his brief remarks to a room full of shell-shocked supporters Tuesday night, deposed House Majority Leader Eric Cantor expressed disappointment, thanked his family and staff, and began talking about research. Because what it says as conservatives is that we don’t believe you ought to spend taxpayer dollars on political conventions. Tucked inside that moment of seemingly random self-puffery, Cantor alluded to one of the central political fights that ended up driving him from office in a shocking primary defeat to a little-known challenger, Dave Brat, in Virginia’s 7th Congressional District.

  • What's Wrong With Washington? We Ask Those Who Left It Behind

    You never really have time to take time and look over the horizon, and say, 'Where are we going, what are some of the big things we should be doing? I tried to do that from time to time. You need to step back sometimes, just to kind of evaluate.

  • GOP Senator Faces Steep Challenge In Runoff Turnout Battle

    As election returns came in Tuesday night in Mississippi and it became clear that the Republican Senate primary was headed for a runoff, the state's former governor Haley Barbour was on the phone plotting how to raise enough money to help incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran in the coming three-week contest. At the party in Hattiesburg for Cochran's tea party challenger, state Sen. Chris McDaniel, campaign aides stood outside their war room in the town's convention center engaged in a similar discussion of how to raise money for just three weeks.

  • Mississippi Runoff Tests Veteran Senator's Value To His State

    When I stopped him in the halls of the Hattiesburg Lake Terrace convention center on Tuesday, the evening was young and returns from the Senate primary were just starting to come in. Cochran has made a career of securing federal funding for Mississippi projects and needs. Jackson, unlike other McDaniel supporters I spoke with, acknowledged that there is a role for members of Congress to look out for their state’s interests in Washington.

  • Incumbent GOP Senator On The Ropes In Mississippi As Runoff Looms

    Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran trailed tea party challenger Chris McDaniel in Tuesday’s Republican primary. McDaniel held a lead of less than 1 percent, with 98 percent of the vote counted, at 49.6 percent to Cochran’s 48.6 percent. Unless McDaniel clears the 50 percent threshold, the election will be headed for a runoff on June 24, raising difficult questions for Cochran and for the Republican establishment in Washington.

  • Veteran GOP Senator Makes Final Push To Avoid Embarrassing Primary Defeat In Mississippi

    Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) and his supporters argued Monday that his Republican primary challenger, state Sen. Chris McDaniel, would embarrass the Magnolia State on the national stage, is being supported by outsiders who don’t represent the state’s interests, and could endanger Republican chances of winning the U.S. Senate majority. At rallies here and in the capital city of Jackson, the 76-year old Cochran was greeted by cheering supporters a day before voters go to the polls in what has become one of the most hotly contested elections this midterm cycle -- and certainly the nastiest.

  • Republican Mississippi Senator's Long Political Past Holds Clues His Time May Be Up

    A casual observer may be forgiven for wondering how Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), a man known for cordiality and manners almost more than anything else, has held onto his Senate seat for 35 years, and why he is subjecting himself to a brutal reelection campaign for yet another term. Anyone asking this question should start with this: In the last 70 years, Mississippi has had only five U.S. senators. “Traditionally, Mississippi -- because of us being one of the poorest states in the union -- the one thing we've always done right is we would elect people to Congress and leave them there and allow them to get seniority and get things for our state,” Brad White, a former state GOP chairman, told The Huffington Post.

  • A Day With The New Populists

    Populism is fashionable in Washington these days. Strong currents of dissatisfaction with the nation's capital, with government, and with big business are sweeping through the country. One group talked of conservatives moving toward a more populist agenda, of a concern for middle class and lower-income voters that they've lacked.

  • Evangelical Leader Not Waving White Flag On Gay Marriage

    Since becoming the political point man a year ago for the Southern Baptist Convention, Russell Moore has more than once been interpreted as sounding a political and cultural retreat. Such comments by Moore, who last year replaced Richard Land as president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, have been seen by some as one of many signs that conservative Christians will stop talking about gay marriage and perhaps focus instead on less divisive issues such as human trafficking and immigration reform. In a recent interview, Moore, 42, was eager to push back against that notion, as well as against the idea that he is advising anyone to stop advocating for traditional marriage.

  • Bill Clinton Insults Rove, But Acknowledges That Hillary's Health Is 'Serious Issue'

    Bill Clinton's insult of Karl Rove got most of the attention Wednesday when the former president was asked about Rove's suggestion that Hillary Clinton has a lingering brain injury from a fall that gave her a concussion in 2012. "When a question is asked, it has to be answered in a serious fashion, if it raises a serious issue even in a ridiculous way," Clinton told journalist Gwen Ifill, who interviewed him for an hour at the Peterson Foundation's fifth annual Fiscal Summit. Ifill asked Clinton if he thought Rove was trying to highlight Hillary's age.

  • In Ohio, A Former FBI Agent Searches For Ways To Unseat A Wily Republican Governor

    Democrat Ed FitzGerald says the success of his underdog challenge to Ohio Gov. John Kasich could hang on a stray comment made by the Republican governor almost a year ago. Set aside the fact that Kasich's more recent comment was about the state's budget, not its economy. Kasich made the remark last year, when he announced that he had brought up the state government's rainy-day fund to a balance of $1.5 billion.